Texas Democrats target five Tarrant County seats to flip state House blue in 2020
Texas Democrats are eyeing 22 Texas House seats that they hope to flip, and five of them are in Tarrant County.
The Texas Democratic Party and House Democratic Campaign Committee released their initial target list Monday, focusing on Republican-held seats that were won by less than 10 points in 2018.
With the 2020 election 10 months away, Democrats are gearing up through voter registration initiatives and candidate support in an effort to seize the Texas House from Republican control for the first time in nearly two decades. They’re effectively nine seats away, and the stakes are high with the party in power having a greater say over redistricting in 2021, the process by which congressional and state districts are drawn.
In Tarrant County, House Districts 92, 93, 94, 96 and 97 are being targeted — the same five seats that local Democrats have focused on flipping as well. Those districts are represented by Republican Reps. Matt Krause of Fort Worth, Tony Tinderholt of Arlington, Craig Goldman of Fort Worth and outgoing Reps. Jonathan Stickland of Bedford and Bill Zedler of Arlington.
Democrats point to Tarrant County’s changing demographics as a shift that they believe will work in their favor, stressing the narrow margins incumbents won by in 2018.
“Our candidates stand in stark contrast to House Republicans who are profoundly out of touch with their rapidly diversifying districts. Republicans see the same data we do. That’s why five Republicans in targeted seats have already decided to retire instead of facing defeat in November,” Andrew Reagan, HDCC’s executive director said in a statement.
According to U.S. Census Bureau estimates, most of Tarrant County’s growth is due to an increase in minority populations, especially in the Hispanic community.
With the influx of new residents and some of the incumbents’ ties to the House Freedom Caucus, Allison Campolo, the president of Tarrant Together, a group that aims to flip the county blue, said all these factors will play a role in the 2020 election.
“These five House seats are pretty well within the realm of flippable, so it makes a lot of sense that the Democratic Party lists those,” Campolo said.
While slim margins of victory were a wake up call in 2018, those seats aren’t the “low-hanging fruit” Democrats are casting them as, said Rick Barnes, the chairman of the Tarrant County Republican Party.
“We’ve worked hard in those districts, but we also know the candidates are working harder in those districts than maybe they have in the past,” Barnes said.
It remains to be seen which direction Tarrant County will sway in the 2020 election, after House Democrats gained 12 seats and Tarrant County went blue for Beto O’Rourke over Ted Cruz in the race for U.S. Senate in 2018.
One of the first steps will be the March 3rd primary election. Early voting begins Feb. 28, and the deadline to register to vote is Feb. 3.
This story was originally published January 27, 2020 at 11:53 AM.
