Texas voters face more genuinely competitive races for Congress and the Legislature this fall than in any recent election, according to an analysis The Texas Tribune published Tuesday.
The Tribune rated every district on the ballot: 38 U.S. House seats, all 150 Texas House seats and the 16 Texas Senate seats up this year. The closest contests were labeled "hot," the safest "cold," and a middle group "warm" for races that could come into play in a wave year.
The ratings lean mostly on two elections, the 2024 presidential race and the 2018 U.S. Senate race between Ted Cruz and Beto O'Rourke, recalculated for this year's district lines using Texas Legislative Council data.
The Tribune also weighed whether an incumbent is running and ran ahead of the party's presidential nominee in 2024, polling trends among Latino voters and which seats the parties say they are targeting.
Congress
The four most competitive U.S. House races are all in majority-Hispanic South Texas districts that President Donald Trump carried by 10 points or more in 2024, the Tribune found.
- Districts 28 and 34: Trump won each by about 10 points under the new lines, but O'Rourke would have carried both in 2018. Democratic Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez are counting on crossover support.
- District 35: open, with Rep. Greg Casar running elsewhere. Cruz would have edged O'Rourke there by less than half a point.
- District 15: Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz faces Democrat Bobby Pulido, a Tejano musician, in a redrawn district.
Districts 9 in eastern Houston and 23, which stretches from San Antonio toward El Paso, are also on the watch list. Neither has an incumbent on the ballot.
