Texas's 26th congressional district

Texas

A Democrat won this district exactly once, in 1982, and no Democrat has cracked forty percent since.

historicalpeople

The Twenty-Sixth was drawn up after the 1980 census, because Texas kept growing and Denton County grew fastest of all. Its first representative was a Democrat, Tom Vandergriff, who won the new seat in 1982. He held it for a single term. In 1984 he lost narrowly to a Republican named Dick Armey, and the district has never gone back. Armey went on to become House Majority Leader, and the seat is still best known as his. Since Vandergriff's defeat, no Democrat running here has crossed the forty percent mark. Republicans hold all but one county office in Denton County, and every state legislator representing the county. The margins have narrowed a little. Mitt Romney carried the district by thirty-seven points in 2012. Donald Trump carried it by fourteen in 2020.

This is the first of 2 parts. The rest runs about 2 minutes and is read to you as you drive past. Hear the whole piece.

What this was written from
Indeed, since Vandergriff's defeat in 1984, no Democrat has crossed the 40 percent mark.

Written from Wikipedia, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Nearby, on the same roads

  • Lewisville, Texas 12.5 mi Thirteen days after Woodstock, a small Texas town drew a hundred and fifty thousand people to hear Led Zeppelin and Janis Joplin.
  • Lewisville Lake 12.7 mi While building the dam here, Army engineers stumbled onto artifacts that seemed to say people lived in Texas thirty-six thousand years ago.
  • Grapevine Lake 15.4 mi Four bones found beside this Texas reservoir belonged to a bird that lived ninety-six million years ago.
  • Texas International Pop Festival 15.4 mi Two weeks after Woodstock, a field outside Lewisville drew a hundred and fifty thousand people to see Led Zeppelin, Janis Joplin and B.B. King.
  • Grapevine, Texas 17.5 mi For decades a sign outside town called Grapevine the Cantaloupe Capital of the World.
  • North Lake (Dallas) 18.8 mi A popular Dallas water sports lake shut down in 2000, and the suspected reason was amoebas thriving in water warmed by a power plant.