“Don’t mess with Texas”: visitors to the second biggest US state have no doubt seen this phrase on everything from T-shirts to belt buckles.
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Politically, it has become the unofficial slogan of conservatives whose message is two-fold: Texas is a class of its own — the only state that was an independent republic before joining the United States — and it is solid Republican territory.
The multi-million-dollar question that pundits in Austin and Washington are asking is whether this will end in this year’s midterm elections.
After scoring a sensational win in a state Senate special election in late January, Democrats are brimming with excitement.
Driven by US President Donald Trump’s growing unpopularity, they believe they have a shot at cracking historic Republican dominance and winning what Time Magazine has called “the wildest Senate race in the country.”
“A Democratic victory in Texas in November would be an earth-shattering event that would signal a massive shift of political power and mean a major step towards Democrats controlling the US Senate,” Mark Jones, political scientist at Rice University in Houston Mark Jones told Euronews.
“It would end the longest losing streak anywhere in the country for Democrats,” added Jones, whose research focuses on electoral laws and voting patterns.
The longest losing streak, indeed. The last time a Democrat won a presidential election in Texas was Jimmy Carter in 1976, and the last statewide office a Democrat won was in 1994.
What gives Democrats hope is not just that they flipped a state Senate seat in the latest special election in Texas, but also the sheer size of their victory.
This was a district that Trump won by more than 17 points two years ago, and that the Republican candidate lost by 14 points – an eye-popping swing of more than 30 points towards the Democrats.
“This was remarkable and highly unusual,” said Cal Jillson, who wrote nine books on US and Texas politics and teaches at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
“There was a massive shift of disaffected Republicans and independents who voted for the Democratic candidate,” Jillson added.
“People are no longer excited about Trump, which should be a warning sign for Republicans across the country.”
This is setting the stage for a potentially epic and, with a price tag of more than $300 million, most expensive Senate race in Texas history.
The money surge is being driven largely by Republicans in an unusually competitive and nasty matchup.
In the 3 March primary, long-time incumbent Senator John Cornyn, who is seeking a fifth consecutive term, is facing the toughest reelection campaign of his career, challenged by MAGA hothead Attorney General Ken Paxton and US Representative Wesley Hunt of Houston, another right winger.
Texas is one of a handful of states that require a candidate to get a majority of the votes in a primary to advance to the general election, not just a plurality.
This means a candidate must get 50% plus one vote to win an election, otherwise the top two vote-getters in each primary advance to a runoff.
Latest polling from the University of Houston suggests the Republican race could head to a runoff in May between Paxton (38%) and Cornyn (31%).
Such an outcome would delight state Democrats, as the controversial Paxton is considered an easier target in the general election.
Sounding the alarm, top Republican senators in Washington are trying a last-ditch push to get Trump to endorse Cornyn to keep the Texas seat safely in Republican hands.
But Trump, who normally relishes being the kingmaker among Republican candidates, has been ominously silent so far.
“I don’t expect him to weigh in,” said Bill Miller, an Austin-based political consultant who has worked with both Republicans and Democrats.
“He’s very close to Ken Paxton, and John Cornyn is a sitting senator and has professed his love for Trump now. Trump’s getting the best of all possible worlds.”
Fearing for their majority, Republicans in the Senate beg to differ.
“It’s a very difficult race, and one that’s going to be a lot more expensive to hold the seat,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune told CNN about the impact of Trump remaining neutral.
Asked why Trump is ignoring the pleas, Thune said: “I’m probably not the right person to answer that question.”
Polls suggest that if Paxton beats Cornyn in the primary, it could open the door to another stunning Democratic victory.
If Democrats nominate the right candidate, that is.
The prospect of a Paxton candidacy has galvanised Democrats, but they are facing a tough primary choice between two rising stars who represent two opposite strategies for the future direction of the party.
On one side is US Representative Yasmine Crockett, a left-wing firebrand who has made a name in Washington as a make-no-prisoners nemesis of the Trump administration.
On the other is James Talarico, a moderate Texas state representative and Presbyterian seminarian whose faith-based approach to politics has brought him the support of the largest Latino group – not a small feat in Texas.
Republicans fear Talarico the most because he is more culturally attuned to the conservative state. Crockett may be entertaining, but she’d be the weaker candidate, Professor Jillson said citing polling of possible match-ups.
Yet, the Democrats winning the Texas Senate race is still a long shot.
“But the simple fact that we’re talking about the possibility tells you a lot about how things have been moving in Democrats’ direction,” Jillson said.
Whereas a possible Democratic takeover of the Senate, where Republicans currently hold a 53-47 majority, was on nobody’s radar just a few months ago, Democratic control of the House of Representatives is now almost a foregone conclusion.
Or can it still go wrong?
“Democrats still have a lot of homework to do and tell voters what exactly their party stands for,” Jackson Janes, resident senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Washington, told Euronews.
“If they still make it all about Trump, they will lose in ’26 and they will lose in ’28,” he added.
“Trump is no longer on the ballot and Democrats have a big opportunity to fill the vacuum with a positive message. If they don’t do that, they might blow it.”
The good news for Democrats is that history is on their side.
“One of the ‘laws’ of American politics is that midterm House elections rarely deliver good news to the president’s party,” writes James Lindsay, senior fellow at the US-based Council on Foreign Relations.
“The midterms in many ways function as a referendum on how presidents are doing, and voters are tough graders,” Lindsay pointed out in a research paper.
In the last five midterm elections, the president’s party has lost an average of 31 House seats — as of this article’s publication, the Republicans hold a 218-214 lead with three vacancies.
Sensing an electoral rout, Trump has pushed Republicans in solid red states to redraw district lines to create more Republican-leaning districts – and that push started in Texas.
The result has been the creation of five districts expected to swing from Democrats to Republicans.
But this only triggered a backlash from California, where voters in a referendum approved a Democrat-led redistricting that would net the party also five potential new seats.
An obvious risk with such partisan manipulation is that it may backfire.
The redistricting rests on the assumption that the party can shift enough of its voters to change the outcome in a new district without jeopardising its chances of winning in the old district, according to Lindsay.
If voter preferences change, as in the Texas state Senate race, redistricting may inadvertently put a once-solid seat for either party into play. And that can result in a classic political own goal.
