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US Midterms 2026
21JUN

Texas Senate, TX-35 both slip to Leans Republican

3 min read
17:53UTC

Cook Political Report and Sabato's Crystal Ball both moved Texas Senate from Likely Republican to Leans Republican on Wednesday 27 May; Sabato also downgraded TX-35, citing split-ticket vulnerability that the district's redrawn boundaries introduced.

← Back to Wave or grind: the measure splitsJump to analysis ↓
PoliticsDeveloping
Key takeaway

Cook and Sabato's simultaneous downgrades confirm Texas Senate has moved from a structural Republican hold to a contested seat.

Cook Political Report moved Texas Senate from Likely Republican to Leans Republican the day after Paxton's runoff victory. Sabato's Crystal Ball, run by the University of Virginia Center for Politics, made the identical move the same day and extended its reassessment to TX-35, the San Antonio-area congressional district redrawn under PlanC2333 1.

The TX-35 downgrade turns on a measurable split-ticket gap. Trump carried TX-35 by ten points in 2024; Senator Ted Cruz won it by under four points in the most recent Senate race 2. Redrawn boundaries did not erase the district's tendency to diverge on Senate candidates, and Sabato's assessment suggests Paxton's documented controversies make a repeat of the Cruz-Trump gap likely. Sabato framed the full House map as "a bit redder, but not by enough to protect Republicans from a wave" 3, which places TX-35 in the category of seats the redistricting harvest was designed to insulate but cannot guarantee.

Cook and Sabato are nonpartisan forecasting services whose Solid/Likely/Lean/Toss-up ratings are the industry reference for race competitiveness; a simultaneous move from two independent services in one calendar day carries more weight than either rating in isolation. The Senate majority is currently a three-seat cushion; Texas had been priced as safe, and now it is not. The newly competitive rating does not mean Talarico is favoured; it means the NRSC must budget for Texas on top of the seats it was already defending, thinning its resources across a wider front.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Two of the most widely followed US election forecasting services, Cook Political Report and Sabato's Crystal Ball, rate every congressional and Senate race on a scale from 'Safe Republican' through 'Toss-up' to 'Safe Democrat'. Moving a race toward the competitive end means more resources will be deployed there and that the outcome is genuinely uncertain. Both services moved the Texas Senate seat from 'Likely Republican' to 'Leans Republican' on 27 May, the day after Paxton won the primary. A 'leans' rating means the seat tilts toward one party but is not out of reach for the other. TX-35 is a congressional district in the San Antonio area redrawn in 2026 under a Republican-drawn map called PlanC2333. Even under that friendly map, the district showed split-ticket behaviour: voters there backed Trump by a wide margin but voted much more narrowly for Republican Senate candidates. That gap is why forecasters flagged it as vulnerable.

Deep Analysis
Root Causes

The TX-35 downgrade rests on a specific redistricting arithmetic introduced by PlanC2333. The district was redrawn to pack Democratic-leaning Latino voters in sufficient concentration to be described as Republican-performing but not Republican-safe. Cruz's sub-four-point margin there in prior Senate cycles indicates the district contains a significant bloc of voters who back Republican presidential candidates but split to moderate Democrats or independents in lower-profile races.

At the Senate level, the downgrade reflects a compounding of two independent factors: Paxton's candidate-quality discount from legal exposure, and a generic ballot environment now at D+6.9 that shrinks the effective Republican structural buffer in red-leaning seats.

Sources:Texas Tribune·Sabato's Crystal Ball
Mentions:Cook Political Report →PlanC2333 →Texas →Virginia →Nevada →Heritage Foundation →Donald Trump →National Republican Senatorial Committee →TX-35 →Ted Cruz →Sabato's Crystal Ball →
First Reported In

Update #7 · Paxton wins; maps lock

Texas Tribune· 29 May 2026
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Causes and effects
Caused by
Paxton routs Cornyn despite nine-to-one spend
Paxton's 63.8% runoff win directly triggered Cook and Sabato's same-day and next-day moves of Texas Senate and TX-35 to Leans Republican.
Occurred 26 May 2026
Read story →
This Event
Texas Senate, TX-35 both slip to Leans Republican
Two independent forecasters downgraded the same Texas seat within 24 hours of Paxton's win, signalling that candidate quality has converted a structural Republican advantage into a genuine Senate majority risk.
Led to
Letlow's 15-point lead collapses to a tie
Cook and Sabato moving Texas Senate to Leans Republican after the Paxton win signalled the pattern of outside-money failure that the Louisiana poll now echoes.
Occurred 16 Jun 2026
Read story →
Letlow routs Fleming by 13.6 points
The post-Paxton ratings shift set the benchmark against which Letlow's rout is now read.
Occurred 27 Jun 2026
Read story →
Different Perspectives
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South Carolina election administrators
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Rival Republican campaigns
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Trump-endorsed campaign operation
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Senate Budget Committee under Ron Johnson
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NRCC and Republican committee strategists
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