This story has been updated to reflect an expanded target list that was announced on June 3, 2026.
Read more San Pedro Playhouse brings ‘Evita’ to the stage
After Texas green-lit President Donald Trump’s plans to redraw its congressional districts last year, national Democrats trying to win back power in Washington D.C. are preparing to spend big against the Republican state lawmakers who were responsible.
The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which seeks to elect Democratic majorities in state legislatures across the country, added Texas to its list of spending targets, with roughly $50 million to spend in 2026.
While flipping Republicans’ 26-seat majority in the Texas House is likely out of the question this election cycle, Democrats are targeting 12 GOP-held seats with money and resources this year, including two in the San Antonio area.
Texas House District 118 is one of the last remaining swing districts in a gerrymandered state, and considered one of Democrats best prospects to flip if the party has a good year. It wraps around San Antonio’s South Side, where the party saw many of its voters either not show up in 2024, or swing toward President Donald Trump.
Incumbent state Rep. John Lujan (R-San Antonio) left the seat to run for Congress this year, and Republicans chose a much more conservative replacement in first-time candidate Jorge Borrego. He’ll go up against Democrat Kristian Carranza, who raised more money than any first-time state House candidate in Texas history when she ran against Lujan two years ago.
Texas House District 121 is a tougher target. It stretches north from Alamo Heights to Bulverde, where conservative state Rep. Marc LaHood (R-San Antonio) replaced a more moderate incumbent two years ago, and is now seeking a second term.
Democrats have long hoped that the GOP’s rightward shift would turn off some Republicans in a district with many suburban, college-educated voters, but LaHood won by more than 5 percentage points in 2024. He faces a first-time candidate in Democrat Zack Dunn this November.
The DLCC is working with the campaign arm of the Texas House’s Democratic caucus, which on its own doesn’t have much money to spend, but will now set the spending priorities for a budget buoyed by national money.
On a call with reporters in February, state Rep. Christina Morales (D-Houston), who chairs the Texas House Democratic Campaign Committee, said the DLCC hasn’t committed a specific dollar amount to Texas races, but noted that the urgency to flip seats in the Texas Legislature has risen as a priority the more that body’s work impacts national politics.
By the numbers
Republicans currently control the White House, U.S. Senate and U.S. House in Washington D.C.
Of those, Democrats’ best chance of slowing down the GOP agenda in 2026 is flipping the U.S. House, where they only need to net a handful of seats in a midterm that typically yields big gains for the party out of power.
But Democrats already faced a much smaller number of potential targets nationwide in 2026, thanks to the redistricting overseen by Republican-led legislatures since the 2020 Census.
Read more National gun safety group dives into San Antonio’s gun-centric congressional race
Last year the Texas legislature widened that gap further by engaging in an unusual mid-cycle redistricting effort that turned five Democrat-held seats into GOP pickup opportunities — in a state where Republicans already control 25 out of 38 seats.
Now state lawmakers are talking about another potential round of redistricting in the 2027 session, shoring up their majorities in the chambers responsible for drawing the maps.
“We think about the congressional seats, but what are they going to do to our seats in the state House and in the Senate?” Morales said in February. “The [Texas] House controls those district lines. … Everybody should be concerned about that.”
That prospect became even more likely after the Supreme Court gutted parts of the Voting Rights Act earlier in April, increasing Democrats’ urgency in Texas’ 2026 state legislative races.
This month the DLCC expanded its initial list of GOP targets from about a half dozen races to 12, including some districts Republicans won by large margins in 2024.
Even if it won all of them — and held onto several tough Democrat-held seats — the GOP would still have a narrow majority in the Texas House headed into the 2027 legislative session.
Texas Democrats have plans for a $30 million coordinated campaign to help all of their federal, state and local campaigns in 2026, during which the party is targeting the governor’s office, a U.S. Senate seat, and many more offices up and down the ballot.
San Antonio’s South Side will be a major battleground for all the Democratic groups spending in Texas this year because it’s home to two of the party’s best targets.
Texas House District 118 was a Democratic stronghold that Republicans spent big to help Lujan flip red in 2022, and hold onto in 2024.
It fits entirely inside the new 35th Congressional District — a majority-Hispanic district that Republicans drew as a pickup opportunity for themselves, but which Democrats also believe they can win, and have reserved ads for this fall.
“[House District] 118 is completely housed within [Congressional District 35], and it also includes a significant chunk of Bexar County that is absolutely critical,” Texas Majority PAC Executive Director Katherine Fischer said in February. ” … We need to see better turnout in that [area] in order to win statewide.”
Read more USAA kicks off 250th anniversary celebrations in San Antonio
