The reason for this intense Democratic interest in state politics is redistricting.Democrats saw how Republican state legislative majorities affected the composition of the U.S. House after the 2010 census. Democrats want to do in more states what they did back then in drawing congressional lines favorable to their party in California, Illinois, Maryland and other blue bastions. The 2020 census gives them the opportunity, but only if they control at least one chamber of a state’s legislature.

Democrats, eager to set the tone for 2020, piled into the race with money, endorsements, technology, lists and volunteers to help Elizabeth Markowitz defeat her Republican opponent. Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren and Mike Bloomberg all endorsed Ms. Markowitz. Mr. Bloomberg even carved out time from his presidential campaign to go door-to-door with her. Former presidential candidates Julián Castro and Robert Francis O’Rourke also canvassed neighborhoods, Mr. O’Rourke so frequently that it looked as if he was trying to establish residency.

Calling the race “the most important election (yet) in 2020,” the former El Paso congressman said a victory could help turn Texas blue and “build momentum” in the state for the eventual Democratic presidential nominee.

The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee echoed Mr. O’Rourke’s enthusiasm, saying that flipping the district would be “earth-shattering.” The Texas House Democratic Campaign Committee called the race “a dead heat” in the campaign’s final week.

Former Attorney General Eric Holder, chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, said if Ms. Markowitz was elected, she’d be “a key voice in fixing our broken political system.” His praise was accompanied by $50,000 in contributions, part of the nearly $1.3 million from national and state Democratic groups. More than 70% of Ms. Markowitz’s contributors were from outside Texas, and more than 94% from outside her district, according to Texas Ethics Commission campaign reports.

All these hopes of a Democratic victory were shattered Tuesday. In the biggest turnout in history for a Texas House special runoff, Republican Gary Gates walloped Ms. Markowitz 58% to 42%. His 16-point margin of victory was more than twice the Republican incumbent’s in 2018 and larger than the district margins for President Trump in 2016 (10 points) and Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018 (three).

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This was Mr. Holder’s plan. While most prominent Democrats spent the months following Donald Trump’s election plotting future runs, Mr. Holder was launching the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, committed to domination of electoral mapmaking through the courts and legislatures. The NDRC spent its first years aggressively litigating legislative maps it didn’t like, to great success. Virginia’s election was the first test of the electoral piece of Mr. Holder’s strategy, and it will now serve as the model by which Democrats attempt to gain redistricting power in 11 other key states next year.

The NDRC claims its efforts are aimed at simple “fairness in the electoral system.” It says it’s working to overturn gerrymanders that “disenfranchise” voters. Don’t be fooled. Mr. Holder’s group has never engaged in blue states where Democrats routinely draw maps to disadvantage Republicans, such as Maryland, Massachusetts or New Jersey.

The NDRC is instead the Democratic version of the GOP’s success of a decade ago, the Redmap Project. Democrats, flush from Barack Obama’s 2008 victory, tuned out the state legislatures. Republicans used their inattention, along with a sweeping cash advantage and a backlash against the Obama presidency, to flip 21 state chambers in 2010, allowing them to dominate map-drawing after that year’s census. That power helped consolidate Republican control of state chambers and the U.S. House. Republicans might be flattered by Mr. Holder’s imitation—if they weren’t so busy getting crushed.

The Holder “sue to blue” litigation strategy has already yielded major gains for Democrats, as state judges struck down maps drawn by Republicans and required changes that ultimately aided the Democrats. Example: Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court—which is chosen through partisan elections and has a Democratic majority—in 2018 overruled the U.S. House maps drawn by the Republican legislature and produced its own version. The new maps helped Democrats flip three net seats. In Virginia, federal judges redrew the state legislative map to aid candidates running this week.

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