Texas has been a Republican stronghold for decades, providing the GOP with its largest batch of electoral votes and supporting President Trump in each of the past three presidential elections. The growth in the state’s Hispanic population during the past two decades has raised hopes among Democrats, but those demographic shifts have done little to change the balance of power. Earlier organizing efforts by Democrats, such as through a group called Battleground Texas, have failed to yield significant results.
Democrats haven’t won a statewide election since 1994, and Trump generated his largest margin of victory in Texas last year, defeating former Vice President Kamala Harris by nearly 14 percentage points. Republicans have won every presidential election in Texas since 1980, and the last Democratic U.S. senator to win an election in the state was Lloyd Bentsen in 1988.