Texas’s 10th Congressional District: Who Will Win the 2026 House Race

One year after Gov. Greg Abbott signed Texas's mid-decade "One Big Beautiful Map," redrawing five congressional districts at President Trump's urging, polling suggests Republicans may not be reaping the gains they expected. The redistricting combined Black-majority districts in Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth and paired two Austin Democrats, while shifting South Texas seats to favor the GOP, aiming for a net five-seat pickup for Republicans nationally.

Recent Texas Southern University polling shows Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar leading in District 28 and Rep. Vicente Gonzalez ahead in District 34, despite both districts being redrawn to favor Trump. In District 15, Republican incumbent Monica De La Cruz trails Tejano musician Bobby Pulido despite a district redrawn heavily in Trump's favor. District 35, created by merging two Austin Democratic incumbents' territory, remains a contested open seat where House Speaker Mike Johnson recently campaigned for Republican Carlos De La Cruz against Democrat Johnny Garcia.

The shifting numbers, attributed partly to fallout from immigration enforcement, tariffs and inflation, complicate Republican hopes of using redistricting to offset historic midterm losses for the party controlling the White House.

Texas Democratic Party Chair Kendall Scudder says the party has erased its debt and built a $30 million coordinated campaign since he took over in March 2025, up from a $2 million effort under his predecessor. He credits a restructuring that moved staff out of Austin and into Dallas, Houston, Eagle Pass, and Amarillo, along with recruiting more than 1,000 precinct chairs, as key to preparing for competitive races ahead of the 2026 midterms and the 2030 redistricting cycle.

Scudder also addressed the contested Senate primary won by State Representative James Talarico over U.S. Representative Jasmine Crockett, arguing Talarico now has a party infrastructure Beto O'Rourke lacked in his narrow 2018 loss. On data centers, he accused Governor Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton of feigning opposition while Abbott's administration has committed roughly $1 billion in taxpayer incentives to the industry, calling their posture insincere and warning it could hurt Republican turnout in rural Texas, where the issue has become politically sensitive.

Texas Republicans are moving to revive Senate Bill 7, a sweeping elections measure that died over the weekend after Democratic lawmakers staged a walkout to deny the House a quorum before a midnight deadline. Gov. Greg Abbott is expected to call a special session to pass the bill and possibly other stalled conservative priorities, including a ban on transgender athletes in girls' and women's sports.

The bill would cut polling hours, empower partisan poll watchers, ban drive-through and 24-hour voting, and includes a contested provision making it easier for judges to void election results over unproven fraud claims. Democrats objected especially to new limits on early Sunday voting, a key day for Black churchgoers, though one GOP negotiator called that provision a drafting error. Abbott has threatened to veto legislative salaries in retaliation and invoked the 2013 Wendy Davis filibuster, which Republicans overturned in a special session. President Biden urged Democrats nationally to intensify voting rights efforts as Congress prepares to debate federal elections legislation.

Three seats on Texas's new 15th Court of Appeals are up for election in November, marking the first time voters will weigh in since Gov. Greg Abbott appointed the court's inaugural members in 2024. Created by the Legislature in 2023, the court handles civil cases involving the state, challenges to state laws' constitutionality, and business-court appeals before they reach the Texas Supreme Court. Winners will serve six-year terms.

Primaries were uncontested, leaving one Republican incumbent facing one Democrat in each race: Chief Justice Scott Brister vs. Jerry Zimmerer, Place 2's Scott Field vs. Tom Baker, and Place 3's April Farris vs. Marc Meyer. All three incumbents hold substantial fundraising leads, backed heavily by Texans for Lawsuit Reform PAC and other business and legal interests. Since taking the bench, the Republican-majority court has ruled on marijuana policy, abortion, and campaign finance, at times drawing criticism from Attorney General Ken Paxton. The outcomes will shape the ideological direction of a court with broad authority over state-related litigation.

Early voting opened Monday in Texas ahead of the Nov. 3 election, running through Oct. 30. Reader responses gathered from Austin, Houston, Dallas and San Antonio, mostly from Democrats, reflected a mix of hope and wariness about the state's political trajectory, with several citing excitement over candidates while cautioning against being "burned before" by past disappointments. Even some Republican respondents acknowledged a desire for change after decades of GOP control in the state. The sentiment underscores competitive statewide and down-ballot races being watched closely for signs of shifting political dynamics in traditionally red Texas, a factor relevant to broader election forecasting and prediction markets tracking state-level partisan trends.

With early voting underway in Texas through Oct. 30 ahead of the Nov. 3 election, Axios readers across Austin, Houston, Dallas and San Antonio shared their emotions heading into the vote. More than 200 responded, mostly Democrats, who described feeling "cautiously hopeful" or "cautiously excited" about competitive statewide races, with some expressing optimism that Texas could turn more Democratic amid visible grassroots organizing. A smaller group of Republican respondents voiced frustration with both parties and skepticism of polling, while some called for political change. Many respondents, regardless of party, said they were simply exhausted by the volume of campaign ads, texts and signage this cycle.

Texas election officials say a massive backlog of voter registration applications, caused by a software glitch, has been cleared just days before early voting begins Monday. The backlog, affecting hundreds of thousands of applications statewide including more than 75,000 in Harris County alone, had left counties scrambling to process new registrations and updates during a competitive midterm election season. Harris County's backlog was resolved earlier this month, and Travis County officials also reported added strain from the surge in applications.

The problem traced back to October at the Texas Department of Public Safety, which handles voter registration through driver's license transactions. A failure there prevented many records from being transmitted to home counties for processing; DPS has said some online submissions were "incomplete and not fully transmitted." The Secretary of State's office says it is not aware of any county with pending applications, and voters can still cast provisional ballots if not found on the rolls. The episode drew a lawsuit from the League of Women Voters and the Texas Civic Fund, along with scrutiny from Senate Democrats, over concerns about registration reliability ahead of the election.

Texas's 10th Congressional District, a safely Republican seat stretching from Austin to Houston's suburbs, has become a proxy fight over Elon Musk's expanding footprint in the state. Republican candidate Chris Gober, a longtime GOP attorney who led Musk's America PAC in 2024 and has deep ties to the tech and defense industries, faces backlash from residents opposed to a SpaceX chip plant and a wave of data centers straining local power and water resources. Grimes County recently approved a tax abatement for the SpaceX "Terrafab" facility, prompting large public turnout in opposition and a write-in candidacy for county judge centered on blocking the project.

Gober has tried to balance support for "AI dominance" with pledges to protect rural residents, backing legislation requiring developers to fund infrastructure upgrades. Democratic opponent Caitlin Rourk, a former Dell employee and Army veteran, is casting the race as a referendum on tech industry influence, calling Gober "Elon Musk's lackey." Despite the controversy, the district remains rated solidly Republican following Rep. Michael McCaul's retirement.

Austin city leaders and other elected officials are calling for an independent investigation after an ICE agent shot a Venezuelan man Sunday afternoon during a vehicle pursuit while he was making a DoorDash delivery. The man, identified by his attorney Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch as 28-year-old Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, says ICE officers sideswiped his car twice without warning before he was shot in the back of the neck. He was released from a hospital into ICE custody with the bullet still lodged near his spine, held at the Pearsall detention center without pain medication, and briefly returned to the hospital Monday night after complaints of untreated pain. DHS says he had a final order of removal after entering under a Biden-era asylum program later ended by Trump; his attorneys say the order stemmed from a missed hearing notice sent to an old address. Federal sources say ICE had been conducting targeted enforcement using license plate checks when they identified his vehicle.

Austin officials say the city's own EMS was requested by Austin Police, not ICE, though bystander video shows an ICE agent also asking whether an ambulance was en route; federal sources say the agent has been placed on administrative leave, standard practice in such incidents. Homeland Security Investigations and the FBI are leading the probe, with Austin Police and Texas Rangers investigating separately. Mayor Kirk Watson, Police Chief Lisa Davis, DA Jose Garza, and Congressman Greg Casar are demanding transparency and local involvement, noting this is one of at least 28 such shootings by federal immigration agents since 2024.

Texas's 2026 elections feature unexpectedly competitive statewide races, a rarity in a state no Democrat has won statewide since 1994. The marquee contest pits state Rep. James Talarico against Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton for U.S. Senate, with control of the chamber and the final two years of President Trump's term potentially at stake. Gov. Greg Abbott faces a tighter-than-expected challenge from state Rep. Gina Hinojosa despite a large fundraising edge. A recent University of Texas/Texas Politics Project poll showed Democrat Vikki Goodwin narrowly ahead of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Nathan Johnson slightly leading Mayes Middleton for attorney general, with all surveyed races within the margin of error. Republicans' new congressional redistricting plan will also be tested.