Hannah McCarthy Reports from Texas

AT A CONCERT hall in downtown Austin, hundreds of Texans gathered in front of large screens to watch the results of the US midterm elections.

The watch party had been organised by the campaign for James Talarico, the state representative and Presbyterian seminarian vying to be Texas’ first Democratic senator in nearly four decades.

Most of those attending the Austin party had prepared for a long night that could stretch into the morning, as votes were collected and counted across a US state larger than France.

Talarico’s race against Texas attorney general Ken Paxton had attracted national and international attention, as well as hundreds of millions of dollars in outside funding.

The competitive senate race galvanised interest in another race taking place for Texas governor, where Gina Hinojosa, a relatively unknown state representative was facing off against Greg Abbot, an old-school Republican seeking his fourth term and the title of Texas’ longest serving governor.  

Talarico and Hinojosa’s campaigns had honed campaign messages that spoke about affordability, corruption and faith in a way that appealed to moderates and disaffected Republicans.

‘A long road’

As I was standing in a queue to go inside the concert hall, I spoke with the father of Talarico’s lead speechwriter, Annabelle Long, who had helped to craft the speeches he had spent the last 14 months repeating across Texas.

We discussed some of the most effective lines used by Talarico in the campaign, like Talarico’s line that the southern border should resemble a “front porch” featuring “a giant welcome mat out front and a lock on the door.”

“That was her line,” said Annabelle’s father, beaming, before noting that if Talarico lost tonight she would be out of a job.

A few moments later, a roar came from the crowd watching the results on a large screen as the Texas senate seat was called for Talarico.

Shortly after, the screen lit up with an update that Hinojosa had been announced as the winner of the governor race, unleashing a manic cry across the crowds.

“We were hoping for this; this has been a long road,” said Julia Hilder, who lives in Austin with her husband and has a daughter.

“We have felt like we have been ripped of some rights for our daughter. We even wanted her to leave Texas, and now we feel like there’s a lot of hope for the young generation and our kids.

“Women’s rights may come back, and it’s an incredible victory to have people who feel and think the way we do actually in office.”

“It honestly feels like a fever dream,” says Francisco Xavier Casas (29), who has never known Texas with a Democrat in state-wide office. 

“We have a Governor Gina Hinojosa and a Senator James Talarico, and I’m on the verge of tears to be honest.”

Before the election results were announced, Casas had thought Talarico was a shoo-in but had thought the polling that put Hinojosa behind the Republican incumbent was accurate, “but no, she pulled it off”.

Behind the blue wave 

The blue wave in Texas was propelled by a grassroots operation developed by the Texan Democrats, the strength of Talarico and Hinojosa as candidates and poor candidate selection by the Republicans for the senate race.

Paxton was previously the subject of impeachment proceedings and criminal investigations into securities fraud.

With his chequered past, the state attorney general had not been the Texan Republican Party’s first choice for candidate. Instead, they had wanted John Cornyn, the longstanding and well-known Republican incumbent, to run again for the senate seat he had held since 2002.

US President Donald Trump had a different view and earlier this year he endorsed Paxton a week before the Republican primaries between Cornyn and Paxton.

Trump called Paxton a “true MAGA warrior” and said Cornyn was a “good man” but had been slow to endorse Trump’s presidential bids.

Perhaps more damning was that Cornyn had not enthusiastically challenged the results of the 2020 presidential election when Biden had won; as Texas attorney general, however, Paxton had brought a challenge to the results to the US Supreme Court.

‘Most despicable human ever’ 

At the watch party in Austin, Casas said: “I am so glad and fortunate that the MAGA coalition went behind Ken Paxton. If they went behind John Cornyn, I don’t think James Talarico would have had a great shot.

“Ken Paxton is the most despicable human ever to see Texas politics, and they kind of set themselves up for failure. So I am forever fortunate that they made that decision.”

“It’s a turning point for Texas politics,” he says. “There are a lot of people on this side that want to see true change, want to buy homes, want to have healthcare.”

The Texas blue wave has given Democrats gains in the US Senate, the US House of Representatives, the governor’s house, as well as in the Texas state house.

Later in the night, Talarico’s fellow state representative John Bucy III remarked:

“Texas has elected a new generation of leaders to deliver results for this movement. We are seeing historic victories up and down the ballot all over the great state. Victories that once would have been unthinkable.”

Those gains were made all the more remarkable by the fact in 2025, Texas Republicans redrew the state’s congressional map, converting five previously Democratic-held districts into ones that Trump would have carried by at least 10 percentage points.

“We took back Texas,” said Talarico as he started his victory speech on the stage of the Long Centre.

The senator-elect for Texas didn’t mention Elon Musk by name but he didn’t need to after name-checking the tech trillionaire in every campaign stump speech.

“We just proved that all the money in the world is no match for the people of Texas,” said Talarico.

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“We just showed that a politics of division is no match for a politics of love, and we just sent a message to every billionaire megadonor, every trillionaire megadonor, every corrupt defender of this broken political system in this state, in this country. Power belongs to the people.”

Talarico was the target of a blitz of negative advertising campaigns and personal attacks by senior Republicans. Trump referred to him as ‘Talafreako’; while US Vice President JD Vance insinuated he was gay and a danger to children.

“We went up against more than 300 million dollars (€268.36 million), more than any Senate campaign in American history,” he said.

“We went up against all the negative ads, smear campaigns, foreign bots, and AI deepfakes that money can buy. Those attacks were the final howls of a dying establishment.” 

Talarico continued to set a tone that appealed to moderates and will, he hopes, reassure Republicans in Texas.

“We united Texans from all backgrounds and beliefs onto one team to take on this broken, corrupt political system,” he said.

“First-time voters, three-time Trump voters, working people from every corner of this state who are fed up and ready for change.

The 37-year-old state representative said that his faith teaches him that love is the strongest force in the universe.

“Love is not passive,” he said. “Love is not neutral. Love is not weak. Love requires that we stand between the bullies and the bullied. Love requires that we look evil in the eye and not blink.

“That kind of love has always been a threat to the powers that be. That kind of love is revolutionary. That kind of love is creative. Hate is predictable. Hate is boring. Hate can’t lower our energy bills. Hate can’t teach a child to read. Hate can’t build a future.”

“That old politics is dying, and a new politics is being born through each of us, through every underdog, through every David against every Goliath, through every Texan who believed in our state and believed in this movement.”

The scale of the power shift in Texas could allow Democrats to curb conservative policies on abortion, immigration and education.

On stage at the Long Centre in Austin, Talarico’s speech laid out his priorities going forward: regulating election finance, passing universal healthcare, investing in education, tackling corruption and an end to “corrupt forever wars that are driving up prices and killing our great men and women and immigrants”.

He concluded by saying:

“We must heal the deep spiritual corruption at the root of all of these crises. We must bridge the divides between us and repair the ties that bind us. We forged a new kind of politics here in the Lone Star State, an answer to this decade of division.

“We showed that when working people come together across every dividing line, we can do extraordinary things. We won this race because people who are desperate for change now are going to get change.”