This year’s primary races – especially on the Democrats’ side – felt different than past years leading up to midterm elections. And that’s because they were.
After Gov. Greg Abbott signed the GOP redistricted map into law back in August, a three-judge court in El Paso blocked the map in November, ruling that it was “racially gerrymandered,” only for the U.S. Supreme Court to allow the map to be used for the 2026 midterms following an emergency appeal from Abbott. Republicans hope the redistricting will help the party claim five seats, but Democrats have refused to roll over, not only in these federal seats, but in local and state offices as well.
In fact, Democratic candidates filed in every federal and state race, the first time ever either party has done so in modern Texas history. And the effort hasn’t been just from politicians; Democrats across the state came out to the polls in droves. In Travis County specifically, turnout was higher than any midterm dating back to at least 1994, according to Travis County Democratic Party Chair Doug Greco. The chair also said that, of the 11 most populated counties in the state, Travis County had the greatest turnout. Of the 919,581 registered Travis County voters, 274,443 cast a ballot, in comparison to 153,590 of 891,395 registered voters in the 2024 primary election – up about 12%. “I think that represents, number one, a lot of anger and concern, and fighting back against the second Trump administration and against Greg Abbott,” Greco said.
This wave of voters comes in the midst of deadly ICE operations across the country, controversy surrounding the release of the Epstein files, unpopular and poorly justified military operations in Venezuela and Iran, and much more, all just one year under the Trump administration.
An increased turnout from Dems in the state was expected, simply due to the current political climate, however, Greco believes that the gerrymandering also played a role in voter participation. “Abbott and Trump brought Texas to the center of the universe politically this summer with gerrymandering, so that just deepens and accentuates it,” he said.
Indeed, it has accentuated the midterms, and the numbers prove it. Voter demographic, Greco said, was a mixed bag. “It’s being driven by Democratic voters coming out, folks who voted in a primary, but maybe not every primary, coming out this time,” he said. “And then, some general election voters and some Republican voters.”
Local campaign strategist Jim Wick, who worked with eight Democrats on their campaigns in this recent primary, said that many Democratic voters who participated in the 2020 primary but not the 2024 primary have gotten back involved in this year’s midterm election. He also mentioned that his analysis of voter turnout in the county showed that “30% of voters” had never participated in a primary before, which he attributed to the highly competitive U.S. Senate race. As a result, he believes that this impacted other races on the ballot. “What you can take from it is, in a high turnout environment, a candidate can file to run for office, and basically do nothing, and still get a ton of votes,” he said.
Republicans expect the redistricting to help flip U.S. Congressional Districts 9, 28, 32, 34, and 35 in favor of the GOP. However, vote totals from the primaries show that might be a more difficult task than expected come November. In four of the five gerrymandered districts, Democrats outperformed Republicans in terms of voter turnout, according to the Texas Secretary of State. (District 32 was the exception, where a little over 10,000 more Republicans turned out to vote in the primary.) “I think the Republicans’ redistricting grab was an overreach and may cost them some of those seats,” Wick said.
Looking at CD 35 specifically, which previously included urban areas along the I-35 corridor from Austin to San Antonio and was represented by U.S. Rep. Greg Casar before the gerrymandering pushed him to run in District 37, Democratic voters outperformed Republican voters by about 7,500 votes cast, with the totals showing 46,989 for Republicans and 54,558 for Democrats. There were 25,000 fewer votes cast in the district in the 2024 Democratic primary election in comparison to 2026. Wick has labeled the district as “absolutely a possible Democratic pickup,” as it will now see a May runoff for both races, with Maureen Galindo and Johnny Garcia for the Dems, and John Lujan and Carlos De La Cruz for the GOP.
Galindo, who earned the most votes on the Democratic side, said that she thinks the gerrymandering played little influence on voter turnout, and instead it was driven by the work that the Trump administration has conducted over the last year.
“I 100% think it’s because of the terrorization, not just Trump, but the terrorization of ICE in our communities, the detention centers, the warehouse that they want to open up on the Eastside,” Galindo said. “We don’t feel safe, and people are showing up against that.”
Garcia said that the historic voter turnout did not surprise him. “We saw how people just were frustrated with this economy, frustrated with this administration directing federal law enforcement to target our communities, were frustrated by unaffordable health care, were frustrated with the SNAP benefits being played with,” he said. “People in this district [who] may have voted for this administration are having buyer’s remorse.”
When the Republicans redistricted the map, they were counting on Latino voters to show up for the party as they did in 2024. However, Wick said that may not be the case when the general rolls around. “The Republicans drew it with the assumption that the rightward shift amongst Latino Democrats would continue,” he said. “I think that, obviously, a lot of numbers show that that’s not going to happen.”
Galindo believes that Hispanic voters in the district are bound to vote Democrat in the general election, regardless of how much the GOP attempts to earn their votes. “These Hispanic populations around the border never feel heard by any administration, and so they’re constantly kind of flipping back and forth slightly,” she said.
What the gerrymandering has created, both Galindo and Garcia said, is confusion among residents in CD 35. “A lot of people didn’t even know that I was gonna be on their ballot. … Some of the people who follow me regularly were like, ‘Oh my God, I didn’t even know I was in your district,’” Galindo said.
“Unfortunately, what I was encountering were people [who] didn’t know they were redrawn into a district,” Garcia said.
Regardless of whether Galindo or Garcia makes it out of the May runoff, there is a consensus among Democrats in the state that the party must maintain the energy it has built as the general election grows nearer.
“We also have to make sure that we’re reaching the voters, translating our message, and making sure that we are uniting our party, not dividing and causing division,” Garcia said. “There’s so much of that already in and of itself.”
And despite the strong showing from voters on the Democrats’ side, anticipating a win for the party in November is “assuming that the landscape kind of stays the same, and we just don’t have that guarantee,” Wick said. “We’re kind of in uncharted waters.”
This article appears in March 20 • 2026.