Newly-elected U.S. Sen. James Talarico speaks at an Election Night event in Austin
(Photo by Eric Gay/Associated Press)
TAMMYE NASH | Managing Editor
Nash@DallasVoice.com
“Turnout is key.” It’s a common refrain in every election at every level. This week, Democrats in Texas proved the truth of that adage, turning out and turning the state blue for the first time in decades.
Texas voter registrations jumped up 2.2 percent from 2024, hitting a record high of more than 19,234,378 (according to TransparencyUSA.org) before this week’s midterms. Of those more than 19 million registered voters, 9,428,162 turned out to vote in what turned into an historic Democratic sweep.
That’s a voter turnout of 49.02 percent. And of those 9,428,162 people who voted, 7,461,313 — or 79 percent — voted early. And Democrats, traditionally, are more likely to vote early.
So all signs pointed to a blue wave in Texas. And the signs were right. Democrats won every statewide elected office in the Lone Star State and they flipped the Texas House of Representatives.
The race between Democrat James Talarico and Ken Paxton, the current Texas attorney general who defeated incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in the Republican Primary earlier this year, has made national headlines for months. It was considered one of the bell weather races of the Democratic efforts nationwide to flip the U.S. Senate blue.
The race had been predicted to be a close one all along, even as Talarico pulled further and further ahead in the polls in the final days of the campaign.
By the time the votes were all counted, though, it turned out not to be all that close after all: Talarico won by 1,195,609 votes, a gap of nearly nearly 13 points.
In U.S. House races in Texas, Republicans had expected to come out of the midterms with a 30-8 advantage in the state’s congressional delegation thanks to the mid-decade gerrymandered redistricting Donald Trump pressured Texas Republicans to do last year.
As it turned out, though, while the GOP still holds the majority of the congressional seats in the state, they have only a 10-seat advantage.
While the Talarico/Paxton contest drew most of the attention, Gina Hinojosa was quietly building her lead over three-term incumbent governor, Greg Abbott. In the end, Hinojosa bested Abbott by 706,262 votes to become Texas’ first Latina/o governor.
In another historic victory, Vikki Goodwin outpaced incumbent Dan Patrick by 598,929 votes to become the first female lieutenant governor of the state.
State Sen. Nathan Johnson, whose District 16 includes Oak Lawn, defeated Republican Mayes Middleton, another Texas senator, to succeed Paxton as Texas attorney general.
Johnson’s win signifies a likely sea change in the policies and practices of the Office of the Attorney General, where Paxton has routinely used the power of that office to target the LGBTQ+ community, especially transgender Texans.
Democrat Sarah Eckhardt defeated Republican Don Huffines by nearly 13 points in the race for state Comptroller of Public Accounts. Democrat Benjamin Flores defeated Republican Dawn Buckingham by nearly 12 points in the race for Commissioner of the General Land Office. In the race for Agriculture Commissioner, Democrat Clayton Tucker defeated Republican Nate Sheets by more than 12 points. And Democrat Jon Rosenthal easily defeated Republican Bo French — who in the last month or so of the campaign made public statements so racist that even prominent Republican Karl Rove publicly endorsed the Democrat. Rosenthal beat French by more than 15 points.
Democrats won all four seats up for election on the Texas Supreme Court, including the race for chief justice in which bisexual Democrat Maggie Ellis defeated Republican Jimmy Blacklock by more than 12 points.
Three Court of Criminal Appeals seats — Place 3, Place 4 and Place 9 — were up for election this year, and Democrats won all three. The same held true for the one State Board of Education seat and the two state Senate seats up for election. In the race for the District 9 seat in the Texas Senate, Democrat Tyler Rehmet once again defeated Republican Leah Wambsganss in the midterm after first defeating her earlier this year in a special election to fill the seat left vacant when Republican Kelly Hancock left to serve as acting state comptroller.
In state House races, Democrats were unopposed in three races, while one Republican was unopposed. Of the state House races that were contested, Republicans won three, and Democrats won 10, giving Democrats the majority in the Texas House of Representatives for the first time in 24 years.
Even counties that have been deep ruby red for decades went blue this week: Tarrant County, Denton County, Collin County, just to name a few.
In Tarrant County, for example, every county-wide office up for election went to a Democrat. That includes the Tarrant County Judge race, where Democrat Alisa Simmons defeated far-right MAGA incumbent Tim O’Hare by nearly 13 points.