When it comes to immigration, abortion rights and reelecting President Donald Trump in 2020, Texans are split nearly 50-50, according to a battery of polls released this week.

The results suggest the Republican stronghold in Texas has weakened over time, reinforcing both experts’ and party leaders’ beliefs that Texas is up for grabs in the 2020 election cycle.

“While Texas is certainly a conservative state, I think what we saw in the 2018 elections and what we continue to see in the 2020 elections, is a much more competitive state electorally,” said Joshua Blank, manager of polling and research for the Texas Politics Project. “But for that to be the case, you also have to have a relatively competitive distribution of opinion across a pretty wide range of important issues. And I think that’s what we’re starting to see here.”

Trump’s reelection support is 50-50 in Texas, according to the latest University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll. Most Texas voters were emphatic in their choice: 39 percent said they would “definitely” vote for Trump, while 43 percent said they would “definitely not.” The remaining 18 percent said they would “probably” (11 percent) or “probably not” (7 percent) vote to reelect Trump.

Another UT/TT poll shows Texas voters are nearly split over outlawing abortion after six weeks, with 48 percent supporting such a ban and 42 percent opposing it. Texans are also divided almost evenly over Trump’s handling of immigration and border security, with 49 percent approving of his policies and 45 percent disapproving, according to the UT/TT polling, which has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percent.

“Just because Republicans dominate statewide elections and tend to get majorities in the state House and state Senate and obviously, in the Congressional delegation, it doesn’t mean that public opinion on major issues is equally lopsided,” Blank said.

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Top Republican officials have warned that the GOP cannot take Texas for granted in 2020. Elections going back a decade - including Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz's victory over Beto O'Rourke by less than three percentage points - demonstrate that Republicans have work to do to maintain their generational dominance in the Lone Star State.

Texas GOP leaders say they are committed to keeping the state red. Republican leadership has strengthened the economy nationally and in Texas, which will translate to victories on Election Day, said Texas GOP chairman James Dickey

“For 2020, we are building back the volunteer army that brought the Republican Party to power decades ago,” Dickey said in a statement. “Next year will look very different from the field efforts of 2018. Republicans are rallying and ready to win up and down the ballot in 2020 and will prove it with their shoe leather.”

For Texas Democrats, each poll is further proof that Texas is “more competitive than it has been in generations,” said Manny Garcia, executive director of the Texas Democratic Party. Opinions and demographics in Texas are changing, he said. Between the 2014 and 2018 midterm elections, 1.8 million Texans were added to the state’s voter rolls, according to data from the Secretary of State.

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“It’s becoming very clear that Texas is the biggest battleground state in the country,” Garcia said. “There is a new Texas, there is a new electorate, and the party they are looking to is the Democratic party.”

Texas Republicans tried to appeal to women voters in the 2019 legislative session after a wake-up call in the November midterm elections. Hundreds of thousands of educated, suburban Republican women had crossed party lines to vote for Democrats, who picked up 12 seats in the Texas House and, with O’Rourke, nearly won their first statewide election since 1994.

That push fueled bipartisan legislation to strengthen legal protections against sexual assault. The Legislature rallied around a bill to eliminate a backlog of untested rape kits. Republicans and Democrats teamed up to strengthen laws against “revenge porn.”

Meanwhile, national Democrats have announced plans to zero in on Texas in 2020 congressional elections by dispatching staff to suburbs of Houston, San Antonio, Austin and Dallas. In March, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., declared that Texas is “ground zero” in her party’s strategy.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has identified five Texas Republicans on the party's initial takedown list of 33 nationwide. Texas targets include Reps. Will Hurd, of San Antonio, and Michael McCaul and Chip Roy of Austin.