Texas Democrats Look to Obama to Help Them Rebound

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(ABC News Photo Illustration)

Democrats are climbing out of the political graveyard in Texas where George W. Bush buried them. But winning local and legislative races is a far cry from delivering the state for their presidential nominee.

The state's Democratic presidential primary contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton drew a record 2.8 million votes in March. Just two years after sweeping Dallas County's elected offices, Democrats are threatening to repeat that in Harris County, which includes Houston. And the party is attempting to retake the Texas House by gaining five more seats in November.

With party prospects rising, Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean made Texas the first stop on his bus tour of the South designed to boost Democratic registration. The eye-catching bus wrapped in the red, white and blue of Obama's campaign logo traveled Thursday from Crawford, Bush's hometown, to Austin.

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There, Dean and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are to speak to Netroots Nation, the influential network of liberal bloggers and organizers, that chose Austin for their annual meeting. The Texas capital, home to the University of Texas' largest campus and a robust community of liberal bloggers, is the state's most liberal Democratic city, derided by conservatives as "The People's Republic of Austin."

"We're down here," Dean told a voter registration rally in Austin, "because we know that if Barack Obama wins Texas or does well enough in Texas to pick up five House seats in the Texas state House of Representatives that we're going to undo all those evil things that Tom DeLay did." He referred to the former Republican U.S. House leader who masterminded a Texas redistricting designed to ensure GOP control of the Legislature.

"Circumstances are certainly improving for the Democrats," said Cal Jillson, political science professor at Southern Methodist University.

Players in both parties say the state isn't as assuredly Republican as it was in the 1990s when George W. Bush was governor and Republicans held every statewide office and majorities in both houses of the Legislature.