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| President |
Donald Trump (R) |
| U.S. Senate |
Colin Allred (D) |
| U.S. House |
No Change |
| Texas RRC |
Christi Craddick (R) |
| Texas Senate |
No Change |
| Texas House |
Democrats +4 |
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Texas Republicans may be on the verge of losing several Texas House districts and a U.S. Senate seat in a state that Donald Trump expects to carry in a comeback bid for president that he has a good chance to lose to Democrat Kamala Harris at the polls on Tuesday.
On the eve of the 2024 general election, the Capitol Inside crystal ball sees another Texas victory in the making for the former president in his quest for the state's 40 Electoral College votes. Trump ended his third White House campaign with a 7-point lead in the polling on the electorate in the nation's second largest state. But after winning Texas by less than 6 percentage points in 2020, Trump could be on track to defeat Harris here by 3 points as a consequence of factors that the pollsters cannot measure like the potential for a flood of new female voters who plan to back the vice-president but don't show up in the polls.
The forecast here has Democrat Colin Allred ousting U.S. Senator Ted Cruz in a photo finish for the second race on the Texas ballot. Conventional wisdom in Austin has the incumbent Republican winning a battle that had a price tag topping $165 million combined for the major party contenders going into the final weeks before the vote. Cruz led Allred in the independent polls by 3 points on average during the past three weeks. But Cruz was up on Democrat Beto O'Rourke by 7 points before the incumbent won by less than 3 in the 2018 election in a development that gave down-ballot Democrats a substantial lift.
Cruz has hammered Allred in the campaign's closing days for supporting for legislation that allows biological males to compete in girls sports after transitioning to female. But Allred has had a far more compelling issue down the stretch with attempts to tie the Texas abortion ban to Cruz by virtue of his rhetoric and close associations with GOP leaders and lawmakers who conceived it. The Texas abortion ban has given the Democrats from Washington D.C. to Austin their most potent weapon ever to use against Republicans.
With Trump and Cruz as potential baggage like they've been in the past here, the crystal ball projects a net gain of four seats for the Democrats in the Texas House of Representatives at the polls on Tuesday. The forecast here had the Democrats picking up two state House seats before doubling down with the final prediction on the eve of the vote. The Republicans could break even in races for the Legislature's lower chamber in the best case scenario for the GOP. The Democrats could pick up 7 House seats in the most optimistic scenario for them.
Democrats would take the state House back with a net gain of 12 seats - the number they flipped the last time Cruz was on the ballot six years ago. But the 2021 redistricting process left little low-hanging fruit amid a push to eliminate swing districts on the legislative and congressional maps in Texas.
The outlook here has the major parties breaking even in races for the Texas Senate and Congress. Republicans are the favorite in all of six statewide races for seats on the Texas Supreme Court and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.
Here are the seven hottest Texas races on the eve of Tuesday's general election:
U.S. Senate
Ted Cruz (R-Inc) vs. 
Colin Allred (D)
U.S. Senator Ted Cruz has led congressional Democrat Colin Allred by 3 percentage points on average in the past month in the polling on the number two race on Tuesday's general election ballot. But Cruz was up on Beto O'Rourke by 7 points in the polls on the U.S. Senate battle that the incumbent won by less than 3 points in 2018. That means that Allred would be poised for a historic victory at the finish line if Cruz underperforms at the ballot box this week as much as he did in his last re-election bid.
Cruz and O'Rourke have raised $85 million and $79 million respectively for the race - according to the Federal Election Commission and OpenSecrets.org. The incumbent reported a cash balance of $9.6 million on September 16 when Allred had $2.5 million in the campaign bank. But Allred has raised substantially more than the Republican since he entered the fray in the spring of 2023.
Cruz ended his campaign on Monday with claims that Allred supports the participation of transgender females in girls sports.
Allred countered on the final day before the vote with a focus on Cruz's support for the state abortion ban and a growing number of women who've died or suffered unnecessarily as a direct result of it.
The abortion ban has been the Democrats' most potent weapon up and down the ballot - and
it could trigger a flood of crossover votes and new women voters into Allred's column that the polls failed to detect.
Politico had Cruz in the 9th spot on Sunday in the rankings on the most vulnerable Senate members in 2024.
Capitol Inside has the U.S. Senate fight in Texas ranked as a toss up on the eve of the election. The prevailing sentiment in the statehouse beltway is that Cruz will survive the challenge from an opponent who's played up his past as a former linebacker in the National Football League. But we're going out on a limb again with Allred in the winner's circle on Tuesday night in a race that goes to the wire.
Projected winner: Allred
Safest Bet: Cruz
Rating: Toss Up
Senate District 27
Adam Hinojosa (R) vs. Morgan LaMantia (D)
Democratic State Senator Morgan LaMantia of Brownsville beat GOP foe Adam Hinojosa by less than half of 1 point with 50.2 percent of the general election vote in 2022 in Senate District 27 - a swath of South Texas that Republicans in Austin drew for the GOP to take over in the gerrymandering effort the previous year.
But LaMantia emerged as the ideal candidate for the Democrats as the product of a wealthy family that's been a major political force in the region for the past two decades or more. The LaMantia name carries more weight in the district that she's attempting to defend in a rematch with Hinojosa than all of the heavy-hitter Republicans like Governor Greg Abbott and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick combined.
Abbott campaigned for Hinojosa on Monday at stops in Corpus Christi and Harlingen that featured GOP House nominees Denise Villalobos of CC and State Rep. Janie Lopez of San Benito. Patrick has been touting Hinojosa as well in an attempt to convert SD 27 Republican. But LaMantia has had a massive fundraising advantage thanks to loans in the $11 million vicinity from family members.
Democrat Beto O'Rourke beat Abbott by 0.6 points in SD 27 in 2022. Joe Biden defeated Trump there by nearly 5 points in 2020 after O'Rourke clobbered Cruz in SD 27 by 17 points in 2018. While Patrick actually won by 2 points in SD 27 two years ago, GOP Attorney General Ken Paxton lost to a Democratic challenger there by 2 points that year.
Projected winner: LaMantia
Safest Bet: LaMantia
Rating: Leans Democrat
House District 118
John Lujan (R-Inc) vs. Kristian Carranza (D)
San
Antonio Democrat Kristian Carranza is the betting favorite against GOP State Rep. John Lujan in the district that the minority party has the best shot to flip on the Texas House battlefield in 2024. Democrats picked up the HD 118 seat in 2018 when Donald Trump was president and U.S. Senator Ted Cruz came close to losing to Democrat Beto O';Rourke in the top race on the ballot.
O'Rourke beat Cruz by 5 points in 2018 in HD 118 before defeating Governor Greg Abbott there by 2 points in the top statewide contest in 2022. President Joe Biden beat Donald Trump by 2 points in HD 118 in 2020. Carranza has had the fundraising edge - a rarity for Democrats in the hottest House races this year - with a total haul of $2.4 million in the current cycle. But Lujan has closed the gap by adding $260,000 to his war chest in the past week after raising almost $2.1 million before the campaign headed into the final week.
The Texans for Lawsuit Reform PAC contributed $200,000 to Lujan in the past few days when he also reported $25,000 from the spinoff Texans for Responsible Government PAC and Dealon LLC - an Amarillo company that's run by the father of GOP House nominee Caroline Fairly. Carranza has countered down the stretch with an extensive block-walking effort that features former gubernatorial nominees Beto O'Rourke and Wendy Davis, State Senator Roland Gutierrez, State Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer and others.
Projected winner: Carranza
Safest Bet: Carranza
Rating: Leans Democrat
House District 37
Janie Lopez (R-Inc) vs. Jonathan Gracia (D)
Rookie Republican State Rep. Janie Lopez of San Benito capitalized on an epic gerrymandering push in Austin to win the HD 37 seat in a district on the border that had been a Democratic stronghold before redistricting in 2021. Lopez raised four times more cash than Democratic opponent Jonathan Gracia of Harlingen with more than $2.1 million in total fundraising for the cycle up until the final week before the vote.
Lopez was a beneficiary of a Donald Trump supporter surge in Texas border areas before the 2020 election. Now she will be hoping that Donald Trump didn't ruin her re-election odds with a racist rally in New York City a week ago where the ex-president and his supporters portrayed Puerto Ricans as trash. But the voting age population in HD 37 is more than 81 percent Hispanic. Governor Greg Abbott beat Beto O'Rourke in 2022 in HD 37 by 3.4 percentage points. Lopez won that year by 3.7 points in an impressive debut. But Biden and O'Rourke defeated U.S. Senator Ted Cruz there by more than 8 points in 2018 before President Joe Biden topped Trump by 2 points two years ago in the district at the southern tip of Texas.
The Republicans in Austin are seriously concerned about Lopez based on a flurry of contributions to her campaign from business and casino gambling interests in particular in the past week. With Trump and Cruz leading the GOP ticket on Tuesday's general election ballot, Lopez has to hope that they aren't the kind of baggage that puts the Democratic challenger over the top at the end.
Projected winner: Gracia
Safest Bet: Lopez
Rating: Toss Up
House District 112
Angie Chen Button (R-Inc) vs. Averie Bishop (D)
State Rep. Angie Chen Button of Garland is a highly-respected lawmaker who's chaired three different Texas House committees under three separate GOP speakers including the chamber's current chief Dade Phelan. Button has been even better as a candidate who'd seemed to perfect the art of survival in a district that the Democrats came scary close to winning in two elections before Republicans redrew the House map in 2021. Button is loaded after raising $1.6 million in a month before the closing week in a haul that pushed her total for the cycle beyond $2.7 million for a race that featured a primary challenger who wasn't competitive.
There's a last time for everything - however - and Tuesday's general election could be Button's swan song with Democrat Averie Bishop of Richardson as the incumbent's first serious test in a Dallas County district that Kamala Harris will expect to carry after Donald Trump prevailed there by one-half of 1 percent in 2020. Bishop made history as the first Asian-American contestant to be crowned Miss Texas.
HD 112 is a classic melting pot that was 30 percent Hispanic, 26 percent Black and 30 percent White when the census was taken in 2020. The HD 112 population was 13 percent Asian at the time. Button was born in Taiwan. Bishop's mother immigrated to the U.S. from the Philipines. Bishop was born and raised in the Collin County suburbs on the north edge of Dallas. But she has a chance to break Button's lock on Asian voters who go to the polls in big numbers - and that could be the turning point in the race. Bishop could close the deal if some Latinos who've backed Button in the past are alienated by the Trump campaign's trashing of Puerto Rico and an assortment of other stunning missteps in the days before the vote.
Projected winner: Bishop
Safest Bet: Button
Rating: Toss Up
House District 121
Marc LaHood (R) vs. Laurel Swift (D)
Democrat Laurel Swift appears to have a better shot with Marc LaHood as a GOP foe in House District 121 on the north side of San Antonio than she might have expected if the Republican hadn't unseated State Rep. Steve Allison in the March primary vote. As a candidate who's run hard to the right, LaHood is hardly the ideal contender for the majority party in a district that's elected moderates like Joe Straus and Elizabeth Ames Jones in the past.
LaHood - a criminal attorney - has a decided edge in the cash chase after rounding up more than $3 million including nearly $1.2 million in the past month. But Swift has raised almost $800,000 for her campaign - and that's a sufficient amount to be competitive enough to win in a state House district where the kind of money that LaHood has reported has diminishing value.
U.S. Senator Ted Cruz beat Democrat Beto O'Rourke in HD 121 by 5 points in 2018. But after Donald Trump defeated Joe Biden there by 2 points in 2020, Governor Greg Abbott won by less than 4 points in a fight with O'Rourke in HD 121 in 2022. The Capitol Inside forecast has wavered on the race - with Swift as the pick here late last week before switching to LaHood on Sunday. The projection here is back to Swift in one of the four House races that are rated as coin flips in the countdown to Tuesday's vote.
Projected winner: Swift
Safest Bet: LaHood
Rating: Toss Up
House District 80
Don McLaughlin (R) vs. Cecilia Castellano (D)
House District 80 on the border with Mexico could be the GOP's only real chance to flip a seat that Democrats control to red in Tuesday's election. Governor Greg Abbott beat Beto O'Rourke by 6 points in HD 80 in 2022 after Donald Trump won there by 4 points two years before in a losing race for re-election as president. But O'Rourke crushed Cruz in HD 80 in 2018 before Trump's support in heavily-Democratic border areas began to soar in the failed 2020 bid.
Capitol Inside has fluctuated on HD 80 as well as time ticks away on the 2024 campaigns. A McLaughlin win could make it possible for the Republicans to break even on the House battlefield where a loss in the aforementioned HD 118 in the Alamo City may be a given. But the Republicans appear to be throwing money in the wind with bids aimed at wrestling other House seats from Democrats in neighboring HD 74 on the Rio Grande to Corpus Christi to Collin County.
Projected winner: Castellano
Safest Bet: Neither
Rating: Toss Up
