Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex which had previously anchored the 26th district.[5] With a Cook Partisan Voting Index rating of R+26, it is one of the most Republican districts in Texas.[3]
The district has been represented in the United States House of Representatives by RepublicanRonny Jackson since 2021, and previously by RepublicanMac Thornberry, from 1995 until his decision not to run for reelection in 2020.[6] As late as 1976, Jimmy Carter won 33 of the 44 counties in the district, getting 60% to 70% of the vote in many of them. While voters in the Panhandle began splitting their tickets as early as the 1940s, Democrats continued to hold most local offices, as well as most of the area's seats in the state legislature, well into the 1990s.
Since Thornberry's ouster of three-term Democrat Bill Sarpalius in 1994, however, a Democrat has only crossed the 30 percent mark in 1996, 1998 and 2000. Republicans now dominate at nearly every level of government, and there are almost no elected Democrats left above the county level. In 2012, it gave Barack Obama his lowest percentage of the vote in a congressional district. He received 18.5% of the vote. In 2016, it was Hillary Clinton's second largest margin of defeat in a congressional district after Alabama's 4th. She received an even lower percentage than President Obama four years prior, gathering 16.9% of the vote compared to Donald Trump's 79.9%.
Often in recent years, the incumbent has either run unopposed or has only a third/fourth party candidate who is opposing them. Generally, the incumbent gets over 70% of the vote, even during years with huge opposition party pickups.