Women are candidates in half of the 2020 Texas races for...

AUSTIN — At least half of the 36 Texas congressional races will have a woman on the ballot in November, potentially tilting the gender imbalance in the state’s delegation as longtime white male Republicans retire from office.

Of 70 Texas women running for Congress this year, 18 won their primary elections outright on Tuesday. Thirteen others face runoffs in March.

“It’s just exciting to have so many more women running for Congress,” said Kristen Hernandez, spokeswoman for EMILY’S List, which provides campaign support to Democratic women. “With the so-called ‘Texodus,’ it’s certainly a state where we’re seeing so many opportunities with so many Republicans retiring.”

Democrats were the biggest winners, nabbing their party’s nominations or a place in the runoffs to run for 17 Congressional seats. Republican women secured the nominations to five Congressional seats and are candidates in four runoffs.

For subscribers: Twice as many Texas Republican women running for Congress in 2020

The results come with a marked increase in women running for office since the 2016 election. While Democratic operatives say presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s loss that year and President Donald Trump’s anti-abortion policies have spurred more women to run for office, Republicans say candidates in their party are motivated to combat the perspective that GOP is anti-woman.

“I think conservative women were fed up with that narrative,” said Randan Steinhauser, a Republican strategist based in Austin. “We pushed back on the narrative that all women are Democrats.”

In 2018, voters doubled the number of Texas women elected to Congress, from three to six.

Women are the engine driving the Democratic party, and have been for the last two election cycles, said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston. Women make up slightly more than half the electorate and studies show women are encouraged by strong female contenders at the top of the ticket, he said.

“People will vote for people who are like them, and it certainly works for women that way,” he said.

Recent polling also shows women have higher disapproval of Trump than men. Rottinghaus said the success of female candidates may also be buoyed by that antipathy.

“Like a lot of other stories in contemporary politics, it’s about Donald Trump as much as it is about anything else,” he said.

Air Force veteran MJ Hegar is one of those candidates. The Central Texas Democrat who ran and lost in a race for Congress in 2018 emerged as a clear front-runner in her primary bid for U.S. Senate Tuesday. She earned 22 percent of the vote in a crowded 12-way primary race and will face off against state Rep. Royce West in the runoff.

For subscribers: A viral video fueled Democrat MJ Hegar’s 2018 race. Next: A Netflix biopic.

In Congressional District 22 that includes Fort Bend County, Republican Kathaleen Wall beat out Pierce Bush, the late President George H.W. Bush’s grandson, in a 15-way race. Wall, a longtime major GOP donor, is in a May runoff against former Fort Bend County Sheriff Troy Nehls.

Other Congressional candidates won outright, including former state senator and abortion activist Wendy Davis in San Antonio District 21, Gina Ortiz Jones in West Texas House District 23 and Jaimy Z. Blanco in Pasadena representing District 29.

Republican women dominated races in Houston and Dallas, while Democratic women saw the most success along I-35, as well as in Houston and West Texas.

For subscribers: Diverse candidates get assist from Texas GOP

Women once ruled in Texas but now make up a small fraction of decision makers. In the 1990s, Ann Richards was governor and women were mayors in half the state’s largest cities. Texas hasn’t seen a female governor since and today the only woman serving as a mayor in one of the state’s 10 largest cities is Republican Betsy Price of Fort Worth.

The numbers are similarly low in Texas’ legislative bodies. Not only are women just 16 percent of the Congressional delegation, but about one-third of the state Legislature. Women make up 50.3 percent of the Texas population. Nationally, women make up 24 percent of the members in Congress and 29 percent of all state legislators.