Republican Troy Nehls defeated Democratic challenger Sri Preston Kulkarni in Texas’s 22nd Congressional District.
This suburban Houston race was considered a reflection of whether Texas is becoming an increasingly blue state.
Kulkarni, who spent 14 years in the U.S. Foreign Service, first ran for this seat two years ago against incumbent Republican Pete Olson. In previous races, Olson had prevailed over his opponents by double-digit margins, sometimes by more than 30 percentage points. He beat Kulkarni by only 5 points in 2018. In 2019, Olson announced he would not run again.
The 22nd District largely contains suburbs in the south-central portion of the greater Houston area. To some analysts, Olson’s narrow win in 2018 demonstrated that the demographics of the district were shifting. Over 25% of the district is Hispanic, and almost 1 in 5 people are Asian.
Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball rated the district as “lean Republican,” but the Cook Political Report rated it as a “Republican toss up.”
Kulkarni bested his Democratic opponents without much trouble in the March primary.
But Nehls, the sheriff of Fort Bend County, had a much tougher path to the Republican nomination. Nehls was 1 of 15 candidates in the primary that included Pierce Bush of the Bush family. While Nehls was the top vote-getter in the primary, he did not reach 50% of the vote, so he faced a July runoff with second-place finisher Kathaleen Wall. Nehls bested Wall in the runoff with over 69% of the vote.
