TX-5 · House
election-day forecast · ground-up model · as of 2026-10-02
The district, in brief
Texas's 5th is drawn on new lines for 2026. The text describes it as the southeastern parts of the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex, including Mesquite, Terrell, Palestine, Athens, Canton, Kaufman, the southern halves of Garland and Rowlett, and the Lakewood and Lake Highlands portions of Dallas. Donald Trump won 60.1% here in 2024 and Ted Cruz 56.9%.
The incumbent is Republican Lance Gooden, re-elected with 64.1% in 2024. He was unopposed in the Republican primary, taking 100.0%, after teacher Travis Edwards was disqualified and James Ussery withdrew to run in the 32nd district; he is endorsed by Donald Trump, Greg Abbott and AIPAC. The Democratic nominee is Chelsey Hockett, a stay-at-home mom, who led the first round 45.9% to 41.6% over Ruth Torres, the 2024 nominee, and won the runoff 53.0% to 47.0%. The Democratic endorsement block lists the Texas AFL-CIO. As of April 26, 2026 Gooden had raised $1,170,230 with $1,337,500 on hand; Hockett had raised $11,105 with $1,056 on hand. An independent, Deadra Marsh-Foy, filed paperwork.
Decision Desk HQ (September 25, 2026), the Cook Political Report (February 6, 2025), Inside Elections (March 7, 2025) and Sabato's Crystal Ball (September 18, 2025) all rank the seat R; Silver Bulletin's line (August 20, 2026) is blank. The text records no district polls.
A paragraph quoting a model forecast from the day this brief was written is omitted; the current forecast is at the top of this page.
The facts, each beside its sentence
The incumbent is Republican Lance Gooden, who was re-elected with 64.1% of the vote in 2024.
The incumbent is Republican Lance Gooden
Chelsey Hockett, stay-at-home mom
Lance Gooden, incumbent U.S. representative
Chelsey Hockett, stay-at-home mom
Lance Gooden, incumbent U.S. representative
Donald Trump and Ted Cruz each respectively won 60.1% and 56.9% of the vote in this district in 2024.
who was re-elected with 64.1% of the vote in 2024
The new 5th district encompasses the southeastern parts of the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex, including Mesquite, Terrell, Palestine, Athens, Canton, Kaufman, the southern halves of Garland and Rowlett, and the Lakewood and Lake Highlands portions of Dallas.
candidate: Chelsey Hockett votes: 5,665 percentage: 53.0 party: Democratic Party (United States) candidate: Ruth Torres votes: 5,023 percentage: 47.0
Decision Desk HQ R September 25, 2026 The Cook Political Report R February 6, 2025 Inside Elections R March 7, 2025
Lance Gooden (R) $1,170,230 $554,887 $1,337,500 | Chelsey Hockett (D) $11,105 $-9,690 $1,056
Donald Trump, 45th and 47th president of the United States (2017–2021, 2025–present) Statewide officials * Greg Abbott, governor of Texas (2015–present) Organizations * AIPAC
===Independents=== ====Filed paperwork==== * Deadra Marsh-Foy
Not in the source: No district polls appear in the text, and the model's basis says none.; Silver Bulletin's ranking is blank in the text.; The Democratic endorsement block is not labeled by candidate; whether the Texas AFL-CIO endorsed Hockett or Torres is not stated.; The general-election fundraising figures are as of April 26, 2026; Hockett's 'spent' figure is shown as a negative number.
Read from the district's section of Wikipedia's state page (CC BY-SA), archived as efe72be7e14a; written by claude-fable-5-1 (batch reader) on 2026-09-30 and checked mechanically: every quote occurs verbatim in the archived text, every number in the brief occurs in the inputs. No probability here is the reader's.
Who holds the seat now
Lance Gooden (Republican), in this chamber since 2019, 4 terms. Committees: House Committee on the Judiciary; House Committee on Armed Services.
From the congress-legislators dataset (CC0), archived as ae8cb9477c48. For a Senate race this lists both of the state's senators; the one whose term ends in the election year holds the seat on the ballot. For a House district redrawn for 2026 it is the member elected under the old lines with this number, who may be running elsewhere; the dossier above names who is running here.
How it has voted for president
| Two-party margin | 2016 | 2020 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|
| President | R+13.8 | R+8.4 | R+16.0 |
A shift of 2.3 points toward the Republicans from 2016 to 2024. county returns placed on the current lines by 2020 block population; MEDSL county file (2016), an MIT-licensed county file (2020, checked against certified state results) and MEDSL precinct returns (2024). For a district split across counties this is an estimate, and where the state published the exact 2024 figure for these lines, that exact figure is the one the model uses.
Who are the voters?
| Group (adults 25+) | Share of adults | Turnout 2020 / midterm | Share of a midterm electorate | Est. Democratic share, 2020 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| White, no degree | 38% | 62% / 44% | 39% | 9% |
| White, degree | 16% | 84% / 68% | 26% | 49% |
| Black | 15% | 56% / 39% | 14% | 94% |
| Hispanic | 24% | 38% / 26% | 15% | 60% |
| Asian | 3% | 39% / 28% | 2% | 73% |
| Other / multiracial | 3% | 55% / 40% | 3% | 55% |
Of about 500,267 adults 25 and over. In 2020 the district voted 41.8% Democratic (two-party) for president. With the same preferences and a 2022-style midterm turnout, it would vote 41.9% Democratic: the midterm electorate alone moves the margin 0.1 points toward Democrats. Group shares are estimated from how results vary across the state's census tracts (ecological inference, anchored to Pew's 2020 validated-voter figures) and calibrated to this district's actual 2020 vote; turnout is the Census survey's state rate by race and national rate by education, whose state samples carry margins of several points.
Not answered here: how each group will vote in 2026. These are 2020 preferences; this profile is description, not yet an input to the forecast.
The money
| Candidate | Raised | Cash on hand | PAC share | Self-funded | Outside $ for | Outside $ against |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gooden, Lance (REP) incumbent | $1,341,647 | $1,329,417 | 39% | 0% | $52 | $0 |
| Torres, Ruth Ms. (DEM) challenger · not on our roster | $20,748 | $4,035 | 0% | 96% | $0 | $0 |
| Edwards, Travis (REP) challenger · not on our roster | $17,628 | $28 | 0% | 54% | $0 | $0 |
| Hockett, Chelsey Alexandra (DEM) challenger | $12,666 | $5,129 | 0% | 0% | $0 | $0 |
FEC bulk candidate summaries through June 30, 2026; $52 of independent expenditures for or against these candidates this cycle (FEC Schedule E, types 24E and 24A), which is the parties' and outside groups' own revealed view of whether this seat is in play.
The district in numbers
| Measure | District | Nation | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bachelor's degree or higher, 25+ | 26.2% | 34.9% | -8.8 pts |
| White, non-Hispanic | 46.9% | 58.2% | -11.3 pts |
| Black, non-Hispanic | 15.8% | 12.0% | +3.9 pts |
| Hispanic or Latino | 30.2% | 19.0% | +11.2 pts |
| Asian, non-Hispanic | 3.0% | 5.8% | -2.7 pts |
| Foreign-born | 15.2% | 13.9% | +1.4 pts |
| Median age | 36.7 | 39.2 | -2.5 |
| Median household income | $81,576 | $84,362 | $-2,785 |
| Median home value | $263,054 | $379,737 | $-116,683 |
| Owner-occupied homes | 65.5% | 65.1% | +0.4 pts |
| Unemployment, July 2026 (BLS county data) | 4.8% | 4.4% | +0.4 pts |
| Change in unemployment, past 12 months | +0.4 pts | — | — |
| Change since the last election (24 months) | +0.3 pts | — | — |
| Unemployment (ACS) | 4.5% | 5.2% | -0.6 pts |
| Federal government workers | 1.7% | 2.6% | -1.0 pts |
| Work from home | 11.1% | 13.5% | -2.3 pts |
| Households on SNAP | 10.7% | 11.8% | -1.1 pts |
| Households with Social Security income | 27.5% | 31.2% | -3.7 pts |
| Households with public assistance income | 2.1% | 2.7% | -0.5 pts |
| Moved in from another state, past year | 1.5% | 2.3% | -0.8 pts |
| Gini index | 0.40 | 0.44 | -0.04 |
| Per-capita personal income (BEA), 2024 | $68,942 | $73,248 | $-4,306 |
| Per-capita income growth since 2019, nominal, 2024 | 27.9% | 32.0% | -4.1 pts |
| Government and other transfers, share of income, 2024 | 15.4% | 19.6% | -4.2 pts |
| Social Security, share of income, 2022 | 4.5% | 5.8% | -1.3 pts |
| Medicare, share of income, 2022 | 4.0% | 4.5% | -0.5 pts |
| Medicaid, share of income, 2022 | 3.0% | 4.0% | -1.0 pts |
| SNAP, share of income, 2022 | 0.6% | 0.6% | -0.0 pts |
| Earned Income Tax Credit, share of income, 2022 | 0.4% | 0.4% | +0.1 pts |
| Veterans' benefits, share of income, 2022 | 0.7% | 0.9% | -0.1 pts |
| Federal civilian jobs, share of all jobs, 2022 | 0.8% | 1.3% | -0.5 pts |
| Military jobs, share of all jobs, 2022 | 0.3% | 0.9% | -0.6 pts |
ACS 5-year 2023, assembled from census tracts by the 2020 population of their blocks inside the current lines, because the Bureau has not tabulated these lines; medians are population-weighted means of tract medians. Unemployment is the BLS county series placed on the district by block population, not seasonally adjusted, so changes are same-month comparisons. Income, transfers and jobs are BEA county accounts placed the same way, compared with the average district. Every other figure is a named column of a named table in the Bureau's summary file, archived before it was read. This is what a reader knows about a district before looking at a poll; the model does not yet use it, and whether it should is a registered question.
Who is favoured, and by how much?
The 90% interval runs from -28.0 to +2.2 points, D-R. It is wide because this district has never been polled.
What is this built on?
A model trained on every contested House race 2012-2024 predicts this district's lean from its own record: presidential and House results on the current lines, incumbency, both candidates' prior offices, outside and party money before 1 October, demographics and public-assistance shares from the Census release before the election, local unemployment and income, and religious tradition. The national margin comes from presidential approval, the economy, the midterm penalty and the generic ballot corrected for its measured lean. Draws share national and state errors, so the seat total and this district come from the same simulation.
Not answered here: district polls, which are not yet folded in.
Why does the model say this?
Each figure is how far this district's predicted lean moves when that one feature is set to the typical value across 2026 districts, everything else held: 2024 presidential lean (R+20.3): 7.2 pts toward the Republican; 2024 House lean: 2.9 pts toward the Republican; experience gap (-4 levels, D minus R): 1.9 pts toward the Republican; religion: evangelical (25.6%): 0.7 pts toward the Democrat; military jobs share (0.3%): 0.6 pts toward the Democrat.
How sure is it, and of what?
Total sd 9.17 points, made of the seat's own volatility 92%, correlated polling error 8%. The decomposition is stored with the forecast rather than reconstructed, so a probability whose dominant input is a placeholder is visibly that.
Not answered here: a nowcast. 'If ballots were cast today' needs something that observes today, and for a House district nothing does. Publishing the election-day figure under both labels would make one forecast look like two.
How was this number made?
Run 00a09d4b-7980-4ec5-ada0-077968a87242, house_district_prior/0.2.0, as of 2026-10-02. Promoted by a pre-registered gate: on 2016-2022 its Brier score was 0.036 against 0.049 for the previous method, and on a single 2024 run 0.023 against 0.032 (experiments/district_gate_result.md, with an independent review).