Let's try in Texas

Democrats are launching a multimillion-dollar effort, helped by megadonor George Soros, to turn Texas into a political battleground after suffering through decades of electoral losses in the nation’s second-largest state.

Texas Majority PAC, a Soros-funded PAC, launched a “Blue Texas” initiative Monday along with the Texas Democratic Party and a group of county parties, aiming to organize tens of thousands of volunteers, recruit candidates and boost turnout ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

Texas has been a Republican stronghold for decades, providing the GOP with its largest batch of electoral votes and supporting President Trump in each of the past three presidential elections. The growth in the state’s Hispanic population during the past two decades has raised hopes among Democrats, but those demographic shifts have done little to change the balance of power. Earlier organizing efforts by Democrats, such as through a group called Battleground Texas, have failed to yield significant results.

The Blue Texas project will work with state and county parties to recruit candidates and sign up volunteers, starting with a series of organizing rallies in June. Organizers plan to visit more than two dozen cities in July to recruit candidates.

“If a win is on the table in 2026, we don’t want to leave it there by not being organized,” said Katherine Fischer, the deputy executive director of Texas Majority PAC. The PAC has supported a group of city council and school board candidates who won election this year.

Texas Majority, the Texas Democratic Party and the nearly dozen county parties under the Blue Texas alliance collectively spent about $35 million in the 2024 election cycle, and organizers said they expect to exceed that amount through the partnership.

The group hopes a sustained commitment to building volunteers and get-out-the-vote efforts will help in next year’s Senate campaign, where incumbent Sen. John Cornyn faces a Republican primary challenge from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Democrats face a shrinking pathway to winning 270 electoral votes if they fail to compete in growing Sunbelt states, Fischer said. States such as Texas, Florida, North Carolina and Arizona—all carried by Trump in 2024—have seen population growth and are expected to add electoral votes, while reliably blue California and New York have experienced a decrease in population and will likely lose electoral votes.  

“There is no choice for Texas or for anyone else in the country who wants to see a Democrat in the White House after 2032 but to find a pathway through Texas,” Fischer said.