Greg Abbott carried Williamson County (WilCo) in 2022 by 1,246 votes.
That was a year Democrats stayed home everywhere. Abbott won Texas by nearly 11 points, and Republicans had every wind at their backs. He still barely held Williamson.
Now it’s 2026, and the wind changed direction.
Williamson County has a habit Republicans should find alarming. It votes against whoever is sitting in the White House. In 2018, during Donald Trump’s first midterm, it went for Beto O’Rourke. In 2022, Biden’s midterm, it went for Abbott by a rounding error. Trump only won it back in 2024, by 7,544 votes, while suburban Texans still liked him.
They don’t like him anymore. Independents approve of his job at 19%.
In March, Williamson Democrats outvoted Republicans in the Senate primary by about 13,000. In 2018 they lost that same count by 10,000 and carried the county anyway. On primary day, the local GOP made voters stand in line for three hours at polling places it asked for. The county judge on the ballot, Steve Snell, has never won the job. He got it by appointment after Bill Gravell quit to work for Trump.
My bet is WilCo will go blue this year, and here’s why:
Williamson County has been teetering on a flip for several years, and poor Democratic turnout in 2022 and 2024 likely kept it in the red.
WilCo’s population growth has made it the 9th-fastest-growing county in the United States. Much of the boom is driven by people relocating from other states and out of neighboring Travis County, seeking relative housing affordability and open land. As a result, the population is diversifying, making WilCo a non-Anglo-majority county.
Look at the difference that eight years have made. This is the turnout in the Republican and Democratic primaries in 2018 and 2026. (And remember, Beto won the 2018 general in this county.)
In 2018, Democrats were outvoted by 10,000 in the primary and still carried the county in November. This year they won the primary by about 13,000.
Michelle Evans, the GOP Chair of WilCo, told Axios that “Primary turnout may reflect energy behind a specific race or candidate, but does not necessarily translate to general election turnout or down-ballot performance.”
But Evans is an embarrassment to every intelligent woman ever named Michelle, and let me tell you why. First, she made national headlines in 2022 after claiming cafeteria tables had to be lowered in public schools so that “furries can eat without utensils.” Then, in 2023, she faced criminal charges for taking pictures of women in the restroom. Then, all the mix-ups at the polling places in WilCo in the primaries this year? It was Evans doing. And just for shits and giggles, this genius’ online moniker is “ThinkerMichelle.” That’s just the tip of the iceberg.
On the ballot in Williamson County and likely to go blue.
James Talarico
Gina Hinojosa
Those two are a given. The top of the ticket in WilCo has flipped before, has proved flippable, and will flip again.
But here are some other races you should watch.
County Judge: Heather Jefts. When Trump snatched up Judge Bill Gravell, WilCo appointed Steve Snell as Judge because (as far as I can tell), he’s a husband and a dad who thinks Bill Gates was implanting microchips in people with COVID vaccines. Economy over people was the motto he lived by during the pandemic, and for that, WilCo named him a Judge.
On the other hand, Jefts is a small business owner, a former city council member, served six years on the Board of the Williamson County Children’s Advocacy Center, and is a co-founder and supporter of Reveal Baby Blessings diaper ministry, among many other achievements.
In 2022, Republicans only won the County Judge seat in Williamson by 2.6 points, in a year Democrats stayed home. This race is for sure one to watch.
Commissioner Precinct 4: Harmon Rhea. In 2022, this district came within 8.2 points of flipping. It leans Republican, but if we see a huge Democratic wave this year, this seat could also flip.
If Democrats can flip both the County Judge seat and the Commissioner Precinct 4 seat, the Commissioners Court flips from red to blue. That would be a pretty big deal. And maybe we’d finally have some allies on our side for removing the white supremacist statue on the Williamson County Courthouse steps.
Before I get into the rest of the races, I’d also like to note that Eric Hanke is on the ballot for tax assessor-collector in Williamson County. Hanke sang my favorite song in 2020, called “Turned Texas Blue.” Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a link to it today.
Moving up the ballot.
HD136: Representative John Bucy is safe.
HD20: Matthias Early. Early is the son of congressional candidate Justin Early. A father/son duo. This is a likely Republican district that Terry Wilson won by ~19 points in 2024 and ~19 points in 2022. The only thing in common between the two Democratic races in 22 and 24 is that both were underfunded, and both were years when Democrats stayed home.
While we aren’t expecting Democrats to stay home this year, 19 points is a huge swing, and the money and effort it would take to flip this district is substantial.
HD52: Chris Jimenez. This is a flippable district. The incumbent, Caroline Harris-Davila, was once the youngest member of the Texas House. Now she’s in her 30s. She married Lt. Governor Dan Patrick’s 50-year-old Chief of Staff. And now votes on all of Dan Patrick’s priorities.
Harris-Davila was already unpopular in her own district, as last election cycle I had Republicans emailing me, wanting me to publish her family drama, as they did the election cycle before that. There are a few Republican women whose peers always want to smear them. Harris-Davila is one of them. Honestly, I don’t know if that speaks more about her or the patriarchy.
Regardless. Democrats outvoted this race in the primary. And this seat only leans Republican, winning by 12 points in 2024 and 11 points in 2022, both when Democrats stayed home. Another race to watch.
TX31: Justin Early. We’ve talked about this race more than once. Early’s Meet the Candidate article. This district is flippable, for sure. Maybe. If there wasn’t a really popular leftist, whom I totally respect, but chose to run as a third party. That’s my fear about this district. The votes would have been there to take the district from the Republican incumbent, but they get split between Early and the Independent candidate.
The ironic thing is that I’ve been watching this race closely. Early’s campaign positions, which are objectively progressive in my book, aren’t that dissimilar from many of the Independent candidate’s positions. Progressives in Texas have worked diligently for years to push the Texas Democratic Party left, and wanting it to move left also means supporting the left-leaning candidates under its umbrella.
If Early flips this seat outright for Democrats and beats John Carter and the Independent, we’ll probably see a windfall for Democrats across the board. Watch this race election night.
Abbott won WilCo by 1,246 votes in the best Republican year Texas has seen in a decade.
That’s the cushion Republicans are defending in a Trump midterm, with a Democratic wave on the way.
The top of the ticket will flip. The real prize is the Commissioners Court. Win the county judge race and Precinct 4, and the court that runs one of the fastest-growing counties in Texas goes blue for the first time in a generation.
And in TX31, remember there are no runoffs in November. A split left will hand John Carter another term.
Williamson is close enough to flip on turnout alone. Vote like it.
32 days until the November election!
Last Day to Register to Vote: October 5, 2026
First Day of Early Voting: October 19, 2026
Last Day to Apply for Ballot by Mail: October 23, 2026
Last Day of Early Voting: October 30, 2026
Election Day: November 3, 2026
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.
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Thanks so much for this, Michelle! We are working on flipping as many seats blue as we possibly can!
Thank you for all your hard work. Do you have a sense of where the Hispanic population is polling in this cycle? I have to think that with all of the deportations and how that community has been treated they would lean heavily Domocratic this year.