Democrat Taylor Rehmet defeated Republican Leigh Wambsganss by more than 14 points to win the Texas Senate District 9 special election on Jan. 31.
(Photo courtesy of the Taylor Rehmet campaign’s social media)
DAVID TAFFET | Senior Staff Writer
Taffet@DallasVoice.com
The election of Democrat Taylor Rehmet to the Texas Senate may be a signal of what’s coming in the November election. Or it may be a wake-up call to Republicans.
Either way, both sides are likely to flood Texas with money this fall.
Rehmet won a special election runoff on Saturday, Jan. 31, claiming the Texas Senate District 9 seat with 57 percent of the vote. Both he and his opponent, Leigh Wambsganss, were first-time candidates in the race to fill the Senate seat left empty when Republican Kelly Hancock stepped down to become acting state comptroller. Since the term Rehmet was elected to fill expires at the end of 2026, he and Wambsganss will face off again in November as they battle it out for the next full term in office. Both are unopposed in their respective March 3 primaries.
Since a special session of the Texas Legislature is unlikely this year, Rehmet will finish out the term only doing constituent services.
Two years ago, Trump won the district, which covers much of northern Tarrant County, by 17 percent. And District 9 has been a reliably ruby red seat for decades. Before Gov. Greg Abbott appointed him as acting comptroller last July, Hancock had represented District 9 in the Texas Senate since 2013.
Before Hancock, Republican Chris Harris represented District 9 for three terms, following Jane Nelson who held that seat for three terms. The district last elected a Democrat in 1979, but the boundary lines were different then.
Rep. Pete Sessions, speaking on CNN, blamed the Republican loss on last week’s ice storm, although he didn’t explain why ice affected Republicans more than Democrats in the district.
But Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis warned his fellow Republicans that a 31-point swing — from a 17 percent win to a 14 percent loss — in just two years “is not something that can be dismissed.” Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who contributed to Wambsganss’ campaign through his PAC, called the election “a wake-up call for Republicans across Texas,” pledging that the GOP will take the seat back in November.
And Trump’s reaction was, “I didn’t hear about it. That’s a local Texas race,” even though he endorsed Wambsganss on Truth Social several times — including the day before the election.
A winning strategy
Texas Democratic Party Chair Kendall Scudder said Democrats are winning because they’re owning up to mistakes made in the past, looking to the future and demanding accountability.
And he agreed with at least one of the Republicans saying Sessions was right that ICE might have played a part in voter turnout — except while Sessions was blaming winter storm Fern, Scudder was referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“Republicans are blaming everyone but themselves,” Scudder said.
He said Rehmet was a “really great candidate,” calling him “Mr. Tarrant County.”
Wambsganss, on the other hand, is “an extreme zealot, way out of the mainstream with a disdain for public schools,” Scudder said, noting that the Republican said of political protesters, “sadly, they need to die.”
Next, Scudder explained, “We had our shit together. We reached out to every voter in the district including Republicans.”
For the fall statewide elections, he continued, “We’re putting together a 254-county strategy.”
Scudder said Democrats are going to compete everywhere, and, for the first time in decades, the party has a candidate running in every state and federal race in Texas.
“We’ll have flips where people don’t expect it,” he predicted.
In 2006, when Democrats flipped Dallas County, they didn’t just win a few races, he noted.
They won every race where they had a candidate running.
“I think we can do that here in Texas,” he added.
And while he’s expecting the Rehmet race opened some eyes nationally, he said he’s not waiting for money to pour in from the outside.
“I’m sick and tired of sitting back and waiting for someone else to come and save us,” Scudder declared. “We’re going to roll up our sleeves, get to work and win.”
Former Dallas City Councilman Omar Narvaez is running for justice of the peace in March Democratic Primary. He said he hopes Democrats look at the Rehmet race “and see there is a path to victory. They need to quit bellyaching and saying, ‘Oh, we can’t win that.’”
Narvaez said his best advice to candidates running for office is to go door-to-door and talk to voters.
“We gotta get out there and knock on doors and let them know Dems are on the ballot and what Dems have done,” he said.
Corey Carrasco is president of Stonewall Democrats of Dallas. He said the Rehmet race came down to voter outreach and turnout.
“Stonewall was out block-walking in Tarrant County,” he said. “Folks on our board were adamant this was winnable. Can we turn Tarrant County blue?”
And because all politics is local, Carrasco credited the failed attempt to split Keller ISD into two school districts — which would have turned poorer neighborhoods into a second-class district — with getting voters motivated for change.
He also credits Rehmet, whom he called a great candidate who got out and listened to people’s concerns about struggling with rising costs. He called Wambsganss a terrible candidate and said Rehmet will get things done for people.
Money didn’t matter
Money definitely wasn’t a deciding factor in the race: Wambsganss dramatically out-raised Rehmet, raking in more than $2.5 million, while Rehmet took in less than $400,000. In the last few days of the election, Rehmet used what money he had raised to run a number of TV ads. The veterans group VoteVets spent $500,000 on ads for him as well.
The ads stressed who Rehmet is: an Air Force veteran and a machinist at Lockheed Martin, both of which should appeal to the district’s conservative residents. And he’s now president of both his local and state union, representing 25,000 machinists, which should appeal to the district’s more liberal voters.
During the campaign, Rehmet knocked on doors and spent time talking to people. He focused on issues like affordability for families in the district.
In other words, Democrats may have just found the perfect candidate for that particular district. The rematch in November should be interesting.