AUSTIN – Anyone who’s ever walked a carnival midway has likely been lured to risk a little money on a game that just about everyone loses.

Step right up,” says the smooth-talking barker encouraging anyone and everyone to take a chance to bring home a stuffed teddy bear or a rubber duck. "You can’t win if you don’t play."

That might be a phrase ringing in the ears of former state Rep. Allen Vaught, an Iraqi war veteran who served four years as a Democrat in the Texas House where he represented a swing district in Dallas.

Vaught, 45, is considering making a run next year for lieutenant governor. If he wins the nomination, it would pit him against incumbent Dan Patrick, the high-profile firebrand who has dominated the Texas Senate since winning the office in 2014.

The odds against Vaught pulling off an upset are formidable, and he knows it. He’s been out of office since Democrats were routed all across the state in the backlash against then-President Barack Obama, who was not very popular in Texas to begin with.

But Vaught, who is largely unknown outside of Dallas, said he might be able to use the same winds of change that swept him out of office in 2010 to his advantage in the upcoming cycle, assuming Republican President Donald Trump’s poll numbers remain under water. He's not disclosing his strategy, saying only that it's "unconventional."

“I think there’s a unique opportunity,” Vaught said in an interview last week. “The party out of power usually gets a bump in a non-presidential election year.”

That a Democrat with any sort of track record is willing to mount a campaign for a high-profile statewide office is something of a surprise, regardless of the current president’s popularity. So far, the only one to stick his neck out is U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke of El Paso, who in the spring announced that he’ll challenge U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.

No one of stature has even hinted about going up against Gov. Greg Abbott, a first-term Republican with comfortable favorability ratings and plenty of cash in his campaign account. No Democrat is publicly testing the waters in a race against Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, even though he’s been indicted on security fraud charges. He’s steadfastly insisted he’s innocent, by the way.

The other statewide Republicans – including Land Commissioner George P. Bush and Comptroller Glenn Hegar – also appear to have free rides heading into the upcoming election cycle.

The paucity of Democratic talent willing to throw the dice is understandable. The party hasn’t won a statewide race since 1994.

The last time Democrats fielded a full slate of statewide candidates that had the financial resources to run credibly in Texas’ many (and expensive) media markets was 2002. The ticket was led by multimillionaire Tony Sanchez of Laredo, a political novice who self-funded his campaign, and John Sharp, the former comptroller and one time a proven vote-getter.

They all lost, and only Sharp came close.

When the party put all its chips four years ago on then-state Sen. Wendy Davis, who was still riding high from the national attention she received from her abortion-bill filibuster, Abbott sailed to victory barely breaking a sweat.

Ironically, the only Democrat interested in running next year besides O’Rourke before Vaught posted his interest on his Facebook page Thursday, is Mike Collier, one of the failed and little-noticed 2014 candidates. And he also wants to challenge Patrick.

Collier, an accountant and businessman, ran for comptroller last time and has no experience in elective office.

Both he and Vaught come from the party’s vanishing moderate wing, and would likely have a hard time exciting the Democrats’ liberal base.

Either would be a prohibitive underdog against Patrick.

But then, nobody leaves the carnival carrying a big fuzzy bear unless they first heed the barker’s call to “step right up.”

Email John C. Moritz, who covers Texas government and politics for the USA TODAY Network in Austin, at John.Moritz@caller.com. Follow him on Twitter @JohnnieMo.