{"id":453422,"date":"2025-12-17T14:48:19","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T14:48:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/453422\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T14:48:19","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T14:48:19","slug":"texas-democrats-fill-up-every-state-and-federal-race-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/453422\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas Democrats fill up every state and federal race in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy<\/a>, and give us feedback<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A Democrat is running in every state and federal race on the Texas ballot next year, the first time in modern state history that either party has fielded a full slate of candidates, according to the Texas Democratic Party.<\/p>\n

The complete field is the result of a recruitment campaign run by a network of the state\u2019s top Democratic groups and politicians, including Texas Majority PAC<\/a>, the Texas Democratic Party, former U.S. Rep. Beto O\u2019Rourke and former state Sen. Wendy Davis. <\/p>\n

Together, the groups recruited 104 candidates to fill every congressional, state House and state Senate seat up for election in 2026. The effort also ensured that a Democrat is running in every statewide judicial and State Board of Education race.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo Republican gets a free ride in Texas,\u201d Texas Democratic Party Chair Kendall Scudder said in an interview. \u201cIf you are a Republican and you want to hold public office in this state, you\u2019re going to have to fight us for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The push to run a candidate for every seat \u2014 no matter how red-leaning \u2014 comes as Texas Democrats look to capitalize on turnout and backlash to the Trump administration. The theory, Democratic organizers said, is that running candidates everywhere will not only maximize the party\u2019s chances of flipping down-ballot seats, but also increase Democratic turnout and engagement in areas that top-of-the-ticket candidates may not be able to reach \u2014 potentially creating an upstream effect to boost statewide Democrats.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven the most relentless statewide candidate is never going to talk to every voter that they need to,\u201d Texas Majority PAC Director Katherine Fischer said. \u201cWe need a network of talented, compelling Democratic communicators across the state to clearly communicate the message that Republican leadership has failed us, and that Texans should consider voting differently this cycle and in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of Texas\u2019 38 congressional districts, Republicans currently hold 25, with a new gerrymandered map engineered to hand them an additional three to five seats. The GOP also dominates the state Legislature, controlling 88 out of 150 Texas House seats and an 18-to-11 majority in the state Senate (where two red-leaning districts currently sit vacant). All statewide offices, including both U.S. Senate seats, are held by Republicans.<\/p>\n

Democrats have not won statewide office since 1994. And since then, the party has left an average of 50 state and federal seats uncontested each cycle, according to the TDP. Even in 2018, the last midterm election with President Donald Trump in the White House and when Democrats flipped two congressional and 12 state House districts, the party left 20 seats uncontested.<\/p>\n

After a devastating election cycle last year, Fischer said, the party found that to win statewide, Democrats needed to improve with \u201cbasically every single type of voter in every part of the state.\u201d<\/p>\n

One oft-repeated strategy for turning Texas blue is maximizing Democratic turnout in the state\u2019s liberal metropolitan areas. But the level of turnout required to flip the state \u2014 which went for Trump by 14 points last year \u2014\u00a0is \u201cso high that it\u2019s, if not impossible, quite improbable\u201d to get there through urban and suburban areas alone, Fischer said, pointing to the party\u2019s dismal showing in rural Texas.<\/p>\n

Why have Democrats performed so poorly in rural areas? One partial theory the party has landed on: Democrats simply haven\u2019t been campaigning there.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you don\u2019t have Democrats running, you don\u2019t have Democrats showing up in communities telling people what we stand for,\u201d Scudder said. \u201cThe Republicans have an opportunity to brand us and tell people what we stand for instead of it coming out of our mouths.\u201d<\/p>\n

Longtime Republican strategist Dave Carney, meanwhile, said the Democrats\u2019 candidate slate was \u201cjust a gimmick, if they don\u2019t back it up with serious resources.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they start funding these outliers get back to me,\u201d Carney, who is Gov. Greg Abbott\u2019s chief strategist, said in an email. <\/p>\n

At the same time, Abbott is vowing to spend big<\/a> to flip Harris County red. He recruited Republicans to run in every state House seat in the county, according to<\/a> the Houston Chronicle, including in safely blue districts. <\/p>\n

Fischer said that Texas Majority PAC \u2014 one of the state\u2019s most deep-pocketed Democratic groups, backed by millions in donations from liberal megadonor George Soros \u2014 plans to spend about $1 million between its recruitment efforts and helping candidates pay for various campaign overhead costs. If the effort garners even 2 to 3 percent more Democratic turnout, she argued, that could mean thousands of votes sent to the top of the ticket.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Rourke saw that upstream benefit in his 2018 Senate bid, when he lost to U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz by under 3 points \u2014 the closest statewide margin a Democrat has pulled off in years.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou had people running all across Texas in places where Democrats either aren\u2019t supposed to run or had no hope of winning,\u201d O\u2019Rourke said in an interview. \u201cOftentimes they didn\u2019t win, but all of them brought in net new voters that I as a Senate candidate never would have met or never would have turned out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, when Democrats tried to replicate that same approach<\/a> the following cycle, the trickle-up effect largely failed to materialize<\/a>. The party ran a sweeping and well-funded effort to capture 10 GOP congressional seats and flip the state House; they lost every battleground U.S. House race and did not net any seats in the lower chamber of the state Legislature, while Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn cruised to a nearly 10-point win atop the ticket.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Rourke acknowledged it was a \u201ctough ask\u201d of Democrats to run in deep-red places like Amarillo or Waco, where Republicans dominate and where district lines have been drawn to make the seats all but unattainable for Democrats. But he told uneasy potential candidates that, win or lose, \u201cjust the fact that you are stepping up, putting your name on the ballot and running for office is an act of service and patriotism, and it\u2019s going to do great things for everyone on the ticket.\u201d<\/p>\n

Davis, too, made calls to individual prospective candidates, specifically women who were nervous about running as working mothers. We \u201cjust really tried to inspire in people the belief that we can do this, and to cut through the cynicism that has plagued us in Texas for so long,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

To recruit a Democrat for every uncontested race, Texas Majority PAC and the TDP leaned on the star power of O\u2019Rourke, Davis, state Rep. James Talarico and former U.S. Rep. Colin Allred to bring prospective candidates out to 40 recruitment rallies the groups held mostly in rural towns across the state. In the races that proved trickiest to fill, the groups also asked local officials and community members to suggest people they thought should run.<\/p>\n

To find and screen potential candidates, Texas Majority PAC sent 2.3 million text messages, made 105,631 calls and interviewed 1,385 candidates in target districts.<\/p>\n

The final crop, according to Texas Majority PAC, is made up of \u201ceveryday Texans.\u201d A third of recruited candidates work in education; 20% have worked in oil fields, chemical refineries, factories and other similar \u201chard labor\u201d jobs in the state; 15% are military veterans; 10% are members of unions \u2014 and the overwhelming majority, 90%, are first-time candidates for public office.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were very focused on recruiting normal people, people who have some sort of compelling story to tell about how Republican leadership in Texas has failed them personally,\u201d Fischer said.<\/p>\n

One of those recruits is Diana Loya, an educator at Dumas Independent School District in the Panhandle, who has never run for office. <\/p>\n

Loya, whose husband was also recruited by Texas Majority PAC to run for land commissioner, is challenging state Rep. Caroline Fairly, R-Amarillo, for her dark-red Texas House seat. Fairly won House District 87<\/a> in 2024 with 79% of the vote, while Trump carried the district over Vice President Kamala Harris by a similar margin.<\/p>\n

While filming a campaign video for Loya\u2019s husband, Fischer asked Loya to consider running for Fairly\u2019s seat. At first, she declined, saying she planned to \u201chold down the fort\u201d at home during her husband\u2019s campaign.<\/p>\n

Then, she did some research on the district\u2019s representation in Austin \u2014 and decided she couldn\u2019t \u201cjust sit by.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not very familiar with politics, I\u2019m not a politician at all,\u201d said Loya, who grew up in the Panhandle and has taught at public schools in the region for 20 years. \u201cBut I do know the needs that we have here.\u201d<\/p>\n

She decided that Fairly spent too much time on banning certain books<\/a> in public school libraries over more pressing education issues during this year\u2019s legislative session.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sorry, but if you step foot in our schools \u2014 that\u2019s not our major problem,\u201d Loya said of the library content targeted by GOP legislation. \u201cWe have absolutely specific things that are not being taken care of in Austin that are very specific to our rural areas here in the Panhandle \u2014 number one being the teacher shortage.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement, Fairly said that the Texas House this session \u201cmade a clear statement that Texas is serious about strengthening our public schools, and the results speak for themselves.\u201d She cited billions in public school funding<\/a>, teacher pay raises and free pre-kindergarten for educators, among other measures the Legislature approved expanding how schools can discipline students<\/a> and waiving certification fees for bilingual and special education teachers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis session was a major one for Texas educators,\u201d Fairly said. \u201cI\u2019m proud of these investments to put teachers first, restore order where it\u2019s needed and ensure our schools are better equipped to help every student succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zack Dunn, a family violence prosecutor in the Bexar County District Attorney\u2019s Office, is running for office for the first time in House District 121<\/a> \u2014\u00a0a district that state Rep. Marc LaHood, R-San Antonio, won by just 5 points last year, landing it on Democrats\u2019 2026 target list<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are fired up,\u201d Dunn said. \u201cThey want meaningful change. They want, I think, a pragmatic, thoughtful leader that can go into Austin and say, I\u2019m here for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

LaHood\u2019s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Another first-time candidate, Orlando Lopez, is taking on state Rep. Katrina Pierson, R-Rockwall, in North Texas\u2019 House District 33, where Pierson won an uncontested general election in 2024. Lopez, a construction manager, said he was inspired to run to defend immigrants, support public schools and tackle affordability issues. He cited his wife, a former public school teacher, and his 16-month-old daughter in driving his campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen she\u2019s old enough, I do want her to know that I did what I could fighting for the people that I love and trying to represent them as best as I could,\u201d Lopez said.<\/p>\n

Pierson\u2019s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Texas Majority PAC has committed to supporting its recruits through the campaign season, assigning a dedicated staff member to each candidate and helping with fundraising, media and policy plans, in addition to legal and compliance services. <\/p>\n

Then, it\u2019ll be up to the candidates to make their case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy, and give…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":453423,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[7373,327,90,5026,50,23230,7376,67,132,68,156405],"class_list":{"0":"post-453422","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-2026-elections","10":"tag-congress","11":"tag-elections","12":"tag-greg-abbott","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-texas-democratic-party","15":"tag-texas-legislature","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-well-b-homepage"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115735462214648215","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}