Which Texas House Races Should We Be Watching For Flips In November
This is the map. This is the fight.
Last week, the “Texas Together” tour kicked off in DFW with Kendall Scudder, Gina Hinojosa, and Wendy Davis (?). This week, James Talarico is holding rallies with Clayton Tucker, Jon Rosenthal, and others.
If we start getting rallies every week in the major urban counties from now until November, that’s definitely a start to the winning formula we need to flip Texas. Of course, we need a lot of things. We need a perfect storm. And we have some early indications that November may bring us that perfect storm.
But what does it mean to flip Texas?
We flip the US Senate seat? Okay.
We flip the Governor’s seat? This would also be great.
We flip the Texas House? This. This right here is what we want.
Everything else, as important as it is, runs straight into a wall if we don’t.
You can win a Senate seat and send one more Democrat to Washington. That matters. It changes committee votes. It shifts margins. It gives Texas a different voice on the national stage.
You can even win the Governor’s mansion. That would be seismic. It would change the tone of the state overnight.
But without the Texas House, both of those victories hit a ceiling.
The Texas House is where policy lives or dies in this state. It is the place where bills move forward, get rewritten, or disappear. It is the body that decides whether extreme legislation gets a rubber stamp or a roadblock.
Right now, Republicans have a system that allows them to pass whatever they can hold together internally. That’s how we get session after session of culture war bills, preemption laws, attacks on local control, and policies that ignore the material reality of working Texans.
Flip the House, and that entire dynamic changes overnight.
How many seats do we need to flip in 2026 to take control of the Texas House?
The answer is 14, but don’t look at that as a big number, since there are 150 Texas House seats. Now, not only is there some low-hanging fruit, but in a recent special election in Texas, the Democratic legislator overperformed by about 35 points. Enthusiasm is on the Democrats’ side.
Note: These are in chronological order, not in order of likelihood to flip.
HD14: Over in Brazos County, HD14 is the kind of seat Democrats should at least be making Republicans sweat over. Republican Paul Dyson is the incumbent, but Democrat Janet Dudding is on the ballot. It isn’t a top-tier pickup on its own, but it absolutely makes sense as a seat for the broader battlefield.
HD17: Out in Bastrop and Caldwell, HD17 is one of the clearest growth-district opportunities on the board. Republican Stan Gerdes is the incumbent, but Democrat Mary Klenz is on the ballot. The turnout growth, the Austin-area sprawl, and the changing electorate are exactly the kind of factors that make a seat flippable in the right cycle.
HD24: HD24 belongs on the map, too. Republican Greg Bonnen is still sitting there, but Democrat Frank Carr is the nominee. HD24 is about 40% non-Anglo, and turnout rose substantially between 2022 and 2024. That does not automatically make it blue, but it absolutely makes it worth a fight.
HD25: Then there is HD25 in Brazoria County. Republican Cody Vasut is the incumbent, but Democrat Mike Meadors is on the ballot. HD25 is already 57% non-Anglo, with a voter profile that should make Republicans nervous if Democrats ever decide to fully show up in these communities and organize as they mean it.
HD34: Down in the Valley, HD34 is one of the clearest Democratic pickup chances on the board. Republican Denise Villalobos is the incumbent, but Democrat Stephanie Saenz is on the ballot. HD34 is nearly 80% non-Anglo and about 74% Hispanic, which means the coalition is there if Saenz actually shows up and does the work.
HD37: Right next door, HD37 belongs in the same conversation. Republican Janie Lopez is back on the ballot, but Democrats clearly see an opening here too, with Oziel Ochoa Jr. and Esmeralda Cantu-Castle advancing to a Democratic runoff after the March primary.
HD94: Right next door, HD94 belongs on the same list. Republican Tony Tinderholt (he’s now running for County Commissioner) has held this seat for years, but Democrat Katie O’Brien Duzan is on the ballot, and this is not the same district it was a decade ago. The electorate is changing, turnout is up, and what used to be a safe Republican seat is starting to look more like a place where Democrats can at least force a real fight. And if Republicans are having to defend seats like this, that’s how you know the map is moving.
HD96: Then there’s HD96, another Tarrant County district that should be getting far more attention than it usually does. Republican David Cook (also running for something else) is the incumbent, but Democrat Ebony Turner is running. It’s not the flashiest race on the board, but it’s exactly the kind of district that becomes competitive when the environment shifts.
HD99: HD99 rounds out the Fort Worth cluster. Republican Charlie Geren has held this seat for a long time, but Democrat Michelle Winder is on the ballot. The problem for Republicans is that it’s getting bluer every cycle.
HD108: In Dallas County, HD 108 is one of the clearest pickup opportunities on the board. Republican Morgan Meyer is still sitting there, but Allison Mitchell is now the Democratic nominee, and this is exactly the kind of urban, high-engagement district where Democrats should be pressing hard every single day.
HD112: Same story as HD108. Zach Herbert is the Democratic nominee taking on Angie Chen Button, one of the last Republican holdouts in Dallas County. Button survived a competitive race in 2024, but this seat keeps showing up as battleground territory for a reason.
HD 118: Down in Bexar County, HD 118 is one of the most obvious places for a Democratic comeback. This seat was historically blue before John Lujan turned it red in a 2021 special election, then held it in 2022 and 2024. Now that Lujan is gone, Kristian Carranza is the Democratic nominee again.
HD 133: Then you go to Houston. In HD 133, Josh Wallenstein is the Democratic nominee, and this is the kind of west Houston seat that belongs on any real target list. It is affluent, suburban, highly engaged, and exactly the sort of district where Republican control looks less permanent every cycle than they want people to believe.
HD 138: And right next door, Tyler Smith gives Democrats another Houston-area offensive play in HD 138. He’s the Democratic nominee against Republican incumbent Lacey Hull, and this is the kind of northwest Houston seat that becomes dangerous for Republicans in the right environment.
Fourteen seats.
That’s it. That’s the number standing between the Texas we have now and the Texas people keep saying they want.
The path is not hidden. It’s not complicated. It’s right there.
Every rally. Every block walk. Every dollar. Every volunteer hour. It all has to point here.
To these seats.
A turning point.
Fourteen seats.
That’s the job.
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May 2, 2026: Election day! (City elections/SD04 Special Election)
May 15, 2026: Last day to apply to vote by mail (Democratic primary runoff elections)
May 18, 2026: First day of early voting (Democratic primary runoff elections)
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May 26, 2026: Election day! (Democratic primary runoff elections)
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Thank you, Michelle! Shared on bsky.