Texas Democrats Will Run In Every Race During Midterms
Texas has largely been viewed as a deep Red state in recent years, and for good reason. A Democrat hasn’t held the governor’s office since 1995, and the last time they controlled the state legislature was 2001. While a gerrymandering effort by Texas Republicans has stacked the deck against Texas Democrats, for the first time in nearly 30 years, Democrats will have a candidate running in every state and federal race during the 2026 midterms.
According to AP, a coalition of groups, including the Texas Majority PAC, the Texas Democratic Party, former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, and former state Sen. Wendy Davis, spearheaded the recruitment effort to have a Democrat running in every race. “No Republican gets a free ride in Texas,” Texas Democratic Party Chair Kendall Scudder said in an interview. “If you are a Republican and you want to hold public office in this state, you’re going to have to fight us for it.”
Since 1994, Democrats have left an average of 50 state and federal seats uncontested during each election cycle. Republicans currently hold 25 of Texas’s 38 congressional districts, with their redistricting effort over the summer potentially giving them three to five more seats. On the state level, Republicans control 88 of 150 House seats and have an 18-11 majority in the state Senate.
The effort by Texas Democrats is largely designed to make inroads in rural communities they’ve largely ignored in the past due to unfavorable odds. Even if they don’t win in these elections, it allows Texas Democrats to establish what they’re actually about to these voters.
“When you don’t have Democrats running, you don’t have Democrats showing up in communities telling people what we stand for,” Scudder told AP. “The Republicans have an opportunity to brand us and tell people what we stand for instead of it coming out of our mouths.”
From AP:
To find and screen potential candidates, Texas Majority PAC sent 2.3 million text messages, made 105,631 calls and interviewed 1,385 candidates in target districts.
The final crop, according to Texas Majority PAC, is made up of “everyday Texans.” A third of recruited candidates work in education; 20% have worked in oil fields, chemical refineries, factories and other similar “hard labor” jobs in the state; 15% are military veterans; 10% are members of unions — and the overwhelming majority, 90%, are first-time candidates for public office.
“We were very focused on recruiting normal people, people who have some sort of compelling story to tell about how Republican leadership in Texas has failed them personally,” Fischer said.
I spent much of the summer covering the Texas redistricting effort, and it became abundantly clear that Texas Republicans believe they are entitled to power. Yes, realistically, the Democrats are going to lose in quite a few of these races, given how the lines have been drawn, but there’s hope that running in every race will have a ripple effect in down-ballot races.
O’Rourke told AP that he acknowledged to the candidates that it was a “tough ask” to have them campaign in deep-Red cities like Amarillo and Waco but “just the fact that you are stepping up, putting your name on the ballot and running for office is an act of service and patriotism, and it’s going to do great things for everyone on the ticket.”
Recent elections in Virginia and Tennessee have shown that Democrats have real momentum heading into the 2026 midterms. While Texas has long been deep Red, and its new map is supposed to make the state even more so, hopefully, this effort by Texas Democrats will reveal weaknesses in the stronghold.
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