HOUSTON — Could Texas really turn blue? This year’s U.S. Senate race is testing whether Democrats can win a seat the state has kept in Republican hands for nearly four decades. Democrat James Talarico is facing Republican Ken Paxton in a contest that has renewed attention on Democrats’ chances of winning statewide. Texas last elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate in 1988, when Lloyd Bentsen won reelection. A Talarico victory would end that 38-year drought.