AUSTIN — As Texas Democrats look to win a majority in the Texas House for the first time since 2001, national groups are aiming at competitive statehouse races where they believe their funding and organizing can get the minority party over the hump.

On Thursday, Swing Left, a national group aimed at helping Democrats win in swing districts, and the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, a group formed to elect Democrats to statehouses across the country, will announce their top targets for the year. Several seats in Texas are on their list.

“We think that Texas is flippable this year,” said Catherine Vaughan, chief strategy officer for Swing Left.

The group will announce an initial slate of 12 Texas legislative districts it will target in 2020. That includes Texas Senate District 19, represented by incumbent Republican Pete Flores, as well as 11 other seats in the Texas House.

Two of those seats, House District 65 in Denton County represented by Michelle Beckley and House District 132 in Katy represented by Gina Calanni, are held by Democrats. The group plans to play defense there.

“Even though they’ll have an incumbency advantage this time around, [they’re] obviously very tight districts,” Vaughan said. “We want to make sure that we don’t lose recently won Democratic seats while attempting to flip [others].”

Republicans are not taking the Democratic challenge lightly. The Republican Party of Texas has doubled its staff in Dallas-Fort Worth and also focused on candidate recruitment. The party is promising to provide a stout defense to Democratic efforts, and Gov. Greg Abbott is coordinating with the party and several political action committees to keep the Republican majority in the House.

North Texas focus

Swing Left will also go on the offensive in six North Texas seats: House Districts 66 and 67 in Collin County represented by Rep. Matt Shaheen and Rep. Jeff Leach; House Districts 92 and 96 in Tarrant County where incumbents Jonathan Stickland and Bill Zedler will not seek reelection; and Dallas County House Districts 108 and 112, represented by Rep. Morgan Meyer and Rep. Angie Chen Button.

The group will also get involved in Harris County House Districts 134 and 138, held by Republicans Sarah Davis and Dwayne Bohac. Bohac will not seek reelection.

House District 26 in Fort Bend County, where Republican incumbent Rick Miller dropped out after racially insensitive remarks about his primary opponents, is also on the Swing Left’s target list.

The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee will announce its targets at a press conference Thursday morning.

Vaughan said her group’s process for picking targets is informed by her work last election cycle with Flippable, a group that focused on winning statehouse races. The group helped Beckley and Dallas Democrat Ana-Maria Ramos in House District 102 get elected in 2018.

Flippable has since merged with Swing Left, which focused on helping Democrats win elections in the U.S. House of Representatives. The new organization, which continued under the name Swing Left, is now focused on elections at both levels but is placing a larger emphasis on statehouse races.

Swing Left will provide monetary help to campaigns though it has not yet finalized how much money it will have available. Vaughan said the two combined organizations raised $13.5 million nationwide in 2018 and Swing Left hopes to exceed that in 2020.

She said the group has been raising money since 2018 for this election cycle and will begin making donations after the primaries in March. The group does not get involved in contested Democratic primaries.

Grassroots support a factor

Vaughan said Swing Left picks its targets based on their measure of grassroots support in the districts and how much impact the group can make in a close election.

“When we see a lot of small-dollar donations in a district, we have a sense that there’s a lot of support in that area, even though those people don’t have deep pockets,” she said.

She pointed to House District 108, which Meyer held by only about 200 votes in 2018, as a seat where more money could help Democrats get over the finish line. The group supported Meyer’s opponent, Joanna Cattanach, in that election. Cattanach is in a three-way Democratic primary to challenge Meyer in November. Vaughan said the group will support whoever wins in that primary.

“Because that race was so close and because it was probably more under the radar than it should have been, there was definitely more room where an extra dollar could have made a difference,” Vaughan said.

But the organization isn’t solely focused on money. Erika Rocha, the group’s state director, said a big part of her focus is on building support for the candidates the group chooses to help.

“A big piece of what we’ve been doing ... has been identifying those leaders in regions like Dallas, Tarrant and Collin and making sure that we have an uptick in candidates who are running in those districts, but making sure that those candidates also have an army of volunteers to go out and support them after the March primary," Rocha said.

She said the group’s staff has been focusing on voter registration and phone banking, particularly in the special election for Fort Bend County House District 28 which was vacated by Republican John Zerwas when he took a job as executive vice chancellor of health affairs for the University of Texas system.

Democrat Eliz Markowitz and Republican Gary Gates are in a heated battle to replace him and serve out Zerwas’ term. The special election is Jan. 28, but whoever wins will have to run again in November to represent the district in the next legislative session.

Rocha said the group also plans to make a big push in the Harris County districts, where Swing Left has its most active teams because of its involvement in helping Rep. Lizzie Fletcher get elected in the 7th Congressional District.

CORRECTION, 8:50 a.m., Jan. 19, 2020: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said Swing Left was targeting North Texas’ Senate District 12 held by incumbent Republican Jane Nelson. It is targeting Senate District 19.