AUSTIN — This November, Texas Democrats believe they have a rare opportunity to win back seats in the state Legislature and improve their footing after more than a decade of backsliding.

Democrats and Republicans are wringing their hands over 11 GOP-held legislative seats — 10 in the House and one in the Senate — that are considered flippable based on voter behavior in the 2016 presidential election and shifting demographics. Most of those seats are in the Dallas area.

“This is really an unprecedented year,” said Manny Garcia, deputy executive director of the Texas Democratic Party. “It has the potential to be the best midterm election in our lifetime if we get our jobs done.”

In all 11 districts, voters supported Hillary Clinton for president over Donald Trump in 2016.

There were 10 other Republican districts where Trump won by less than 5 percentage points — including two traditionally Republican Senate districts where Trump beat Clinton by less than 1 percent.

Democrats believe the results signal that voters — even some Republicans — are dissatisfied with the incumbent party, especially with legislative candidates who align themselves with Trump.

“Although Trump is not on the ballot in 2018, it’s clear his policies are,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston. “Most people consider this to be a referendum on the incumbent party and the incumbent president.”

Rottinghaus predicts Democrats could pick up about eight seats but said he wouldn’t be surprised if the party achieved double-digit gains — which would send shock waves through Texas’ Republican party.

“Then Democrats will be popping champagne, because that’s a major movement in the politics of the Legislature,” Rottinghaus said.

But Republican officials said the idea of a Texas blue wave is a mere myth. In fact, just last week Democrats lost ground when Republican Pete Flores won a special election for a state Senate seat in a San Antonio district that was previously held by a Democrat.

“Democrats have been trying to set a narrative that they have all of this excitement on their side, that there’s all this action that will go toward them, but the facts have not borne that out,” said Texas Republican Party Chairman James Dickey.

Garcia conceded that loss was a sobering reminder that Democrats can’t take anything for granted — but he noted the key difference is that voter turnout for single-race special elections is particularly bad and not necessarily representative of what will happen in November.

Democrats energized

Garcia said Texas Democrats are more fired up than they’ve been in decades, evidenced by the historic number of candidates running and the more than 1 million Democrats who voted in the March primary, nearly twice the number that voted in the 2014 midterms.

“For years, we didn’t always challenge Republicans if the race wasn’t deemed competitive,” Garcia said, noting that there’s a Democrat running in almost 90 percent of the state legislative races this November. “This time we have candidates everywhere.”

And though midterm elections typically favor Republicans, Democrats are hoping the energy surrounding Beto O’Rourke’s challenge of U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz will trickle down the ballot, lifting them in state and local elections.

Garcia also said though Trump isn’t on the ballot, Democrat voters have heightened election awareness because they feel threatened by the president’s politics.

But Republican primary voters in March still outnumbered Democrats by about half a million votes, up 14 percent from 2014.

Karen Watson, vice chairwoman of the Dallas County Republican Party, said even voters who sided with Clinton in 2016 will support Republican candidates in November because the party has won them back with a “roaring economy,” lower taxes and job growth.

Sen. Don Huffines, a Dallas Republican in one of the contested districts, said he puts little faith in the idea of a blue wave in Texas.

“My crystal ball says that Republicans won’t lose any seats,” Huffines said. “Voters are angry and Republicans have the right answers, and Texas’s economy is booming because of low taxes.”

Recently unseated state Rep. Jason Villalba, a Dallas Republican and a critic of Trump, lost his primary to a more staunchly conservative candidate, Lisa Luby Ryan, who is pitted against Democrat John Turner this November.

Villalba says he believes his and other Republican districts will go blue because moderate conservatives will reject candidates who align themselves with the president and far-right conservatism. His prediction? Republicans will lose between eight and 12 seats.

But Trump isn’t the only factor at play. Rottinghaus said he expects two to three Dallas County seats to flip based on the changing demographics of older, white families moving to suburbs like Frisco, leaving newcomers in Dallas’s urban areas.

“The people who are moving in are your traditional Democrats — Latinos, African-American voters, Asian-Americans. They’re newcomers wanting to live in a hip urban area,” he said.

Blue wave or small splash?

But even the most generous blue wave scenario in the Texas Legislature is likely to be only a small splash when it comes to reducing the Republicans’ advantage.

Republicans dominate the House 95 to 55. There are twice as many Republicans in the Senate as there are Democrats.

Oftentimes Democrats, to be most effective, have to partner with moderate Republicans to water down the most conservative bills that come through the Legislature.

A shift of about 10 seats from red to blue could give Democrats more opportunities to vote against bills that could damage their agenda. They would also have more of a say in the race for House speaker — an influential leadership position that can determine which bills the lower chamber will debate.

In the Senate, the stakes are even higher because bills filed in the regular session require the support of three-fifths of members — 19 votes — to be sent to floor debate for consideration.

Once Flores is sworn in, Republicans will have 21 members in the Senate, which means they can push through legislation in the upper chamber. But if three Democrats win Senate seats this November, they would have a path to block bills.

Democrats haven’t always been so outnumbered. Just 10 years ago, they trailed by only two in the House.

In 2001, there were more Democrats than Republicans in the Legislature.

But several rounds of redistricting led by Republican majorities have weakened their numbers, coupled with a resounding “red wave” in 2010, stemming from dissatisfaction with then-President Barack Obama.

That was the year Republicans jumped from 76 House members to 101.

Garcia stopped short of putting a number on how many seats Democrats would need to win before claiming victory.

“Every single district and every single vote we get in the Legislature makes a dramatic difference for what can be done to change people’s everyday lives,” he said.