Just Give Me 14
The DLCC has 12. Here's where the other two come from.
I’ve been hearing chitter-chatter from the Democracy Summit in Austin this week. I’m not there because I live in DFW and because it’s the first week of school. But the biggest thing I’m hearing is that Democratic strategists are expecting a blue wave of epic proportions. Of course, we already knew this because Trump and Abbott are both unpopular. After all, the economy is in the toilet, and it’s a midterm year with a Republican in the White House. We still have to get out and vote.
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So, I’ve been playing with numbers today. We have to flip the Texas House. It is THE ONLY way in Texas to stop the Republican agenda. Maybe next Legislative session will be a dead stop if we do, since we aren’t going to flip the Texas Senate. But that’s better than the GOP taking more of our tax dollars to enrich billionaires, starve more children, kill immigrants on the border, and make sure we run out of water.
We need 14 to flip the Texas House. Right now, the DLCC and their $1.3 million will only flip 12 seats. But it isn’t enough. We need 14 seats to flip the Texas House, and the question is, where will those other two come from?
Here are some 🔥hot🔥 races and the numbers backing them:
By my calculations, if we really had a wave of “epic” proportions and all of these candidates were busting their ass and pulling in big fundraising dollars, we’d have 35 vulnerable seats.
That’s not realistic. Because for some reason, some of these candidates haven’t raised any money or have a social media presence. And I can’t speak for every race, but not every candidate is out there politicking as hard as they should be. That’s okay. It happens every year.
Remember this (sometimes I forget it). For every down-ballot candidate on the ticket, it helps the total number of votes at the top.
Call me bananas, but I truly think we can flip 14 seats.
With 81 days left until the election, everyone wants to know where to focus their energy.
The top of the ticket is getting lots of love, although all statewide races should be getting as much love as Talarico.
Absolutely the DLCC’s list, and I think all of these seats are going to flip.
Bell County. Bell County shouldn’t be red. It’s only red because Republicans gerrymandered it to look like a donut. But demographically, Bell is only 42.3% Anglo and 57.7% non-Anglo. That includes a population that is 21.79% Black and 25.22% Hispanic.
That being said, Bell County still has a Confederate statue on its county courthouse lawn and some of the highest rates of police violence in the state (more unarmed people killed per arrest than 84% of Texas departments). It’s an oppressed county. And with oppression come voter suppression and some of the lowest voter turnout rates in Texas.
We’ve talked about Bell County a lot over the years. HD54 needs 10,199 more Democratic votes than it got in 2022. HD55 needs 10,460. That’s 20,658 votes, combined, across one county, to flip two seats at once. Compare that to the Golden 12 seats spread across five different counties for the same kind of lift. Bell is a two-for-one if you do it right.
Sustained, year-round organizing is a prerequisite. I don’t know if that’s been going on for the last few years. It should have been. However, in 2025, there was a lot of drama with Bell County Democrats. Hopefully, they’ve resolved their issues.
Both of the candidates here, Dawn Richardson and Amelia Rabroker, are doing okay on fundraising. Republicans are going to outraise every Democrat on the ticket, so the Democrats have to outraise them.
I checked out both candidates on Mobilize. Rabroker has multiple block walks planned. Richardson’s next event isn’t until the 22nd, which is this event:
This is great. Collaborative events always help all the candidates. And Justin Early has a decent chance at flipping TX31. I wouldn’t call it a “good” chance. It’s complicated, and I plan on getting into it more soon. But he definitely needs all the Bell County votes he can pick up.
Denton County. None of the DLCC’s list is in Denton County. Why? I don’t know. I’m friends with several County Chairs, and for years I’ve watched County Chairs across Texas work, and one thing I can tell you with confidence is that Delia Parker-Mims, the Denton County Democratic Party Chair, is one of the hardest-working Democrats in Texas. Not only that, but she constantly thinks outside the box to find ways to raise money, make sure precincts are covered, and knock on doors.
When Democratic numbers across the state were down in 2022 and 2024, Denton County was one of the handful of counties that saw turnout increase. No one is expecting Denton to flip this year. No one has any of these seats on their radar.
That being said, I wouldn’t count any of these seats out.
Denise Wooten has the easiest path of the four. In fact, her flip numbers are probably tighter than some on the DLCC’s list (she should probably be on that list). If Denton flips anything this cycle, county organizers should treat it as priority one.
Detrick Deburr also has a real shot and is running against an incredibly unpopular incumbent, but needs a lot more money. Caveat. The fundraising dollars I’m looking at ended in June, so he could have raised a lot more since.
Joe Mayes and Julie Evans are more in the “watch, but don’t hold your breath” category.
I searched Mobilize for block walking and phone banking for all of these candidates in Denton County. I found some. Not nearly enough. And not enough collaborative events. In an ideal world, House candidates would campaign with Congressional Candidates, local candidates, statewide candidates, and each other at every possible opportunity.
Collin County. The politicos seem to think that Collin County could turn blue this year. I agree with them. The DLCC is already targeting HD61 and HD67 as flips and HD70 as a hold. But there’s one more that they overlooked.
When Republicans redrew this district in 2021, they only gave themselves a +7.9 advantage. But as we all know, Democrats mostly just stayed home in 2022 and 2024. In 2022, the incumbent (Matt Shaheen) won by +20.8 points. But I think low voter turnout was the biggest contributing factor.
Sandeep Srivastava has already raised over $54,000 (as of the last filing), but I’m willing to bet he doubles that by the next filing because he went viral on the right-wing mediasphere. It wasn’t good either. White supremacists attacked him, and he garnered a lot of in-county support after that.
And he’s out there doing the work.
Expect big things from Collin County in November.
Tarrant County. The DLCC has one House seat (HD94) and one Senate seat (SD09) from Tarrant County on its list. But we should also watch these two seats:
Beth Llewellyn McLaughlin has some overlap with SD09, so I hope she’s campaigning with Taylor Rehmet every chance she gets, because, like the seat in Collin County, this seat was drawn a lot bluer than it was in 2022 due to low voter turnout. She’s raised more money than some of the Golden 12, so if their argument about adding candidates to their list is about money, then she should be on the list too.
Ebony Turner is running for David Cook’s newly vacated seat. Cook only held that seat, and the Mayoral seat before that, because of name recognition. Mansfield’s demographics are changing quickly. This city is now only 53.3% Anglo, 21.8% Black, and 18.5% Hispanic. Using the same turnout-times-2021 map-split method I used for the other uncontested seats, HD96 pencils out to roughly 6,300 votes needed, which, if it holds, would make it tighter than HD97, not a long shot. That’s my estimate, not a certified number, but it’s the kind of gap that should make people pay attention.
Harris County. There are two Harris County candidates on the DCLL’s list. Here are two more:
Sara McGee is the sleeper candidate who I think will win no matter what anyone says. She’s working hard and even quit her job to become a full-time candidate. She knows what it’s going to take to win, and I think she’s dedicated to getting there. If we see a real, genuine “epic” wave this year, expect to see her in Austin next year.
Michelle Williams is running against Charles Cunningham, and while it seems like she hasn’t raised as much as other candidates. Cunningham has only raised $40,000 this cycle. Because this seat was unopposed in the last midterm, we don’t know how many votes she’ll need, but I estimate it is around 10,900 on top of the 2022 number. That would put her right in line with HD132.
We need 14 to flip. The DLCC has 12. I just walked you through 11 more.
Not some fantasy wave-election spreadsheet where every county gets a pony. Eleven real candidates, in five counties, with real 2022 numbers, real fundraising, and in more than one case, better numbers than seats already on the DLCC’s own list. Denise Wooten in Denton. Beth Llewellyn McLaughlin in Tarrant. Sara McGee in Harris. These aren’t longshots I’m talking myself into. These are low-hanging fruit that somebody forgot to pick.
We don’t need all eleven. We need two (on top of the DLCC’s 12). We have nine seats of margin for error, and we’re still acting like this is a moonshot.
So here’s the ask, and it’s not complicated. If you live in Bell, Denton, Collin, Tarrant, or Harris County, go find your candidate on Mobilize right now and sign up for a block walk. If you can’t walk, phone bank. If you can’t phone bank, and you’ve got ten bucks or a hundred, send it to Dawn Richardson, Amelia Rabroker, Denise Wooten, Detrick Deburr, Joe Mayes, Julie Evans, Sandeep Srivastava, Beth Llewellyn McLaughlin, Ebony Turner, Sara McGee, or Michelle Williams. Pick one. Pick five. I don’t care which.
We have 81 days. Tick-tock.
81 days until the November election!
Did you know you can find links to all the previous Meet the Candidate articles on these lists?:
Click here to find out what Legislative districts you’re in.
So excited about the possibility of flipping the Texas House. Actually I am excited about all the candidates this year. I did learn today that the candidates Early are a father and son, one for Congress and one for State House. What a coup that would be for both to win.