TEXAS OBSERVER by Gus Bova 1/6/2026
Much like how a sailor, lost and withering at sea, at least gets the chance to see the world, Texas’ ailing Democrats will get the chance this year to recreate some of the magic of the 2018 midterms.
You know the drill: Donald Trump’s in the second year of a presidential stint, and his megalomaniacal unsuitability for public service is catching up with him. Off-year elections in Virginia and New Jersey have given Dems new reason to believe. Congressional Republicans are heading for the exits in telling numbers, while the possibility of a weak GOP candidate in Texas for U.S. Senate looms. This go-round, there’s no real chance of the suite of downballot flips that occurred eight years ago, when that decade’s electoral maps had overripened; still, it’s time now to take out your color wheel and start studying the liminal shades of what constitutes “blue,” plus your lidar scanner (what do you mean you don’t have one?) to start distinguishing calm waters, ripples, and waves.
Paying casual attention, you might not feel Texas Democrats are fielding the A-team that this moment calls for. By this time in that long-lost cycle when Senator Ted Cruz was so nearly ousted, El Paso Congressman Beto O’Rourke had already been running without real primary competition for the better part of a year. In contrast, this year’s marquee Dem nomination process has been slow and fitful. That fact, however, belies the comparative strength of the slate that’s likely to solidify in the coming months.
At least on paper, the 2026 Democratic nominees for the top four races (senator, governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general) are almost sure to be the most formidable class in recent memory. In 2018, only two of the four already held elected office, one at the county level. From 2020 through 2024, the only top-level nominee who did so was Colin Allred in ’24, then a congressman dragging a low-energy campaign against Cruz to a 9-point defeat. In lieu of seasoned politicians, Texans during these years were invited to put their faith in: a mild-mannered accountant, a self-assessed “ass-kicking, motorcycle-riding, tattooed Democrat,” a burned-out presidential hopeful, and a mild-mannered accountant yet again, among a couple others.
This November, Democrats may well put sitting legislators on the ballot in all four of the top slots. By this simple but meaningful metric, the slate should be stronger even than 2014’s relatively heralded lineup (which featured two state senators, Wendy Davis and Leticia Van de Putte, and a guy named Sam Houston). Of course, that ’14 team ended in ashes and grief; holding elected office is no guarantee against getting walloped. But it’s encouraging to see people who’ve won something before, and have something to lose, taking the plunge.
More:
https://www.texasobserver.org/texas-democrats-slate-2026-midterms/
