Democrats tried, tried and tried again. They came tantalizingly close a few times. Now, they’ve finally accomplished a goal that eluded them for over three decades: Turning Texas Blue.
The party swept the governor’s office, a US Senate seat and a host of down-ballot slots in the US midterm election, a rejection of the Republican party and President Donald Trump. The last time a Democrat won a statewide race in Texas was in 1994.
The political sea change was part of a nationwide surge for Democrats and a broad rejection of MAGA, but it holds special resonance in the Lone Star State. Texas had become a center of deep red conservatism in recent years as Republicans cemented their control, pushing through legislation in support of key GOP priorities over border security, public education and bans on treatment for transgender youth.
But this year’s vote focused on pocketbook issues. Republicans’ attempts to shift the conversation to cultural topics fell flat against painful increases in the cost of living, driven in part by the Trump administration’s tariffs and the broadly unpopular war with Iran.
James Talarico, the senate candidate, and Gina Hinojosa, poised to be the next governor, both took a moderate tone in their campaigns, emphasizing economics and largely steering clear of hot-button cultural topics.
“This is a reflection of the rejection that Texas voters have for Donald Trump and his administration,” said Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University in Houston. “Independent voters that historically tend to vote Republican this cycle leaned heavily toward Democratic candidates across the state.”
The Republican losses were also a rebuke to Elon Musk, who moved to Texas after the pandemic as he complained about difficulties doing business in California and quickly aligned himself with GOP politicians. Various political action committees he controlled funneled more than $205 million into Texas races this year, according to federal filings compiled by Bloomberg.
His money became a potent line of attack for Talarico on the campaign trail.
“Elon Musk is trying to buy this Senate seat in Texas,” Talarico said during a recent rally. “In all likelihood, if you’ve seen an attack ad on your TV, that was Elon. If you’ve gotten lies in your mailbox, that was Elon. If you’ve received a text message saying scary things about me, that was Elon too.”
Michael R. Bloomberg, the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, has donated $116 million to support Democrats in the midterms.
Talarico led Ken Paxton 55 percent to 43 percent with 83 percent of votes counted, according to a preliminary tally by the Associated Press. Hinojosa had 53 percent compared with 46 percent for the incumbent Governor Greg Abbott.
Further down the ballot, in a closely watched race for the oil and gas regulating railroad commissioner, Democrat Jon Rosenthal looked poised to defeat Republican Bo French, who was widely condemned for a racist social media post about University of Texas football fans of South Asian descent.
The early returns showed Democrats posted their best performance in large urban areas, where they’re traditionally stronger. But rural areas too showed a significant shift toward them. In Taylor County, where Trump won by 50 points in 2024, Paxton was up by 31 points. In Uvalde County, Abbott was leading by just 7 percentage points in a county that Trump won by 33 points in 2024.
Early results showed Latinos swinging back toward Democrats after momentum largely shifted to Trump in 2024, especially in the Rio Grande Valley along the border with Mexico. In Cameron County, a heavily Hispanic area that includes Brownsville and South Padre Island, Talarico was ahead by 38 points in a county that Trump won in 2024.
“There was so much that was promised by the Republicans, and they didn’t uphold everything they promised,” said Rachel Lozano, 49, of McAllen, Texas, the largest city in Hidalgo County. She says the region shifted back to Democrats because of frustration with public school vouchers, immigration raids that tore apart families and high grocery costs.
“Pete Hegseth wanted a public execution,” she said by text message, referring to a proposal by Trump’s Defense Secretary to livestream the execution of a former Army major who killed 13 people in 2009. “They got one!!!”
Paxton’s loss also shines a spotlight on his bruising primary victory over the incumbent GOP Senator John Cornyn. Trump had endorsed Paxton over Cornyn, a fundraising dynamo who had easily won four previous Senate elections. Trump and Vice President JD Vance visited Texas several times ahead of Election Day, attempting to rally support for Paxton.
But Paxton’s ethical issues may have proven too much. The attorney general was impeached by the state’s Republican-dominated House of Representatives in 2023, although he was acquitted by the state Senate. He’s also been accused of extramarital affairs, and last year his wife initiated divorce proceedings “on Biblical grounds.”
“Candidate quality counts,” said Vinny Minchillo, a Republican strategist in Texas. “Ken Paxton was a problem candidate and he energized Democrats dramatically. Combine that with Republican tone-deaf messaging on economics, and it’s a plague of locusts kind of night.”
Hinojosa, a state representative from Austin, entered the race with little name recognition or fundraising apparatus, but she hammered the incumbent for what she said was insufficient funding for public schools and policies that favored “moneyed interests.”
She accused Abbott of betraying rural Texans by pushing through a voucher system that could be used to pay for private schooling or home-schooling expenses. She pledged to end the program and redirect funds to public schools.
While the results were a surprise, there were hints that Democrats were gaining ground in Texas. The popular podcast host Joe Rogan, who like Musk moved to Texas from California during the pandemic, became a skeptic of Trump in recent years after endorsing him in the 2024 election. Last year, he hosted Talarico for a friendly conversation on his podcast, and ultimately said he was so impressed that he urged him to run for president.
To be sure, politics are volatile and this year was strong for Democrats across the country. For years, Democrats suggested that Texas was up for grabs, only to be disappointed, most notably when Beto O’Rourke narrowly lost the race for a senate seat to Ted Cruz in 2018. But this time, there is a feeling that the shift is significant.
“In Texas, our candidates put up a sail and caught that wind, and a lot of them are going to win,” said Matt Angle, who directs Democratic research political action committee Lone Star Project. “Thirty years of one party control is not healthy and it’s good that it is over.”
