AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas was unusually shaky ground for Republicans on Tuesday as a record surge of voters in America’s biggest red state, typically among the worst for turnout in the U.S., lined up to decide the most unpredictable election here in decades.

The high stakes in Texas rippled beyond whether President Donald Trump was genuinely at risk of becoming the first Republican presidential nominee since 1976 to lose the Lone Star State. Democrats, shut out of power in the Texas Capitol for a generation, were also within reach of seizing the majority in the state House chamber for the first time in nearly 20 years — an outcome that would mark a new era in what has been America’s foremost factory of conservative legislation.

Republican Sen. John Cornyn was also taking seriously a challenge from Democrat MJ Hegar in what was coming down to a second surprisingly close U.S. Senate race in Texas in as many years. Even progressive congressional challengers who back the Green New Deal were presenting serious challenges to longtime GOP incumbents in districts that run through some of Texas' most conservative counties.

Turnout in Texas was massive and already at record levels.

In Houston, Corbin Clark, 29, a forklift driver, said Tuesday was the first time he had ever voted. Clark voted at a community center in Acres Homes, a historically Black neighborhood in northwest Houston.

Clark said he didn’t know why he hadn’t previously voted, but he cast his ballot for president for Democrat Joe Biden.

“My momma got on my case,” Clark said, laughing. “She told me I needed to go vote and use my voice.”

In Dallas, retired antiques dealer Cheryl North, 71, said she voted for Trump and every other Republican on the ballot.

“They didn’t have a place on the ballot where you could vote straight Republican but I just went through one at a time,” she said.

She said her biggest motivation to vote was “fear of my country becoming socialist and (I) just didn’t want that to happen.”

Nearly 10 million Texans cast ballots in person or by mail during the three weeks of early voting, surpassing the number of ballots cast in the 2016 election. Elections experts predicted the number of votes could surpass 12 million, which would amount to more than 70% turnout — a striking level for a state that was among the worst for turnout in 2016. Turnout among registered voters has not been above 60% in any presidential election sine 1992.

The avalanche of votes reflected high enthusiasm and signs that Texas, where Republicans have coasted in lopsided elections for decades, was rapidly transforming into a battleground.

There were no indication of major problems at polling places, although officials in Hidalgo County along the Texas-Mexico border decided to keep voting centers open an extra hour due to “laptop check-in issues" that delayed lines earlier.

The heavily Latino border lagged in early voting turnout behind other parts of Texas, and Texas Democratic Party chairman Gilberto Hinojosa said his party's decision to not knock on doors for much of the campaign because of COVID-19 worries hurt outreach efforts. Contacting voters by phone, Hinojosa said, is “only so effective."

The road to Election Day in Texas was littered with legal battles over voting access in the middle of a pandemic. Whereas the vast majority of states are allowing widespread mail-in voting because of coronavirus fears, Texas is only one of five that refused, choosing instead to expand early voting by one week.

On Monday, a federal judge rejected a last-ditch effort by GOP activists to toss out nearly 127,000 votes in Houston that were cast at drive-in polling centers. Later Monday night, a federal appeals court panel denied the group's request to halt drive-thru voting in Harris County on Election Day.

Polls suggested a closer-than-normal race in Texas — which Trump won by 9 points in 2016 — although the president gave little indication of outward concern. He didn’t campaign in Texas down the stretch, focusing instead on tossup battles in Florida, Arizona and Pennsylvania.

Biden did not campaign in Texas either — frustrating Texas Democrats who pleaded with the former vice president to make a bigger push with his chances here looking remarkably viable. He instead ran a relatively small campaign in Texas, and while vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris devoted one of the race's final days to a swing through Texas, Biden left the heavy lifting to millions of dollars that Democrats poured into down-ballot races to oust vulnerable GOP state lawmakers and members of Congress.

Democrats need to flip just nine seats to take control of the state House for the first time since 2002. Doing so would give them a blockade against Republican measures on abortion, immigration and voting rights that have roiled the Texas Capitol for years. It also would give Democrats a say in the redistricting process.

Their targets include nine Republican-held districts in the Dallas, Houston and San Antonio areas that Democrat Beto O’Rourke carried in his narrow U.S. Senate loss in 2018.

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Find AP’s full election coverage at APNews.com/Election2020.