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James Talarico after winning his Senate race Alamy Stock Photo
texas turns blue
Democrats pull off unexpected double win in Texas in most expensive Senate race in US history
A changing of the guard in the Lone Star State.
DEMOCRAT JAMES TALARICO, a former schoolteacher and Presbyterian seminarian, won the US Senate race in Texas, becoming the first from his party to win a Senate race in the state since 1988.
Talarico defeated the state’s attorney general Ken Paxton, a close ally of President Donald Trump who survived impeachment and years of scandal.
The result was a major setback for Trump, who threw his weight behind Paxton and made the state a campaign priority.
In another political earthquake for the southern border state, Democrat Gina Hinojosa unseated incumbent Texas governor Greg Abbott.
Hinojosa, a 52-year-old attorney, becomes the first Latina governor of the Lone Star State.
The Texas senate race broke all spending records for a midterm election.
According to the Texas Association of Broadcasters, over $1 billion worth of political ads were placed in Texas for this election cycle. Organisations, known as PACs, supporting Paxton’s bid for Senate have received at least $158 million from South African-American businessman Elon Musk, according to US federal filings.
Ahead of election day, more than 7.7 million Texans, or 40.5% of the electorate, voted either in person or by mail.
Many of those were Talarico voters who sought to celebrate his victory at a watch party in Austin, Texas on Tuesday night, which The Journal attended.
A long queue snaked around the front of the Long Centre in Austin, as volunteers on the campaign queued to get in.
“I didn’t think there would be so much international media,” remarked one woman who had been helping with the campaign.
The scene in the Long Centre in Austin, Texas as Democrat Hinojosa unseats incumbent Greg Abbott to be elected governor https://t.co/uAty7mOj0E
— TheJournal Politics (@TJ_Politics) November 4, 2026
Another in the queue at the Long Centre in Austin is an Irish man living in New York who had volunteered with the Talarico campaign.
He declined to talk to the media, citing his employer, but it’s clear Talarico has captured some of the hope Democrat voters need after several disappointing election cycles.
Talarico built his early edge with strong votes in the suburbs in North Texas and large margins in the urban centres that have long been blue pockets within the deep red state of Texas.
- With reporting by Hannah McCarthy in Texas
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