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Texas is becoming increasingly competitive. We have gained seats in the Texas House two cycles in a row, flipped Dallas, solidified Austin, and have challengers building strong campaigns for U.S. Congress while incumbents continue to hold our ground.
Recently Swing State Project ranked the 75 most competitive non-open seats in the country and Texas had a strong showing.
The rankings were determined by dividing the challenger's cash on hand (CoH) by the incumbent's CoH to arrive at a "competitiveness" percentage for each race. David articulated a clear reason why back in 2006 when he said:
If you've got $500K, that's all well-and-good - but your opponent has $2M, then you've got a lot of ground to make up.
Under this equation the second most competitive non-open seat in America is CD-7 between Michael Skelly and Republican John Culberson with Skelly's race having a 246% competitiveness rating. The other high profile challenger in Texas, Larry Joe Doherty, makes the cut. LJD ranks a respectable 42 with a 38% competitiveness rating after a hard fought and expensive primary.
As for the Republican challengers, well, Lyle Larson and Pete Olson don't even crack the top 75, due to their primaries draining their campaign accounts.
It probably goes without saying, it's a good time to be a Democrat in Texas.
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