Democrats gain ground in Texas House amid generational wave, putting majority within reach

With most of the Texas House’s closest races yet to be called early Wednesday, it appears that Democrats could take control of the lower chamber for the first time since 2003, building off the party’s historic sweep at the statewide level.

Democrats need to flip 14 seats to win the House. Only five flips had been called in their favor by the Associated Press as of 4 a.m. Wednesday, but Democrats were leading in at least a dozen more districts that Republicans currently hold.

During a panel at the Texas Tribune Festival in September, House Democrats’ caucus chair, Houston Rep. Gene Wu, predicted his party would flip the House. State Rep. Christina Morales, who chairs House Democrats’ campaign arm, last month made a “conservative estimate” that her party would flip five to eight seats. But speaking with The Texas Tribune shortly after midnight, she said flipping the House “has been our goal from the very beginning.”

“We feel as though we may have control of the House, but we’re cautiously optimistic,” the Houston lawmaker said.

GOP data consultant Ross Hunt, unsurprisingly, had a more pessimistic view for his party.

“We don’t yet have a complete picture of the scope of Republican losses in the state House and statewide,” Hunt said. “We do have enough to know that it looks like Republicans are going to lose control of the Texas state House of Representatives.”

Election Day votes, where Republicans typically outpace Democrats, would not be enough to reverse the number of races where Republicans were behind.

In April, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick became the first to hint at looming trouble in the lower chamber, saying Republicans were “going to have a tough time” holding onto their majority. Patrick lost his own race Tuesday night.

More than eight hours after polls closed, Republican state Reps. Janie Lopez of San Benito and Denise Villalobos of Corpus Christi lost hotly contested South Texas races. In the Southside of San Antonio, Democrat Kristian Carranza flipped a seat held by Rep. John Lujan, who ran for Congress instead of seeking reelection. Elsewhere in San Antonio, Rep. Marc LaHood lost.

Democrats also picked up an open House seat in Tarrant County, won by Democrat Ebony Turner, and led in three others there that were uncalled. In Dallas County, Rep. Angie Chen Button of Garland was on pace to lose after surviving Democrats’ repeated serious attempts to oust her during her nine terms in the House. Rep. Ben Bumgarner, R-Flower Mound, conceded in his Denton County race.

In Harris County, Republican Rep. Mike Schofield of Katy was down significantly, and Rep. Lacey Hull of Houston trailed, as did state Rep. Valoree Swanson, R-Spring.

House Speaker Dustin Burrows and Republicans entered Election Day seemingly prepared, having learned from the wave cycle of 2018, when Democrat Beto O’Rourke’s late surge in the U.S. Senate race caught off guard the GOP, which let 12 House seats slip. Republicans and their allies spent millions across more than 30 GOP-held House districts.

Republicans outspent Democrats in most competitive races.

In 2020, the last time Democrats aspired to take the House, national Democratic groups spent millions trying to win the chamber ahead of a critical redistricting year. The effort yielded no net gain in seats, a deflating result for Texas Democrats in a year the party made gains nationally. This cycle marked the first since the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, the arm of the national party that focuses on state legislatures, named the Texas House a target. The DLCC targeted 12 potential flips and promised to capitalize on a “once in a generation” favorable political environment.

Despite the renewed interest, little national money flowed in, and House Democratic campaigns struggled financially.

“A lot of our candidates ran their races on a shoestring without any support from the national organizations, and we struggled to raise money, but they still managed to move the needle,” Morales said.

In one of the yet-uncalled Tarrant County races, Rep. John McQueeney of Fort Worth trailed his Democratic opponent, Beth Llewellyn McLaughlin, with all precincts reporting, after outspending her 30-to-1 since July.

With the bulk of the races as close as they are, Republicans and Democrats question whether Democrats can retain what could be a newfound majority in 2028.

“If we do flip the House — it seems more realistic now — we need to hold on to it,” Morales said. “We need the infrastructure in place to be able to hold on to it.”

Hunt said there were warning signs, but Republicans and Democrats alike were surprised by how poorly the statewide Republicans performed. Losses by everyone from Gov. Greg Abbott to U.S. Senate nominee Ken Paxton trickled down the ballot in calamitous fashion for the GOP. At the same time, Democrats appeared likely to come up just short in a handful of districts where their nominees ran barely visible campaigns.

“If they had known things were this close, there would have been a lot more investment in the in races up and down the ballot on the left,” Hunt said.

Even with the deluge of flips in the House, the line in the Texas Senate was holding firm at 19 Republicans and 12 Democrats. Sen. Taylor Rehmet, D-Fort Worth, held onto his seat against Republican Leigh Wambsganss, who he defeated in a special election upset in January that offered a harbinger of Tuesday’s wave. With his victory on Tuesday, Rehmet won a full four-year term representing the district President Donald Trump carried by 17 points.

If the House falls under Democratic control, the Senate would be the one GOP-controlled body in a divided government. Six Senate districts were unexpectedly close races, but the Republicans there, including Sen. Charles Schwertner of Georgetown, led.

“Texas stands as long as the Texas Senate Republican caucus holds the line,” Schwertner posted on X shortly before midnight. “We will.”

A Democratic majority would be the party’s first in the state House since Republicans took control in 2003. Morales said early priorities would include expanding Medicaid, repealing school vouchers and “repealing all of the awful legislation that passed to attack immigrants and people with brown skin.”

The race for the speaker’s gavel was already underway Tuesday night. Rep. Senfronia Thompson, a Houston Democrat who has served since 1973, announced her bid for speaker before midnight with the backing of at least 11 Democrats, including Wu, the caucus chair.

Known to colleagues as “Ms. T,” Thompson is the longest-serving woman and Black lawmaker in Texas history, a status that garners her respect from members in both parties. In a statement that cast Democrats’ majority as a lock, she said the party now has “enormous responsibility to deliver for the people we serve.”

“I am grateful for the support of my colleagues, and I am ready to lead this House with the experience, respect, and determination this moment demands,” Thompson said. “This is an opportunity to turn the page, bring people together, and get to work for every Texas family.”

Hunt and a Democratic Texas House staffer, who was granted anonymity because of their position in the lower chamber, said Speaker Pro Tempore Joe Moody was also in the running. Moody, an eighth-term Democrat from El Paso, has been a key partner of GOP House leadership and could court Republicans to help win the gavel. That strategy would be akin to how former Rep. Joe Straus, a moderate, lifted the speakership from fellow Republican Rep. Tom Craddick after the 2008 Democratic wave left the GOP with a 76-74 majority.

“Speaker Pro Tem Moody is really setting himself up to possibly be the Democratic Straus, which I say in a fully complimentary way,” the Democratic staffer said.

Morales was not on Thompson’s initial list of 10 supporters, but told the Tribune she was backing the 87-year-old House dean.

“Anything I was doing was to make sure that she would be the first woman person of color speaker of the Texas House of Representatives,” Morales said. “She has 100% of my support, and I don’t see any reason why she wouldn’t be the speaker of the House if we do reach the majority tonight.”

Hunt said there was already consensus building on the right that the GOP would need to redefine itself to hold Texas as the state changes and becomes more competitive.

“That moment has come a lot sooner than Republicans anticipated, and Republicans are going to have to really reinvent their party here in the state if they wanted to be able to go back and contend again for the territory they’ve lost tonight, and to battle for what is now certainly a swing state coming into the next presidential election,” Hunt said.