FORT WORTH, Texas — Whether Democrat James Talarico can pull off an historic win over Republican Ken Paxton in Texas’ Senate race Tuesday depends on places such as Forney, a Dallas-Fort Worth suburb where voters have been shifting leftward amid a flood of new residents.
Kaufman County, where Forney is located, hasn’t voted to elect a Democrat statewide in almost three decades. But Democrats believe it is among several metropolitan suburbs on the brink of flipping for Mr. Talarico and breaking down the state’s longstanding red wall.
“We are going to shock the nation. Shock the world,” Mr. Talarico, who is running dead-even with Mr. Paxton, told a crowd in Dallas, where many Forney residents commute to work.
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In a final campaign swing, Mr. Paxton painted his opponent as an extreme, far-left radical and urged grassroots supporters to make sure GOP voters turn out in much greater numbers than Democrats on Election Day, as they have reliably done for many years.
“This isn’t just red versus blue. It’s the America our founders gave us versus something they would never recognize,” Mr. Paxton said at a campaign rally in Fort Worth, where Forney’s residents also commute to work. “We are on a knife’s edge, but the difference is thousands of miles apart.”
Republicans over the past several decades have swamped Democrats when it comes to turning out the vote in statewide elections, creating a red wall that Democrats have yet to crack.
It might barely hold up on Tuesday.
A Quantus Insights poll released Friday put Mr. Paxton ahead of Mr. Talarico by a single point.
What might have been a comfortable lead for Mr. Paxton in the past has evaporated as electoral politics in Texas shifted amid population growth. Thousands of new residents have moved to the state, and many of them came from deep blue California and New York.
While rural voters are polling reliably for Mr. Paxton and urban voters are predictably picking Mr. Talarico, the suburbs remain hotly contested ground, even as Democrats pour into metropolitan suburbs such as Forney, in Kaufman County.
“They are coming in from all over, so I’m sure it’s much more Democratic than it’s been,” said Jerry Hart, a retired warehouse manager and Paxton voter who has lived in Kaufman County for 45 years.
Forney’s longtime residents said they’ve watched the state’s political divide widen from their hometown, which in recent years has become one of the fastest-growing cities in north central Texas.
“The people in Forney are not the same people in Forney 10 years ago,” said John, a lifelong resident in his 30s and a Paxton voter who did not want his last name published. “People are moving from other areas, and a lot of them are bringing their Democrat voting into here.”
Forney was founded in 1873 and was for most of its existence a quiet farming town. But in recent years, developers have built thousands of new homes, attracting young families seeking affordable living within commuting distance to Dallas and Fort Worth.
Just a block from Forney’s historic Main Street, people lined up outside the town municipal building on the final day of early voting.
Ross, a voter in his 30s who works in the Dallas County government and did not want to provide his last name, said he checked the box for Mr. Talarico.
“The most important thing I’m thinking about is health care,” Ross said, explaining his support for Mr. Talarico, whose campaign platform calls for creating a Medicare-like public option.
Mr. Paxton acknowledged the high cost of health care, groceries and gas during a Saturday campaign rally. He is pitching a plan that lets taxpayers write off medical expenses and mortgages to help bring down costs. He warned Mr. Talarico’s pro-green energy agenda would only cause gas prices to rise further.
Mr. Talarico, 37, a state lawmaker since 2018, has long supported far-left policies. He moderated his positions in his Senate campaign, but the GOP saturated the airwaves with his past statements in support of transgender surgeries for children, his 2022 vegan campaign for the state legislature and his 2021 claim that “radicalized white men” are the nation’s greatest domestic terror threat.
Mr. Paxton, 63, told the crowd in Fort Worth that the election on Tuesday is the most important one of their lifetime.
“It occurred to me that we keep saying that because the left in this country keeps getting more and more radical,” he said.
Republicans fear if Mr. Paxton loses, it will reverberate far beyond the Lone Star State.
Many political analysts believe a Talarico victory will open the door to Democrats winning Texas and its 40 electoral votes in the next presidential election, which could make it difficult for the GOP ever to win the White House again.
If the red wall doesn’t hold, Republican State Rep. Andy Hopper warned Paxton supporters in Fort Worth, “Texas will be a battleground state for the rest of our natural lives.”
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