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Banking on the Alamo City
If Democrats are going to make gains in the Texas Legislature this November, San Antonio will be right in the middle of it.
At least that is how State Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, sees it. The leader of the Democrats in the Texas House said he sees the party in a position to pick up as many as 10 seats statewide, with two of their best pickup chances in Bexar County. Republicans now hold an 86 to 64 edge over Democrats in the Texas House, giving them the power to set up committees and the legislative agenda.
"The Texas House Democratic Caucus ground zero is San Antonio. No doubt about it, full stop," he told reporter Edward McKinley.
That would fit a larger trend over the last decade as Bexar County has grown more inhospitable to Republicans. In 2014, most statewide Republicans, including Gov. Greg Abbott, carried the county. But no statewide Republican has won Bexar County since, with Abbott losing the county handily in both of his re-elections in 2018 and 2022. In 2020, former President Donald Trump won just 40 percent of the vote in Bexar - the lowest total for a Republican presidential candidate in Bexar since Barry Goldwater in 1964.
Gov. Greg Abbott may have helped boost Democratic hopes in the Texas House in 2024 in a way. Abbott helped Republican Marc LaHood defeat incumbent State Rep. Steve Allison in the GOP primary for State House District 121 - one of the seats Martinez Fischer is counting on. LaHood now faces Democrat Laurel Jordan Swift in November.
Count Allison among those who have questioned whether pro-voucher Republican candidates in some places could open the door to Democrats picking up seats including his district.
"I think it's up in the air," he said, adding that he will not be supporting LaHood in the general election. "I think there's a good chance it could go Democrat."
 | Jeremy Wallace, Texas politics reporter |
Who's up, who's down
Faith leaders in Houston are set to hold a prayer vigil on Tuesday for the congresswoman's health after she disclosed earlier this month that she is battling pancreatic cancer. Jackson Lee is tied with U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, as the longest-serving member of Congress from Texas.
Down: Texas Farmers.
The financial costs of drought in Texas have risen rapidly over recent decades, according to a new analysis of federal crop insurance data. Those numbers represent farmers' lost harvests as well as the publicly funded premium subsidies that keep them in business through disasters.
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What else is going on in Texas
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Pick of the day
Photo by: Jeremy Wallace
That is the number of years in prison Hunter Biden faces in prison as a jury weighs whether to convict him of lying on federal forms for saying he was not illegally using or addicted to drugs when he purchased a gun.
What else I'm reading
Even as she battles cancer, former Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards, 66, is still working and trying to document the real-life impact that abortion bans in states like Texas are having on women. "This is a daily Titanic for women that live in these states," the daughter of former Gov. Ann Richards said during the podcast, On With Kara Swisher. During the interview, Richards warns that states with abortion bans are losing OBGYNs at an alarming rate and that will affect health care for all women in those states long term.
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