Five Seats Targeted for GOP Takeovers and Two Seats Democrats Could Flip
|
| FORECAST |
CD 32 |
CD 9 |
CD 15 |
CD 23 |
CD 35 |
CD 34 |
CD 28 |
NET |
| Kalshi |
R 90% |
R 84% |
D 82% |
R 63% |
D 64% |
D 85% |
D 89% |
R +1 |
| Polymarket |
R 90% |
R 82% |
D 80% |
R 62% |
D 61% |
D 82% |
D 89% |
R +1 |
| Vote Hub |
R 91% |
R 86% |
D 75% |
R 60% |
D 61% |
D 87% |
D 93% |
R +1 |
| Average |
R 90% |
R 84% |
D 79% |
R 62% |
D 62% |
D 85% |
D 91% |
R +1 |
|
GOP State Rep Who's Party Official Ripped
for Wake Up Call on Potential Dem Sweep
Texas General Election Polls
General Election Rankings
Capitol Inside
October 5, 2026
Republicans painted the Texas skies with desperation Hail Mary's and apocalyptic warnings on Monday before and after a GOP state lawmaker who's working for the party predicted that Democrats would run the table in the statewide races if the 2026 midterm election was taking place this week.
State Rep. Briscoe Cain - a Baytown attorney who's been a darling on the far right - appeared to be using some reverse psychological warfare in an attempt to snap fellow Republicans from alternating states of denial and delusion about the destructive power of an oncoming blue wave.
"If the election were held tomorrow, all state wide races go blue," Cain said in a post on X this morning.
A lameduck legislator who lost a bid for Congress in the primary runoff election in the spring, Cain found himself showered in mockery and insults on social media in response to the projection on a Democratic statewide sweep in the making in the Lone Star State in the general election four weeks from now.
But all of the latest signs support the hypothesis that the Republicans could be on the edge of catastrophic destruction in Texas and beyond thanks primarily to President Donald Trump's unprecedented unpopularity and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to a lesser but significant degree as the nominee for the U.S. Senate here.
* Democrat James Talarico's probability of winning was higher on Monday on every major forecasts for the midterm vote than it had been at any point up to now in a fight with Paxton for the Texas Senate seat. Talarico's chances for victory ranged from all-time highs of 67 percent today on the prediction market Kalshi to 80 percent on the data modeling site Race to the WH.
* Governor Greg Abbott, who'd been a prohibitive favorite over Democrat Gina Hinojosa for months, saw his odds fall to new lows on the prediction platforms Kalshi and Polymarket at 74 percent and 73 percent respectively. After having odds over 90 percent across the board throughout the summer, Abbott chances of holding the seat dipped to 71 percent on the election tracking site Vote Hub. Hinojosa led the third-term incumbent in three of six polls that were taken on the Texas governor's race in September.
* Democrat Bobby Pulido vaulted to a record high mark on Kalshi on Monday when he was listed as an 82 percent favorite over second-term U.S. Rep. Monica De La Cruz in Congressional District 15 that Republicans who designed the new map for Trump deemed to be a safe seat for the GOP.
* Paxton suffered through another embarrassing moment on Monday amid revelations that he suggested to a group of lobbyists that the Republicans in Washington D.C. had taken over his Senate campaign to the point that he no longer controlled it. The Texas AG left himself vulnerable to the hijacking by failing to raise a sufficient amount of money to be competitive with Talarico and being forced to rely on bailouts from the party at the national level.
"I’ve never been in a race where I felt less control over the campaign," Paxton says on an audio recording from the meeting that was leaked to the press. "It’s all coming from DC”
Talarico issued a statement on the Paxton admission on the hijacking of his campaign. “Ken Paxton is a puppet,” the Democrat said.
Cain sought to elaborate on his initial warning in a post on X on Monday afternoon - explaining that he was simply trying to boost the GOP turnout in Texas with the wake up call post.
"The point I was making and will continue to make is that Republican voters feel too comfortable and are not as intense about this election as they should be," Cain contended. "We have more voters than the left in Texas, but we have to vote. I will be working to turn out every vote we can and am willing to tell people that if they don’t vote, Texas will go blue."
But the reception to Cain's initial prophecy was brutal as one might expect.
"Briscoe, are you really autistic?" according to a comment on the post. Another X user called Cain a "dumbass" while yet another claimed he was bitter about a defeat at the hands of Alex Mealer in Congressional District 9 in the runoff in May. Mealer was armed with an endorsement from Trump when she defeated Cain by three dozen points in overtime in CD 9 - one of five seats that Republicans in Austin targeted for takeovers on a U.S. House map that Trump ordered them to draw in special session last year.
"Mealer crushed you and you’re still hurting?," according to another post. "Maybe join @RogersForTexas and cut ads for the socialist guys."
more to come ...
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