For most of the modern presidential era, Republicans have been able to treat Texas as money in the bank. That assumption suddenly looks less comfortable after the 2026 midterms.
Democrats broke a three-decade drought in statewide elections, winning the governor’s race, the U.S. Senate race and a long list of other statewide offices. James Talarico defeated Ken Paxton by roughly 12 points, while Gina Hinojosa defeated three-term Gov. Greg Abbott by about seven. The results were broad enough that Texas Democrats are already talking about the state as a genuine presidential battleground in 2028.
That would be an enormous change. Texas has 40 electoral votes, second only to California, and Republicans have carried the state in every presidential election since 1980. Without those 40 votes, the familiar Republican path to 270 becomes much more difficult.
But there is an equally important reason not to get carried away. A midterm election is not a presidential election, and the electorate that turned Texas blue in 2026 was substantially smaller and politically different from the one that gave Donald Trump a decisive victory just two years earlier.
2024 and 2026 Were Very Different Electorates
Texas cast 11,388,674 ballots in the 2024 presidential election, representing 61.2% of registered voters. Trump won 56.1% of the vote to Kamala Harris’ 42.5%, a margin of nearly 1.56 million votes. Those were not swing-state numbers. Trump carried Texas by almost 14 points and received all 40 of its electoral votes. The state turnout data provides the official historical comparison. Two years later, roughly 9.8 million Texans voted in the midterms. The state had actually added more than 400,000 registered voters since 2024, but overall participation fell to about 51.6%. In raw terms, roughly 1.6 million fewer Texans voted than in the presidential election.
That distinction matters enormously when thinking about 2028. Presidential elections bring millions of voters back into the electorate, including many lower-propensity voters who do not participate in midterms. There is no guarantee that the 2026 coalition reproduces itself when turnout rises again. Still, the turnout pattern underneath the statewide number is what should concern Republicans. According to a Tribune analysis, turnout increased most sharply in large urban counties, fast-growing suburbs and counties along the Mexican border compared with the previous midterm. Rural turnout grew much more slowly.
That gave Democrats an electorate that looked very different from 2024, when Republican participation was considerably stronger relative to Democrats. The question for 2028 is whether that was a temporary enthusiasm gap or the beginning of a more durable shift.
The Border Counties Swung Back Hard
Perhaps the biggest warning sign for Republicans came from South Texas, where Trump had made some of his most impressive gains in 2024.
Trump carried several heavily Hispanic border counties that had once been reliably Democratic, helping fuel the argument that South Texas was undergoing a longer-term Republican realignment. In 2026, much of that movement reversed. Starr, Zapata, Maverick, Hidalgo and Webb counties each shifted more than 38 points toward Democrats compared with the 2024 presidential margin, according to the Texas Tribune.
Turnout along the border also increased by more than eight percentage points compared with the 2022 midterms, the largest increase of any region in Texas. That was not simply a case of Democrats winning back voters who stayed home. Many areas that had moved strongly toward Trump two years earlier showed a substantial swing in the opposite direction.
National data pointed the same way. Hispanic voters moved back toward Democrats across the country in 2026, reversing part of Trump’s 2024 gains. In Texas, roughly seven in ten Hispanic voters backed Talarico in the Senate contest, according to AP analysis.
Whether that persists is one of the biggest questions hanging over 2028. Texas Republicans do not necessarily need to dominate Hispanic voters, but they cannot afford to lose much of the ground Trump gained while simultaneously slipping in the suburbs.
The Suburbs Are Still Moving
Texas Democrats have spent years waiting for growth in the state’s major metropolitan areas to change statewide politics. That prediction became something of a running joke as Republicans continued winning election after election, but the underlying suburban movement never completely stopped.
Collin, Denton and Fort Bend counties all posted significant turnout increases in 2026 compared with the previous midterm. Those fast-growing suburbs contain precisely the college-educated, professional and independent voters who have become less reliably Republican during the Trump era.
In 2024, Trump still won Collin County by about 11 points and Denton County by roughly 13, while Harris narrowly carried Fort Bend. A presidential Republican can certainly rebuild those margins in 2028, but allowing Democrats to continue improving around Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio makes the statewide math considerably less forgiving.
Democrats do not need to win rural Texas. They need enormous margins in the large cities, continued improvement in the suburbs and enough votes along the border and in smaller communities to prevent Republicans from running up overwhelming margins elsewhere. In 2026, that formula worked.
Paxton Was a Weak Candidate. Abbott Wasn’t as Much
Republicans have an obvious reason to resist treating the Senate result as proof Texas has permanently changed: Ken Paxton was an unusually polarizing nominee.
Paxton entered the general election with years of legal controversies, an impeachment trial and a bitter Republican primary behind him. Talarico also proved to be an exceptionally strong fundraiser and candidate, while outside groups spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to rescue the Republican seat. Texas Tribune reported that the race ultimately became the most expensive nonpresidential contest on record.
If Paxton had been the only Republican to lose, Republicans could plausibly write 2026 off as a candidate problem. Greg Abbott makes that argument much harder.
Abbott had won three elections for governor, maintained a massive fundraising operation and had spent more than a decade building a national profile on immigration, taxes and conservative governance. Hinojosa still defeated him 52.8% to 45.7%, a swing of more than 20 points from Trump’s 2024 statewide margin. The latest AP results show the scale of the shift.
Democrats also won other statewide offices and judicial contests, which makes it difficult to reduce the election to one unusually weak Republican nominee. Whatever happened in Texas in 2026 was considerably broader than Ken Paxton. Still, Abbott seemed to overstay his welcome in some respects.
That Still Doesn’t Make Texas a Blue State
Midterms have a long history of producing dramatic results that look much less dramatic two years later. The party out of power is usually more motivated, presidential electorates are larger, and individual candidates matter more when the White House itself is at stake.
Texas provides a particularly good reason for caution. About 1.6 million more people voted in 2024 than in 2026. If those additional voters return in 2028 and resemble the electorate that gave Trump a 14-point victory, Republicans would begin with a substantial reservoir of votes that simply was not present in the same numbers during the midterms.
Republicans also have two years to respond. Karl Rove, who helped build the modern Republican dominance of Texas, told the Texas Tribune that the real question is whether the state GOP “gets its act together” before 2028. Republicans can nominate different candidates, rebuild turnout operations and adjust their message after seeing exactly where the 2026 coalition broke down.
Democrats, meanwhile, now have to govern. Hinojosa and the incoming statewide officials will spend two years making decisions that can either strengthen the coalition that elected them or give Republicans an opening to win back voters who crossed over in 2026.
Democrats Don’t Have to Win Texas for It to Hurt Republicans
This may be the most important point for 2028. Texas does not actually have to vote Democratic to become a major Republican headache.
For decades, presidential campaigns could essentially remove Texas from the list of competitive states before the general election began. Neither party needed to spend heavily there. Republicans collected the electoral votes, while Democrats held fundraisers in Dallas, Houston and Austin and spent their campaign money elsewhere.
If Texas becomes close enough that Republicans have to defend it, that changes the national map before a single electoral vote flips. Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio and Austin are extraordinarily expensive media markets, and Texas is geographically enormous. A Republican presidential campaign forced to spend tens of millions of dollars defending Texas has less money available for Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin and North Carolina.
The same calculation applies to Democrats. Competing seriously in Texas is expensive, and every dollar spent trying to win 40 electoral votes is a dollar that cannot be spent protecting a smaller battleground. Democrats will need more evidence than one favorable midterm before deciding Texas deserves presidential-level resources.
Texas Is No Longer Easy to Ignore
Calling Texas “lost” for Republicans after one midterm would go much too far. Trump carried it comfortably only two years ago, presidential turnout will be substantially larger and Republicans remain deeply rooted throughout much of the state.
But treating the 2026 result as meaningless would be just as shortsighted. Democrats did not merely win one close race. They defeated an incumbent Republican governor, flipped a Senate seat, swept statewide offices and made their largest gains in some of the same Hispanic and suburban communities Republicans had been counting on for future growth.
The practical conclusion heading into 2028 is that Texas has moved from a state presidential campaigns could safely ignore to one both parties will have to watch closely. Whether Democrats can actually turn 40 electoral votes blue will depend on candidates, turnout and two years of governing that have not happened yet.
Republicans may ultimately recover and carry Texas again. But after 2026, they can no longer assume the state will take care of itself.
Follow the developing electoral map, candidates, polling and campaign news on our 2028 Presidential Election coverage page.