There are 7 GOP-held congressional seats in Texas in play, to some extent, this year:

*TX-23 - lean D
*TX-22 & TX-24 - tossups
*TX-10 & TX-21 - lean R
*TX-2 & TX-31 - likely R

All are districts that Beto O’Rourke either won or came close to winning in 2018. #txlege 1/

But they are all in play for slightly different reasons.

TX-23, the best district for Ds, is a Latino majority district that Rs infamously tried to redraw in 2011 to take out higher voting urban Latinos and replace them with lower voting and more rural ones. #txlege 2/

A federal court redrew TX-23 in 2012. Its fixes to efforts to dilute Latino voting power didn’t go as far as some advocates wanted (Latinos preferred candidates have won in only 1 of 4 elections this decade), but w/ the seat open this year, it’s Ds best shot. #txlege 3/

But a common thread for all the districts making them more competitive is that the electorates of all of them have become considerably more diverse as the decade has gone on. #txlege 4/

That increased diversity is playing out with special force in TX-24 in the DFW region where in 2011 Rs rejected efforts to create a Latino majority district that would have taken in big portions of the eastern parts of the current TX-24. #txlege 5/

That Latino majority district - had it been created - would have left TX-24 whiter and more safely R this year. But instead TX-24 has grown only more diverse as the decade has progressed. Gerrymandering sometimes becomes dunmymandering. #txlege 6/

TX-22 anchored in Fort Bend County, west of Houston (Tom DeLay’s old seat), has become even more diverse. Its citizen voting age population is now only 46.5% white - a big reason why the district is a tossup. #txlege 7/

But in other districts, while increased diversity has played a role in making the districts more competitive for Ds, the electorates of the districts remain pretty white. TX-21 and TX-10 in particular. #txlege 8/

For TX-21 & TX-10, a second dynamic is play - the districts’ high percentage of college-educated whites - a group that has become increasingly Democratic as the decade has gone on. (TX-24 & TX-22 also have a large numbers of college-educated whites.) #txlege 9/

And for both TX-21 & TX-10 not only do they have large numbers of college-educated whites but they are college-educated whites in liberal Austin (a product of the R decision to split Travis Co up among five districts). #txlege 10/

And worse for Rs, it’s the Austin parts of TX-21 & TX-10 that have grown the fastest this decade. Another dummymander gone awry. #txlege 11/