Residents of 50 US states descend on the polls, but few are as exciting as Texas.

The state, worth 40 electoral votes, is an important battleground for any candidate to target — even with its history of voting Republican.

In fact, it hasn’t voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1976 — when the state elected Jimmy Carter over Gerald Ford.

On top of history, Donald Trump currently holds a comfortable lead over Kamala Harris in the Lone Star State.

All of which indicates that Ms. Harris may be focusing her attention elsewhere, but that’s not stopping her from visiting the state — and in style.

He’s under no illusions that he can win Texas, but the state allows him to bring the key talking points to the fore.

She brought Houston-born pop megastar Beyonce to her recent rally in the state capital — with speeches focused on one of the major issues that has defined local and national politics in Texas and the US in recent years: abortion.

Ms. Harris told reporters before that rally that she had come to Houston to “point out that, unfortunately, elected leaders in Texas … have made (a) ground zero in this fundamental fight for women’s freedom to make decisions with look at your own body. “.

It is noteworthy that the crowd at this rally was the largest that Ms. Harris has been able to attract since taking office, with 30,000 Texans in attendance.

A look at the states that could make a difference…

She also spent money to attract voters there.

The Democratic Senate Campaign Committee has spent about $13 million on television advertising in the Senate race so far and has announced it will send another $5 million, according to Politico.

The spending, however, is part of a broader strategy by Democrats seeking to highlight personal stories to show the impact of nearly all abortion bans in 16 states.

Before the Houston trip, the Harris campaign ran an ad featuring a Texas woman who was denied an emergency abortion when her water broke at 16 weeks in 2022 and then nearly died of sepsis.

About seven million women of reproductive age live in Texas, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights, while an analysis by JAMA Paediatrics found that Texas saw a greater increase in infant mortality than the rest of the United States after the ban was implemented abortion.

Beyonce: ‘Your freedom is your human right’

Ms. Harris’ presence in the state serves an additional purpose.

She sought to push Democratic Senate candidate Colin Allred, who is tied with two-term GOP Sen. Ted Cruz, at the polls.

“When Texans vote for Colin Allred for the United States Senate, we will be in a position where we will actually be closer to being able to restore the protections of Roe v Wade,” she said.

It’s one of the closest Senate races nationally in some time, so every candidate with a chance to win their individual races has been well-funded and heavily supported by Democratic heavyweights.

Republicans are clearly worried about the very real possibility that Mr. Cruz could lose his Senate seat, with Mr. Trump consistently supporting him at rallies and online.

Last month, the former president wrote: “While I have endorsed Ted on numerous occasions verbally, because of the importance of the race and the importance of Ted to the future of our country, I thought the endorsement should be memorialized in writing.”

The need for that post, with that wording, speaks somewhat to the feeling in the GOP camp that Mr. Cruz may be about to lose what has been a safe seat for them.

Mr. Allred, on the other hand, performed well in the debates against Mr. Cruz, held steady in the polls and built a sizable social media presence — all of which impressed donors and Democratic strategists.

By targeting Texas, Ms. Harris gave herself a platform to talk about abortion, a crucial issue in this election, and to support a candidate with a strong chance of allowing Democrats to hold onto a Senate seat.

Time and money well spent?