Texas Democrats, shut out of every statewide office for more than three decades, have toppled Republicans from the top of the ballot to the bottom, remaking the political landscape of the nation’s largest conservative state in a single earth-shattering night.
While James Talarico’s victory in the US Senate race and Gina Hinojosa’s defeat of three-term Governor Greg Abbott stole the headlines, Democratic candidates also triumphed in a series of lower-profile races on Tuesday, giving them the power to reshape the state’s economic and political future.
The Democratic wins were fueled by record turnout – especially in Latino communities that have borne the brunt of President Donald Trump’s immigration sweeps – and cracks in the Republican coalition, as some conservatives and independents soured on inflation and the war with Iran.
“I want to say something to the powerful people who have gotten very comfortable running this state,” Hinojosa said in her victory speech.
“The voters have delivered a mandate for change and it is change they will get.”
Talarico, in a nod to the hundreds of millions of dollars that Elon Musk poured into his opponent’s campaign, told his supporters “We just proved that all the money in the world is no match for the people of Texas.”
Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, who as head of the state Senate has driven Texas’ hard-right legislative agenda for more than a decade, lost to Vikki Goodwin, a state representative little known outside of the capital Austin.
Democrat Nathan Johnson captured the attorney general’s office – which Republicans have used for decades to challenge the policies of Democratic presidents in court.
Democrats also won races for comptroller, land commissioner, agriculture commissioner and railroad commissioner — key offices that oversee the state budget, its public lands, its farm economy and its oil and gas industry.
As was true elsewhere in the US, efforts by Texas Republicans to redraw congressional maps to their advantage largely backfired on Tuesday.
Tejano singer Bobby Pulido ousted Republican Representative Monica De La Cruz in the Rio Grande Valley; Democrat Katy Padilla Stout won the sprawling 23rd district.
The last open question on Wednesday was whether Democrats would also take the Texas House, which Republicans have controlled since 2003.
Erika Kinder, a Republican voter attending the watch party for losing Senate candidate Ken Paxton, said she hoped the losses would re-energize her party.
“The Texas GOP has been a little softer and unenthusiastic and this is probably a good wake-up call,” she said. “I think we’ll be right as rain in two to four years.”
Kendall Scudder, chair of the Texas Democrats, predicted in a September interview with Reuters that the party would win at the top of the ticket — and “we’re going to surprise you down ballot, too.”
Scudder emerged from the party’s grassroots and tried to steer it back to its populist roots.
Talarico, Hinojosa and others on the Democratic ticket focused intensely on pocketbook issues and government corruption, even as their Republican opponents tried to center transgender rights and other culture war issues.
“This has been two years of everyone in this state trying to build in regions that have been ignored for a very long time, and in communities that have been taken for granted,” Scudder said weeks before the election. “It’s going to culminate in wins.”
