More than a year ago, Texas Democrats sized up the state’s 36 congressional districts and decided to make an ambitious play: They would contest every district, even deeply conservative ones the party usually did not bother to target.

Though in some respects a symbolic gesture — seven Republicans won by more than 40 points — Democrats’ enthusiasm in the face of long odds produced a handful of closer-than-usual Republican wins, setting up in 2020 what should be Texas’ most competitive map in years.

Among the typically deep-red districts that came down to single digits were three races around Harris County. Incumbent Reps. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, and Pete Olson, R-Sugar Land, won by margins of 4.3 and 4.9 percentage points in Texas’ heavily gerrymandered 10th and 22nd Congressional Districts. Rep.-elect Dan Crenshaw, R-Spring, won by more than 7 points an open race for the 2nd Congressional District, one also drawn to elect Republicans.

In recent elections, the districts had gone to Republicans by no fewer than 19 percentage points, with margins as high as 38 points.

Now, as they parse the results and consider what comes next, Democrats in these races must grapple with important questions. Did they come close because of a boost from Democrat Beto O’Rourke’s Senate bid and anger among voters prodded to the polls by President Donald Trump, or did they offer a preview of what is to come? Is a 40-something percent result the ceiling, and if not, where might they find more votes?

All three losing Democrats — Todd Litton, Mike Siegel and Sri Preston Kulkarni — said they may take another swing at the districts in 2020, when Trump could appear atop the ballot and galvanize even more voters than in 2018.

“I think it is likely that I will run again,” said Siegel, who challenged McCaul. “I would like to know if I can win when everything lines up, when I raise more money, when I have a campaign that's not just clicking at the end, but is clicking over a longer period of time, when I get more institutional support.”

If anything, Democrats who ran campaigns once considered suicide missions have laid the groundwork for future candidates, replacing flimsy election data with insights into where well-funded and viable candidates can compete.

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Based purely on prior results, the three seats appeared out of reach for Democrats this year. Mitt Romney won all three districts by at least 20 points, and two years later Gov. Greg Abbott carried each by more than 18 points. Donald Trump won each district by only a high-single-digit margin, but McCaul, Olson and retiring Rep. Ted Poe, R-Humble, vastly outperformed him.

Already, the 10th and 22nd Congressional Districts appear as “Lean Republican” seats on the nonpartisan Cook Political Report’s 2020 House forecast.

“The real question is, how do we compete and win in 2020 and beyond in these districts? What kind of Republican Party are we going to be?” said Brendan Steinhauser, a campaign strategist for Crenshaw and McCaul. “I really thought, going into the election, this would be a right-left turnout election. Are we now heading to a place where there are swing voters, Beto-(Gov. Greg) Abbott, Beto-Crenshaw voters?”

CD 2: Crenshaw v Litton

Litton, the Democrat who challenged Crenshaw for Poe’s seat, was bullish on his chances even before the incumbent retired. He had outraised Poe and saw a chance to turn out more of the 2nd Congressional District’s diversifying population and large number of college-educated suburban voters, a demographic that turned sharply away from Republicans this year.

The district wraps around Harris County like a horseshoe: It starts in deep-blue pockets in Montrose, curls up through Memorial Park and Addicks Reservoir, past U.S. 290 and Willowbrook to Klein, then hooks east, taking in the county’s bright-red north suburbs, Spring, Humble, Kingwood and Atascocita.

Crenshaw survived a grueling Republican primary, reaching a runoff by 155 votes that he would go on to easily win. Litton, facing a less competitive field, had more cash than Crenshaw early on, but he ultimately lost the election by about 7 percentage points.

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Litton acknowledged he was unlucky to draw an opponent as tough as Crenshaw, saying the former Navy SEAL “was not your standard first-time candidate.” For now, the defeated Democrat plans to see how Crenshaw’s first term goes, and decide later if he wants to run.

“I’d consider it. I don’t know that I’m going to do it,” said Litton, who directed an education nonprofit before seeking office. “We’ll see how Dan does and what he says.”

The newly elected Republican has become something of a rising star in the party, gaining recognition for his response to a Saturday Night Live joke about his eyepatch, which he wears over the eye he lost in combat.

Though Litton’s chances may look better during a presidential year, he still would have to overcome a math problem that has plagued Houston Democrats for years: Republicans simply outnumber Democrats in the district, thanks in particular to the ultra-conservative northeast portion around Lake Houston.

The margin appears far closer than it once was. O’Rourke lost the district to Sen. Ted Cruz by 1.2 percentage points, running about 6 points ahead of Litton. O’Rourke and Crenshaw, a tea party Republican, jointly carried a handful of precincts near Jersey Village and Spring Valley.

“Dan definitely had some crossover appeal,” Steinhauser said. “He went out to bars and restaurants and brewpubs and campaigned to millennials. He worked inside the loop a lot. He went on offense a lot, more than many other Republicans did.”

Though the district’s most liberal enclaves turned out slightly more than they did in 2016, the reddest areas still far outpaced the bluest in raw turnout. For all the attention he received after SNL, Crenshaw would have won without it: He outpaced Litton by an insurmountable 13,000 votes in absentee and early voting, which ended the Friday before the SNL skit.

CD 10: McCaul v Siegel

Election night gave McCaul his biggest scare since 2004, the year he first ran for Congress and narrowly made a Republican primary runoff.

When it all shook out, the longtime Republican legislator had made up a massive deficit in Travis County — where he drew only 27 percent of the vote — by winning 63 percent in Harris County and 70 percent in the district’s remaining seven counties.

Still, it was the narrowest re-election win of McCaul’s career: about a 13,000-vote margin, out of nearly 308,000 votes cast.

Texas’ 10th Congressional District covers much of the rural area between Travis and Harris counties, stretching across nine counties from Katy and Cypress all the way through downtown Austin to Lake Travis. It is one of four GOP-held districts dividing up deep-blue Travis County, the only county Siegel won.

Compared to McCaul’s 2016 race, turnout this year grew by more than 3,400 votes in Travis County, where McCaul’s support fell by about eight percentage points. In the remaining eight counties, turnout fell by 8,200 votes from two years ago, and McCaul’s support dropped from 70 percent to 65 percent.

All told, McCaul lost ground in every county from 2016, though his support dipped by fewer than two percentage points in Austin, Colorado, Fayette, Lee and Washington counties — all areas where Siegel failed to break even 23 percent.

From the beginning, Siegel said, the race was an uphill climb because of the skepticism he faced about his odds.

“When I was meeting with folks, whether it was the county party in Harris County or major unions, people liked me, they liked what I was standing for, but they didn't really believe that the race was in play,” Siegel said.

Though Siegel appeared to run a more robust campaign than McCaul’s previous opponent, perennial challenger and Siegel primary opponent Tawana Cadien, Steinhauser saw the close result as a “special situation” fueled mainly by the influence of O’Rourke and straight-ticket voting. He said few voters in the district knew about Siegel, according to campaign polling.

“We were definitely prepared for straight-ticket voting to have a big impact on the race,” he said. “That’s why we ran the most intense campaign for McCaul in many cycles. … We did these things with the expectation that Beto was going to lift all Democratic boats.”

Siegel acknowledged O’Rourke’s influence on his race, but that did not dissuade him from considering another challenge — especially with O’Rourke possibly appearing on the ballot again. The Senate hopeful won the district by about two-tenths of a percent, perhaps indicating the district is winnable for a Democrat during a presidential cycle.

“I think we certainly left opportunities on the table, doors we didn't knock on, towns where, if we had gotten there earlier, we could have established a stronger presence, places where we could register more voters or get higher turnout,” Siegel said, adding that some people told him after the election it was always going to take two cycles to win.

Though McCaul blew out Siegel in the seven counties between Harris and Travis, it was Harris County that delivered a crushing blow. McCaul beat Siegel there by about 31,000 votes, nearly the same margin as the other seven Republican counties combined. Siegel won Travis County, where he is an Austin assistant city attorney, by 50,000 votes.

One reason for Democratic optimism, Siegel said, is the changing nature of Bastrop and Waller counties, located next to Travis and Harris, respectively. Two years ago, McCaul won Bastrop and Waller by 22 and 32 percentage points, respectively, while this year the margin was 11 and 25 points. Siegel also drew 36 percent of the vote in Harris County, about 7 points ahead of Cadien in 2016.

CD 22: Olson v Kulkarni

The 22nd Congressional District, once represented by redistricting architect and House Majority Leader Tom Delay, regularly has voted for top-of-the-ticket Republicans by more than 25 points, and Olson — first elected in 2008 — never faced a serious re-election challenge until 2018.

Putting the district in play, Kulkarni believed, was Fort Bend County’s fast-growing and highly diverse population, a natural target for the former State Department foreign service officer who speaks six languages and would hire campaign staffers who spoke even more.

Olson never had won a general election by fewer than 19 points — his margin in 2016 — but several trends gave Kulkarni reason to contest the district. Notably, it shifted 17.5 points in favor of Democrats from the 2012 to 2016 presidential election, the fourth most dramatic change in the country.

Kulkarni’s preliminary data also found that both parties had ignored major swaths of the district. In particular, Asian residents make up about 20 percent of the district’s population, far more than any other Texas congressional district, but Kulkarni found that three-quarters of Asian voters had not been contacted by any political party.

Kulkarni’s efforts hinged on turning out the scores of college-educated immigrants who moved to the district during the last several years. He ultimately lost by 4.9 percentage points, a result he attributes partly to not reaching enough Hispanic voters. He did not rule out giving it another shot in 2020.

“If I'm the best candidate, I'll run again,” Kulkarni said. “I don't want to throw away all the hard work that we did in organizing here, because going from 19 points two years ago or 34 points four years ago, to 4.9 — there's obviously a change going on in terms of who's participating.”

Olson, who did not respond to a request for comment, received a wave of support in Fort Bend’s outlying western and southern areas, running up the score there and in parts of Brazoria County to offset Kulkarni’s totals in Sugar Land, Fresno and the Brazoria suburbs west of SH 288. Olson won by wide margins, too, in suburbs north and east of Rosenberg, such as Pecan Grove.

Kulkarni also faced structural challenges in the district’s makeup: Notably, the 9th Congressional District cuts two bite-sized chunks out of Fort Bend County in ultra-liberal areas in Mission Bend, and, farther south, Missouri City.

Still, the result was stunningly narrow for a midterm-year election. Cruz won the district by about six-tenths of a percent, meaning O’Rourke’s margin was about 4.2 percentage points better than Kulkarni’s. Compared to 2016, Olson’s margin of victory fell by 15 percent in Fort Bend County, 13 percent in Brazoria County and 10 percent in Harris County.

“If we keep doing what we're supposed to be doing and including more people in the political process, I don't see how this district doesn't go blue,” Kulkarni said.

Particularly in District 10 and 22, Republicans will need to change how they campaign if they are to retain the seats in 2020, said Rice University political scientist Mark Jones.

“It was a wake-up call for a large number of Republicans across the state,” Jones said of the closer-than-expected results. “The old days of them effectively being able to ignore the general election, and essentially just go about their business as if there was no real need to campaign — those days are over.”

Staff writer Matt Dempsey contributed to this report.

jasper.scherer@chron.com

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