No one is more keenly aware of Fort Bend’s potential than the Republican who is trying to hold on there. “They know if they can put a blue tinge, a little purple, on Fort Bend County, they may be able to take Texas,” Olson told a group of supporters last month. “If they take Texas, guess what happens? We never, ever have a person like Donald Trump in the White House.”

Olson has not reacted well to his first competitive race since he unseated Democratic Rep. Nick Lampson in 2008. The district he now represents is far different than it was when it was re-drawn by Republican state legislators in 2012. Nearly 200,000 new residents have moved to the district since that time, making it the third-largest district by population in the country (the other two are states), and those new residents skew heavily non-white.

A savvier politician might have adapted to the new environment. Olson circled the wagons. He hasn’t held a town hall for the general public in two years, refused to debate Kulkarni, and has offered a string of conspiracy theories on the campaign trail to explain his opponent’s success, including alleging that Geoge Soros is secretly bankrolling Kulkarni’s campaign.

Olson and his allies’ outreach to Asian American voters has been heavy-handed at best. In September, the Fort Bend County Republican Party purchased a full-page ad in India Today, a Houston-area publication, wishing Hindus a “Happy Ganesh Chathurthi.” Beneath an illustration of Ganesha, the Hindu deity with the head of an elephant, the ad posed a question: “Would you worship a donkey or an elephant?” After blowback, led by Kulkarni, the party was forced to apologize.

A few weeks earlier, Olson told a gathering at India House, a Houston cultural center, that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated by “terrorists from Pakistan.” Olson said later that he had done so “accidentally.