Joe Holley is based in Austin and writes about Texas politics.
On the outskirts of Fredericksburg, a Texas Hill Country town whose German heritage lures fans of tidy historic homes and tasty strudel, a battered delivery truck sits beside the highway from Austin. On the driver’s side of the vehicle is a large sign in faded black letters. Barely legible, it reads, “Donald Trump: Promises Made. Promises Kept.”
Come Nov. 3, the medium — in this case, an old truck — may be the message, not the words on the sign. The president’s overwhelming influence just might be fading, not necessarily in MAGA-fervid Fredericksburg but among voters statewide. The most obvious indication is the high-profile U.S. Senate race, where in some polls Trump’s handpicked choice, scandal-plagued Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, has trailed his Democratic challenger, state House member and aspiring pastor James Talarico.
Even more unexpected, though getting much less attention, are two other top-of-the-ticket contests. In the governor’s race, Republican Greg Abbott, vying for a record-setting fourth term, held a one-point lead in a July poll over his Democratic challenger, a little-known state House member from Austin named Gina Hinojosa. Other polls have had Abbott leading by four to six points. To put this into perspective, among his six consecutive statewide victories as attorney general and governor, Abbott has won races by 20, 22 and 30 percentage points. He began July with a $67 million campaign war chest. Hinojosa had $3 million.
The lieutenant governor’s race may be more surprising. A poll conducted in late July showed Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, arguably the most powerful politician in Texas, trailing his Democratic challenger by two points. That would be Vikki Goodwin, a veteran House member from Austin.
Talarico, with plenty of campaign donations, has made a name for himself across the country. But ask Texans if they’ve heard of Goodwin, a real estate agent, and the response is likely to be a blank stare.
So what’s happening in a state where Democrats have wandered in the political wilderness for more than three decades, a state that hasn’t sent a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1988, where a Democrat has not occupied the Governor’s Mansion since Ann Richards left office on Jan. 17, 1995?
On Thursday, the Cook Political Report moved the Senate race from “Lean Republican” to “Toss Up.” In the governor’s race, Cook has moved in Hinojosa’s direction, from “Solid Republican” to “Likely Republican.”
For long-suffering Democrats, even the most measured prediction of electoral success brings on a case of the willies. Texas Democrats resemble a struggling baseball team whose pitcher is working on a no-hitter. They have been disappointed too many times — the most painful example being Beto O’Rourke’s narrow loss to Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018 — so it’s best not to mention what may be unfolding.
None other than the lieutenant governor saw looming danger. Patrick tried to warn Republicans last spring after Paxton, in a bitter Senate primary, forced four-term Sen. John Cornyn into a runoff. A feuding party, he warned, could result not only in a loss of the Senate seat but downballot defeats as well.
Republican primary voters didn’t listen. After Trump’s late endorsement of Paxton, they awarded the divisive attorney general 64 percent of the vote, compared with Cornyn’s humiliating 36 percent.
Most political observers regarded Patrick’s warning as little more than rally-the-troops campaign hyperbole. Richard Murray, a political scientist affiliated with the University of Houston’s Hobby School of Public Affairs, took him seriously. An expert on polling and demographics, he anticipates a Democratic “wave of some proportion” in November.
“The thing about a wave,” Murray said, “is that voters don’t distinguish between candidates.”
In other words, voters are not all that concerned that Hinojosa is not that well known beyond Austin. A Rio Grande Valley native and a former Austin school board member, she has served in the Texas House since 2017 and is among the chamber’s more progressive Democrats.
“Hinojosa has a demographic advantage — a woman and a Latina — which primes two electorates Dems need to win statewide,” University of Houston political scientist Brandon Rottinghaus said.
“The real issue,” he added, “is that Abbott is vulnerable. Polls show Texans think the state is on the wrong track.”
Beyond the MAGA base, Texas voters seem unsettled. Businesses have been buffeted by Trump’s tariff whims. Gas and grocery prices remain high. And thanks to an unpopular war of choice in Iran, farmers and ranchers are contending with higher feed, fertilizer and fuel costs.
Perhaps the major difference between 2024 and 2026 is what appears to be a sharp decline in Hispanic support for Republicans. After a shocking swing toward Trump two years ago, polls show increasing voter remorse. The Trump administration’s mass deportation obsession, and the deadly havoc caused by masked immigration agents in Texas and elsewhere — as well as high prices and economic uncertainty — have combined to raise doubts about whether Trump’s dramatic gain among Hispanic voters will endure.
Russ Tidwell, a political consultant and former Democratic Texas House member, noted a more subtle shift. He pointed out the high number of new residents Texas attracts annually. “They’re not coming from Mississippi,” he joked.
The newcomers are not necessarily all Democrats, but many aren’t reliably Republican either. They may not know much about the cultural issues that have motivated Texas conservative voters long before MAGA. They’re probably not all that familiar with Abbott’s anti-Muslim fixation or his zeal for school vouchers. They may not know that Patrick finally succeeded during the most recent legislative session in his mission to require public schools to post the Ten Commandments.
As Tidwell sees it, the changing demographics of his home state, particularly in the so-called Texas Triangle (Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin-San Antonio and Houston), resemble what has happened in Georgia, Arizona and Virginia. Each of these previously solid-red states now has two Democratic senators because of dramatic growth around Atlanta, Phoenix and the Northern Virginia suburbs.
Tidwell fondly recalled 1982, when his fellow Dems dominated statewide elections, and he’s well aware of positive omens this time, but like most Texas Democrats, he won’t breathe easy until that old truck in Fredericksburg gets hauled off to the metaphoric junkyard.
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