After Texas green-lit President Donald Trump’s plans to redraw its congressional districts final 12 months, nationwide Democrats making an attempt to win again energy in Washington D.C. are making ready to spend massive in opposition to the Republican state lawmakers who have been accountable.
The Democratic Legislative Marketing campaign Committee, which seeks to elect Democratic majorities in state legislatures throughout the nation, added Texas to its record of spending targets, with roughly $50 million to spend in 2026.
Whereas flipping Republicans’ 26-seat majority within the Texas Home is probably going out of the query this election cycle, Democrats are concentrating on 5 GOP-held seats with cash and assets this 12 months, together with two within the San Antonio space.
Texas Home District 121 stretches north from Alamo Heights to Bulverde, the place Republican state Rep. Marc LaHood (R-San Antonio) is in search of a second time period and faces an costly major in his first reelection race. The winner will face Zack Dunn, a prosecutor within the Bexar County District Legal professional’s workplace.
In Texas Home District 118, which cups San Antonio’s South Facet, Republicans try the maintain the seat state Rep. John Lujan (R-San Antonio) left to run for Congress. Additionally they have a aggressive major, and the winner will face Democrat Kristian Carranza, a longtime political strategist who ran in opposition to Lujan in 2024 and raised more cash than any first-time state Home candidate in Texas historical past.
The DLCC is working with the marketing campaign arm of the Texas Home’s Democratic caucus, which by itself doesn’t have a lot cash to spend, however will now set the spending priorities for a funds buoyed by nationwide cash.
On a name with reporters Tuesday, state Rep. Christina Morales (D-Houston), who chairs the Texas Home Democratic Marketing campaign Committee, mentioned the DLCC hasn’t dedicated a selected greenback quantity to Texas races, however famous that the urgency to flip seats within the Texas Legislature has risen as a precedence the extra that physique’s work impacts nationwide politics.
By the numbers
Republicans presently management the White Home, U.S. Senate and U.S. Home in Washington D.C.
Of these, Democrats’ finest probability of slowing down the GOP agenda in 2026 is flipping the U.S. Home, the place they solely must internet three or 4 seats in a midterm the place the celebration out of energy usually picks up a median of 25 to 30 seats.
However Democrats already confronted a a lot smaller variety of potential targets nationwide in 2026, because of the redistricting overseen by Republican-led legislatures because the 2020 Census.
Final 12 months the Texas legislature widened that hole additional by partaking in an uncommon mid-cycle redistricting effort that turned 5 Democrat-held seats into GOP pickup alternatives — in a state the place Republicans already management 25 out of 38 seats.
Now state lawmakers are speaking about one other potential spherical of redistricting within the 2027 session, shoring up their majorities within the chambers accountable for drawing the maps.
“We take into consideration the congressional seats, however what are they going to do to our seats within the state Home and within the Senate?” Morales mentioned. “The [Texas] Home controls these district strains. … All people ought to be involved about that.”
Tuesday’s press name got here as Texas Democrats have been unveiling plans for a $30 million coordinated marketing campaign to assist all of their federal, state and native campaigns in 2026, throughout which the celebration is concentrating on the governor’s workplace, a U.S. Senate seat, and lots of extra places of work up and down the poll.
On that decision, the chief director of the most important tremendous PAC serving to Democrats in Texas chimed in to say that Home District 118 could be a serious battleground for all of the Democratic teams spending in Texas this 12 months, partly due to the function it performs in statewide politics.
The district was a democratic stronghold the place Republicans spent massive to assist Lujan flip crimson in 2022 and maintain onto in 2024. Plus, it suits fully inside the brand new thirty fifth Congressional District — a majority-Hispanic district that Republicans drew as a pickup alternative for themselves, however which Democrats additionally imagine they will win.
“[House District] 118 is totally housed inside [Congressional District 35], and it additionally features a important chunk of Bexar County that’s completely crucial,” she mentioned. ” … We have to see higher turnout in that [area] as a way to win statewide.”
