Analysis: Political climate changes in Texas congressional districts

Author: Ross Ramsey / Source: The Texas Tribune

^{Editor’s note: If you’d like an email notice whenever we publish Ross Ramsey’s column, click here.}

When political consultants were scouring the state’s 2016 election results two years ago, they found three Texas congressional districts where voters had kept Republican incumbents in office while also favoring Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump.

Those districts became targets, and two of those three incumbents are no longer in Congress.

Now there are new results to pore over, courtesy of the Texas Legislative Council, and a new list of possible targets for the next election. Unlike two years ago, not all of the imperiled incumbents are Republicans; there are also a couple of Democrats in the congressional delegation in seats where the other party could prevail under the right circumstances.

Three Republican members of the delegation — U.S. Reps. Michael McCaul of Austin, Will Hurd of Helotes and Kenny Marchant of Coppell — won in districts where U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz lost to Beto O’Rourke (though Cruz won statewide). Six more Republicans — U.S. Reps. Dan Crenshaw of Houston, Van Taylor of Plano, Ron Wright of Arlington, Chip Roy of Austin, Pete Olson of Sugar Land and John Carter of Georgetown — represent districts where Cruz won.

The good news for some of those officials is that while Cruz was having a hard time in their districts, statewide Republican candidates were, on average, winning. On the…

Click here to read more