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Texas population boom, Latino backlash scramble 2026 Senate race

Russell Contreras

Photo illustration of the state of Texas, references to the Texas flag, and chart elements, featuring photos of a protest in Houston, State Representative James Talarico, and Texas attorney general Ken Paxton — Photo illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Photos: Sharon Steinmann/Houston Chronicle, and Mark Felix and Antranik Tavitian/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Texas has gained more than 2.5 million new residents since 2020 — roughly the entire population of New Mexico — reshaping the electorate and injecting new uncertainty into this year's marquee Senate race.

Why it matters: Republican Ken Paxton is favored to defeat Democrat James Talarico in November, but the influx of new arrivals — along with fading Latino support for President Trump and booming exurban counties — has scrambled the political math in typically red Texas.

By the numbers: Texas added nearly 400,000 residents in 2025, the most of any state, bringing its population to 31.7 million, according to an Axios review of U.S. Census data analyzed by Mendoza Law Firm.

Since 2020, Texas has seen about 2.6 million new residents, also more than any other state, with more than two-thirds of that growth coming from people moving from elsewhere in the U.S. or abroad.
That five-year gain is larger than New Mexico's entire population.

Zoom in: The big unknown is which party the new arrivals favor. Signals are mixed.

Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston, tells Axios that newcomers tend to be less tied to Texas' long-standing political patterns.
That gives Democrats more persuadable voters than they had when the electorate was more stable and Republicans had a stronger hold on it.
Mark P. Jones, a political science professor at Rice University, tells Axios that new residents often fall into two broad camps: "economic migrants" and "political refugees."
The first group moved for jobs, lower living costs or family and are more politically mixed. The political types often fled liberal states for lower taxes and more conservative politics.
Data from the moving firm HireAHelper provides a snapshot of where new Texans are coming from. Of 265,000 out-of-state moves to Texas between June 2024 and May 2025, 14% came from California, 9% from Florida and 4.5% from Colorado.

Between the lines: What makes 2026 structurally different from prior cycles is the sheer volume of demographic change.

Five of the nation's top 10 fastest-growing cities since 2020 are in Texas, including Georgetown (up 58.5%), Leander (53.8%), Kyle (53%) and Hutto (66.9%). These communities, filled with transplants, represent a new and genuinely unpredictable electorate.
Republicans have controlled Texas with overwhelming rural margins, strong suburban support and recent gains with Latino voters. Each of those groups is now more volatile.
Fast-growing exurbs are blurring Texas' old urban-suburban-rural divide, and rapidly growing communities don't share the political background of old Texas.

The migration churn matters even more because Latino voters — another key piece of Texas' changing electorate — are showing signs of moving away from Trump.

In a mid-April Texas Public Opinion Research poll of a hypothetical general election matchup, Talarico led Paxton by 27 points among Latino voters and 25 points among independents.
President Trump's disapproval has climbed to 67% among Latino voters in Texas, and Democrats hold a 54%-to-28% generic House ballot advantage among Latinos in the state, a recent UnidosUS/BSP Research/Shaw & Co. poll found.
Trump won 55% of Latino voters in Texas in 2024, according to Texas exit polls cited by the Texas Politics Project.

Yes, but: Texas has fooled Democrats before.

No Democrat has won statewide in Texas since 1994, and Paxton has already won three statewide general elections.
Republicans still have the state's stronger turnout machine, and Democrats have repeatedly underperformed in the urban areas where they need to run up margins, Rottinghaus said.

Flashback: Beto O'Rourke came within 3 points of beating Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018 — another anti-Trump cycle.

Democrats say demographic change and softer Latino support for Republicans have improved their odds.
Paxton carries years of legal and ethical baggage, but Talarico also has vulnerabilities in a state that still leans conservative, including past comments on religion and his progressive profile Republicans will target.

The bottom line: Texas isn't suddenly blue.