Could Texas really turn blue in 2026?<\/p>\n
While it\u2019s tempting to be skeptical, a blue Texas is increasingly easy to imagine. It\u2019s even easier to imagine after Ken Paxton\u2019s victory<\/a> over John Cornyn, the incumbent senator, in the Republican primary runoff on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n That\u2019s partly because Mr. Paxton, the state attorney general, has distinct political liabilities. He\u2019s faced investigation, indictment,<\/a> impeachment<\/a> and a messy public divorce<\/a>.<\/p>\n But there\u2019s another reason Democrats might pull off a statewide win for the first time in three decades: demographics. Texas is one of the most diverse states in the country, and national polls show Democrats surging back in support among young and nonwhite voters \u2014 and especially Hispanic voters.<\/p>\n On paper, these national demographic trends ought to send Texas racing toward the left and into contention. Add in Mr. Paxton\u2019s nomination and you can start to see how Democrats could flip Texas this fall.<\/p>\n After a decade of big talk from Democrats about Texas, it\u2019s understandable that people could harbor some doubt about flipping the nation\u2019s largest red state. Judging by presidential election results, Democrats barely made any progress at all: President Trump won Texas<\/a> by almost 14 percentage points in 2024.<\/p>\n But beneath the state\u2019s stable Republican voting record, extraordinary demographic shifts have put Texas Republicans in a much more vulnerable position. To an extent few would have imagined a decade ago, Texas\u2019 status as a reliably Republican state now depends on elevated levels of support among Hispanic voters.<\/p>\n In the latest national polls<\/a>, Mr. Trump\u2019s gains among Hispanic voters have vanished \u2014 and the Republican grip on Texas is in danger as a result. The latest New York Times\/Siena poll<\/a> is representative: It shows Democrats ahead by 30 points, 54 percent to 24 percent, among Hispanic registered voters nationwide. That\u2019s better than Joe Biden\u2019s margin in 2020 and getting close to Hillary Clinton\u2019s margin in 2016.<\/p>\n The signs of Democratic strength aren\u2019t limited to the polls. Since 2024, Democrats have run well ahead of Kamala Harris\u2019s showing in heavily Hispanic areas in special elections \u2014 including in Texas<\/a> \u2014 and in the regularly scheduled elections in Virginia and New Jersey<\/a>.<\/p>\n Alone, major Democratic gains among Hispanic voters would be enough to make Texas a plausible battleground in November. Now consider the party\u2019s expected gains among other demographic groups \u2014 including white voters \u2014 in this national political environment, and suddenly the conditions would seem to be in place for a Democratic breakthrough.<\/p>\n To illustrate, consider this hypothetical: What would have happened in 2024 if Ms. Harris had fared as well as Mrs. Clinton did among Hispanic voters in 2016?<\/p>\n If she had, Texas would have been about tied. That\u2019s right, tied. There are more sophisticated ways to reach this conclusion, but you can see for yourself just by plugging the results by race from the 2016 exit poll<\/a> into the 2024 exit poll<\/a>. You get a contest within one point.<\/p>\n How could this be? It\u2019s been easy to overlook, but Democrats have made significant gains among Texas\u2019 white voters during the Trump era. For comparison, the gains are basically equivalent to those Democrats made among white voters in Georgia, which drove that state toward the left over the same period.<\/p>\n The Democratic gains among white Texas voters would have been enough to make Texas competitive in 2024, if everything else had stayed constant. Of course, everything else did not stay constant: Mr. Trump made even larger gains among nonwhite voters, especially Hispanic ones, canceling out Democratic gains \u2014 and more. Now, those gains have been reversed. <\/p>\n Or consider another example: Imagine we adjusted the results of the last presidential election by shifting each racial demographic group\u2019s support to match the latest Times\/Siena poll<\/a> results. Based on the poll\u2019s findings, Texas would be expected to tilt Democratic in this national political environment. Interestingly, the other red states Democrats are targeting in their pursuit of Senate control<\/a> \u2014 like Ohio and Alaska \u2014 would still remain red in this exercise, even though each voted more Democratic in 2024 than Texas. That\u2019s because Democratic gains among nonwhite voters help Democrats more in Texas, since it is a much more diverse state.<\/p>\n Of course, Democrats might win in Ohio or Alaska even though national trends alone wouldn\u2019t seem enough to do it. The party has recruited strong nominees (Sherrod Brown and Mary Peltola) with a track record of outperforming the national party. The same can\u2019t necessarily be said for Texas Democrats: The party\u2019s nominee, James Talarico, is a first-time candidate for statewide office with a mix of political assets (he grounds his campaign in his Christian faith) and liabilities (he has been attacked<\/a> for saying that God is nonbinary and that there are six biological sexes).<\/p>\n But unlike the Democratic candidates in Ohio and Alaska, Mr. Talarico will not be facing an incumbent senator. He\u2019ll be facing Mr. Paxton, who enters the general election campaign already damaged by tens of millions of dollars<\/a> spent by Mr. Cornyn and his allies on negative advertisements. In recent months, polls have shown that more Texans have an unfavorable view of Mr. Paxton than a favorable one.<\/p>\n While Texas Republicans have occasionally had a few close calls, this year\u2019s contest is already different, at least by the measure of the polls. Back in 2018, Beto O\u2019Rourke never led a poll<\/a> collected by RealClearPolitics against Ted Cruz.<\/p>\n