HOUSTON (AP) — Just as Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Colin Allred was holding a town hall near the Mexican border as part of an “unrig Texas” campaign tour, the state’s Democratic fundraising powerhouse Beto O’Rourke rallied support in Austin for lawmakers who left the state to delay a redistricting plan led by President Donald Trump. The next morning, one of those wayward lawmakers, James Talarico, stood in the pulpit at former President Barack Obama’s old church in Chicago to say he and his fellow legislators had simply taken a leap of faith.

All three Democrats are either declared or potential contenders for the Senate seat on the ballot in next year's midterm elections. In what would typically be a quiet period in Texas politics, Republicans have roiled the state's 2026 Senate camp

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