On Monday, the Texas Democratic Party and the Texas House Democratic Campaign Committee released their plan to try to win 22 Texas House seats in the November elections. It’s part of Democrats’ wider goal to flip the House from red to blue.
Texas Tribune political reporter Patrick Svitek says Democrats won 12 of those seats in 2018, and this year they’ll have to hold onto them and gain nine more to achieve win control of the House.
Svitek says there could be “some real battles” because Republicans are trying to flip some of those 12 seats back.
One well-known Texas Democrat, Beto O’ Rourke, recently launched a political organization to help give the Texas House a Democratic majority. Svitek says O’ Rourke’s group, Powered by People, could be successful if he’s able to activate his loyal base of supporters who volunteered for him in 2018.
“He’s a uniquely galvanizing figure. He is someone who people obviously connected with very well during the 2018 campaign,” Svitek says.
He says O’Rourke was able to win the support of some independent and even Republican-leaning voters in battleground districts in 2018, and he’ll likely try rally support for Democrats in similar places this year. Those places will probably be Texas suburbs, especially around Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth and Austin. Svitek says suburbs across the country are battlegrounds this year, some of which seem to be “slipping away” from Republicans.
Written by Caroline Covington.
