On Sunday, the New York Times reported that GOP Rep. Kenny Marchant will become the seventh Republican in the past month — and the fourth Texas Republican in two weeks — to announce his retirement in 2020. Marchant, first elected in 2004, scraped past little-known Democratic accountant Jan McDowell by just three points in 2018 and was among the few GOP members already in our Toss Up column.
The suburban Dallas/Ft. Worth 24th CD is one of the nation's most rapidly diversifying melting pots. Drawn in 2011 as a safe GOP seat based in Irving and Grapevine, the 24th CD was 53 percent white, 23 percent Hispanic, 11 percent Asian and 10 percent African-American at the outset of the decade. In 2017, it was 46 percent white, 24 percent Hispanic, 14 percent Asian and 12 percent African-American.
For Marchant, a conservative former Carrollton mayor who hadn't had to run a competitive campaign in 15 years, the writing was on the wall. In 2012, the 24th CD voted for Mitt Romney 60 percent to 38 percent. But in 2016,
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