Two weeks before Election Day, Gov. Greg Abbott stopped by a barbecue joint in Harris County to rally voters, sharing his two goals for next year’s midterm election. The first is to win his own race, returning him to the governor’s mansion for a fourth term.

The second is to flip Harris County.

“I’ve got $90 million in my bank account, and I’m going to spend most of it in Harris County, Texas to make sure, precinct by precinct, we turn out voters who voted in the presidential election, turn out voters who never voted before,” Abbott said. “We got to win Harris County and make Harris County dark red.”

The county, where one in six Texans live, is critical to both parties’ statewide ambitions. It has been blue for about a decade after spending another decade as a massive purple county that voted for George Bush in 2004, Barack Obama in 2008 and again, just barely, four years later — but also kept popular Republicans in local offices.

Then President Donald Trump’s ascent erased most ambiguity.

The last time Trump was in the White House, Democrats swept the county in the 2018 midterms. Among the dethroned Republicans — 59 judges among them — was then-County Judge Ed Emmett, who had until then enjoyed wide support until he was defeated by Lina Hidalgo, a 27-year-old who had never attended a meeting of the commissioners court she would soon preside over.

Since then, the county with Houston at its center has remained a reliable foil to Texas state government, which has been dominated by Republicans for three decades. Hidalgo has been at odds with state officials over everything from the county’s COVID-19 response to elections, like when she created new — and sometimes creative — opportunities to vote that drew state leaders’ opposition and scrutiny.

If Hidalgo’s election amid the 2018 blue wave ushered in an era of Democratic control of the state’s largest county, Republicans now want her departure, as she won’t seek reelection, to punctuate its end.

“We have more than enough voters in Harris County to win,” said Dave Carney, Abbott’s chief strategist, in an interview. He cautioned it won’t be a wipeout but said he expects some victories.

Ahead of next year, Republicans are going on the offensive, finding hope in recent elections where they reclaimed some of the 2018 losses and came less than two points from unseating Hidalgo in 2022. And it appears Democrats are taking the threat seriously, even with newfound momentum following victories this month across the country.

“The biggest conundrum as long as I’ve been doing this is mathwise, potential-wise, reality-wise, Harris County is the battleground county,” said Mike Doyle, leader of the county’s Democratic Party.

Doyle was feeling good after Election Day. He pointed to the Cypress Fairbanks ISD races, where three progressive school board candidates defeated Republicans who had appeared alongside Abbott at the BBQ restaurant. And he saw Democrats win all over the country.

Still, he said he is not taking anything for granted and would like more resources to keep up with the GOP efforts.

“They are doing it for a reason,” Doyle said of Abbott and the GOP focusing on Harris County. “The state party, national party, the funders have not yet really accepted that or understood that as well as Republicans — and hopefully this will be a good wake-up call.”

Jeronimo Cortina, a University of Houston political science professor, noted the governor has a lot of money to influence any race he sets his mind to.

“Those things are things that are going to play a very significant role in terms of [whether] Republicans can flip Harris County or not,” Cortina said. Trump’s policies will also have an impact on voters’ sentiments, he added.

In line to succeed Hidalgo are a couple familiar faces to Houstonians, none of whom Abbott has given his endorsement to yet.

Former Houston Mayor Annise Parker and former Councilwoman Letitia Plummer are vying for the Democratic nomination. The other side of the aisle is more crowded, with five candidates seeking the Republican nomination — including Marty Lancton, a firefighter and union chief who launched his bid with a long list of endorsements.

Former Republican County Commissioner Steve Radack, who retired in 2019, also wants back in. In an interview, he said the county must return its focus to infrastructure and roads with more efficient use of public money, pointing to what he called waste — like physical mail no one reads, he claimed — while the county has increased tax rates.

“Something needs to change,” Radack said.

Two of the court’s three Democrats will be on the ballot next year, including Precinct 4 Commissioner Lesley Briones. She would face off with Radack should they both win their respective primaries.

Ahead of 2026, the governor’s campaign has identified Republicans in the county — and state — who do not vote often or at all, Carney said. They may soon hear doorknocks.

Carney said the campaign aims to have a field director in each of the 24 Texas House districts in the county, no matter how Democratic or Republican they lean, and fan out hundreds of workers to get voters to the polls, first for the primaries and then for the general.

One source of optimism occurred last year, when nine GOP-backed judicial candidates won out of 10 open seats in the county. Carney said the only reason the GOP did not sweep the election was because the party did not find a 10th candidate, a key component for local success. He said good candidates will have to close out the win, adding, “We are not a silver bullet.”

Plus, Carney believes that residents are upset about their taxes and public safety — and can sling Democrats’ voting records back at them on issues regarding both.

“It’s just a simple formula,” Carney said. “It’s just a perfect storm, if you will.”

All this gives Harris County GOP Chair Cindy Siegel hope, albeit a bit dimmed after this month’s Democratic wins. It won’t be simple for either party, she said, acknowledging that defending a struggling economy with a Republican in the White House will be a challenge. But, she added, the party will focus on the local level and what local elected officials can control.

“We think that there’s an opportunity,” Siegel said. “It’s going to be a hard-fought race.”

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