As expected, state Rep. Kelly Hancock, R-Richland Hills, will run for the Texas Senate next year in SD-10, the district currently occupied by state Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth. Hancock is the first challenger to announce, but this could get crowded, and quickly.

Davis is running for re-election even though, thanks to redistricting, her new district has a stronger Republican presence that her current one. That’s had the effect of attracting interest from other Republicans, including Hancock and fellow state Reps. Mark Shelton of Fort Worth and Vicki Truitt of Keller.

Some expected Davis to move into the new district now represented in the Senate by Chris Harris of Arlington, but it’s apparently not going to happen. Her plan is to run in SD-10, and her hope is that the courts hearing challenges to redistricted districts will move the lines. She’s one of the interveners in the redistricting preclearance fight now going on in Washington. And a federal panel will start hearings on the state’s congressional, senate, House and State Board of Education lines next month.

“While some people are already concerned with political races, I’ve been meeting with Senate District 10 constituents about Legislative assignments addressing the priorities of hard-working families such as keeping and creating jobs, finding solutions to our public education funding crisis, and lowering homeowners insurance and residential electricity rates,” Davis said via press release. “Based on our overwhelming constituents’ support, I plan to run in this Senate district regardless of whether the district lines remain the same or whether the proposed partisan map is found to be illegal and redrawn, which is more likely to occur.”

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