Beyond the Senate Race: Texas' Down-Ballot Contests Tighten, With Two San Antonio House Seats on the Watch List
A University of Houston Hobby School poll puts the Railroad Commission race at 45 to 43, and San Antonio's House Districts 118 and 121 are on the statewide watch list as early voting enters its final week.
The Senate and governor's races are drawing the cameras in Texas, but a roundup of the down-ballot contests published Sunday, October 25 — built on the University of Houston Hobby School of Public Affairs' Texas Votes 2026 polling and Texas Tribune race reporting — argues the most revealing tests of whether Texas is shifting may sit farther down the ballot, in statewide offices, South Texas congressional seats and a handful of legislative districts. Early voting runs through Friday, October 30, and Election Day is Tuesday, November 3.
The closest statewide read is the Railroad Commission, which regulates the state's oil and gas industry. The Hobby School poll, conducted October 10-14 with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.2 points, has Republican Bo French leading Democrat Jon Rosenthal 45 percent to 43 percent, with 10 percent undecided. French ousted incumbent Jim Wright in the primary; Rosenthal, a former oil field engineer and four-term state representative, has pitched himself as a pro-drilling Democrat. Republicans lead every other down-ballot race in the same poll, the roundup notes, but with 8 to 12 percent of voters still undecided in each. The attorney general's seat is open, contested by state Sens. Mayes Middleton, a Republican, and Nathan Johnson, a Democrat, and Republican Don Huffines, appointed comptroller on August 1, faces state Sen. Sarah Eckhardt, a Democrat. No statewide Democrat has won in Texas since 1994.
In the Legislature, Republicans hold an 88-62 majority in the Texas House, and Democrats would need 14 flips for control. The races flagged to watch include San Antonio's House Districts 118 and 121, Corpus Christi's District 34, and Dallas County seats, along with Senate District 9 near Fort Worth, where Democrat Taylor Rehmet, who flipped a district President Trump carried by 17 points in a special election, defends the seat in a November rematch. In South Texas, an August Texas Southern University survey cited in the roundup had Democrat Henry Cuellar ahead in District 28, 45 to 34, and Democrat Vicente Gonzalez ahead in District 34, 45 to 42 — snapshots the roundup cautions are single polls with sizable undecided shares.
For Bexar County voters, the down-ballot fields appear on the same ballot as the Senate race between Republican Ken Paxton and Democrat James Talarico. Sunday early voting runs from noon to 6 p.m. at most Bexar County sites, and polls return to 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday for the final week.
