Texas Dems Have Shots at Nine GOP House
and Two Senate Seats in Districts Biden Won

Capitol Inside
March 22, 2021

State Senator Kelly Hancock of North Richland Hills is meeting with Governor Greg Abbott in the lawmaker's home base on Monday to discuss a plan of attack on the Texas power grid crisis in an apparent alliance with GOP leaders in the state House. Hancock's maneuvering is an unprecedented affront to Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick by a Senate Republican after a sharp break with the majority party on a dispute over billions of dollars in charges for power during the February freeze.

But Hancock might have simply decided that Abbott would be a more valuable ally than Patrick in a re-election bid in 2022 in a Senate district in the Dallas-Fort Worth area that's ripe for a blue wave without major alterations in redistricting this year. Hancock will be running scared in Senate District 9 where Democratic President Joe Biden lost to Donald Trump last fall by less than 2 percentage points.

Hancock - the Senate Business & Commerce Committee chairman - doesn't have as much cause for concern on paper as a pair of GOP colleagues in State Senators Joan Huffman of Houston and Angela Paxton of McKinney in districts that Biden won by 4.6 points and 4.4 points respectively in 2020.

Paxton and Huffman and nine Republican state representatives will be up for new terms next year in districts that Biden carried in November despite losing to Trump by a half dozen points in the statewide vote. The Democrats would seize the majority in the House in 2022 if they flipped all nine districts where Biden beat Trump and successfully defended all of the 67 seats they hold now.

The House Republicans whose districts went blue at the top of the 2020 ticket include State Reps. Morgan Meyer of Dallas, Matt Shaheen of Plano, Jeff Leach of Allen, Angie Chen Button of Garland, Lacey Hull of Houston, Jacey Jetton of Sugar Land, Steve Allison of San Antonio, Mike Schofield of Katy and David Cook of Burleson.

Meyer will likely be the top target for the Democrats on the House battlefield in 2022 in a central Dallas County district where Biden crushed Trump by almost 14 percentage points. Democrats will be taking aim at Shaheen and Leach in a pair of suburban Collin County districts where Biden beat Trump by more than 9 points last fall. Biden defeated Trump by nearly 9 points in the district that Button represents in older suburbs on the northeast side of the Dallas area. The list of vulnerable House Republicans in 2022 will include State Reps. Brad Buckley of Salado and Jeff Cason of Bedford in districts where Trump edged Biden by 0.1 points and 0.2 points respectively.

The next Texas general election could be the most unpredictable in modern times in light of the down-ballot results four months ago when Republicans dodged a potential blue wave on the House battlefield where they broke even with Democrats who'd been favored to take the majority back.

The Republicans will like their chances for protecting the west wing majority if they receive the new Census data in time for the decennial task of redrawing legislative districts that hold up in court before the 2022 primary election less than a year from now.

The Census delay that stems from the coronavirus pandemic could take the Legislative Redistricting Board out of the equation for two more years regardless of whether a House redistricting plan clears the Legislature in a special session this fall. The LRB has the job of redesigning the House and Senate maps if they fail to pass in the first regular session after the publication of the 2020 Census. That could be in 2023 based on the tentative timelines at play.

Whatever added edge the GOP gains in redistricting could be mitigated to some degree by the money that Democrats will have in swing races for the Texas Legislature in 2022 if Biden and the national party decide to make the Lone Star State a top battleground priority next year after writing it off last year in a smart strategy move.

But Democrats will have to figure out how to win competitive races for the Legislature without the benefit of straight ticket voting that the Republican majority eliminated in the regular session two years ago for the 2020 election.

The Texas Legislative Council analysis of the statewide vote last year in state House and Senate districts gives the impression that the absence of the straight party option made a substantial difference in the most competitive races in 2020.

The Republicans in the nine House districts that Biden carried by 6 percentage points on average defeated Democrats last year by 4.3 percentage points on average - a collective swing of 10 points in the GOP's favor. That's an indication that a significant number of Biden voters didn't take the time to vote in races below the White House contest.

The Democrats face the challenge of trying to identify and to turn them out before their hopes for another blue wave can materialize.