Texas Turns Blue: Inside the GOP’s Midterm Bloodbath - Newsweek

In one historic night, Democrats' wildest dreams in Texas became a reality.

Democrats swept every statewide race in Republicans' most populous stronghold on Tuesday, ending a three-decade losing streak in the state.

Democratic state lawmaker James Talarico defeated Republican Ken Paxton, the state's scandal-plagued attorney general, to win a U.S. Senate seat, while state Representative Gina Hinojosa toppled three-term Republican Governor Greg Abbott to become the state's first Latina governor.

In the lieutenant governor's race, Democratic state lawmaker Vikki Goodwin ousted Republican incumbent Dan Patrick. Meanwhile, Democratic state Senator Nathan Johnson won the attorney general's race over Republican state Senator Mayes Middleton. Republican Bo French, who drew condemnation from members of his own party over remarks about students at the University of Texas, lost the race for railroad commissioner to Democratic state Representative Jon Rosenthal.

President Donald Trump's redistricting efforts also fell flat. Texas Republicans had redrawn House districts to give the GOP a chance at winning five additional seats, but the party failed to make any gains. Democrats could also take control of the Texas House for the first time since 2003.

The results are remarkable for a state where Democrats had not won a statewide race in a generation. The last time the state elected a Democrat to a statewide office was 1994, when Lieutenant Governor Bob Bullock won reelection, and Texans have not sent a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since reelecting Lloyd Bentsen in 1988.

The Democratic sweep of statewide offices offers the clearest evidence yet that Texas' demographic changes, including a surging Hispanic population, could be leading to the shift in political power that Democrats have long hoped for, and that Republicans cannot continue to take Texas voters for granted.

Tuesday's blue wave hit Texas particularly hard as voters channeled their frustrations over high costs, immigration enforcement and data centers, which have drawn opposition in Texas and elsewhere over their electricity and water consumption and impact on energy bills.

The Republican losses serve as a striking repudiation of Trump, just two years after he carried the state by a double-digit margin. The president all but made certain that midterm results would be viewed as a referendum on his presidency by urging voters to "pretend I'm on the ballot."

Trump repeated the plea as he traveled to Texas and other states to shore up Republican candidates, even though his approval ratings have plummeted amid concerns about high prices and the Iran war.

"This was a perfect storm of disaster for the Republicans—a historically unpopular president, traditional midterm trends, a war no one wanted and rising gas and grocery prices that are spiraling out of control," Mike Madrid, a longtime Republican strategist who co-founded the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, told Newsweek.

Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston who closely followed the Texas races, said "everything" went wrong for Republicans in Texas.

"National trends weighed down heavily on Texas Republicans that had won the state for almost 30 years," Rottinghaus told Newsweek. "The combination of an unpopular Republican president and misaligned policies in Texas spelled disaster for Texas Republicans."

He said it was the competitive Senate race between Talarico and Paxton that led the charge, but that it was "down ballot enthusiasm, strong candidates, and well-run campaigns that sealed the deal for Democrats."

Cal Jillson, a professor of political science at Texas' Southern Methodist University, attributed the stunning GOP losses to what he called the "lazy arrogance" of Texas Republicans.

"Texas Republicans were caught in a national party debacle that was aggravated by their own lazy arrogance and sense of entitlement," he told Newsweek.

"Texas Republicans from Abbott, Patrick, and Paxton down through Bo French to the congressional delegation and state legislature had no idea they could lose until it was too late, and then they found that the trusty culture war issues could not save them," Jillson added.

The scale of GOP losses in Texas has already set off alarm bells on the national level, since Republicans depend on winning the state's 40 electoral votes in presidential election years to maintain a path to winning the White House.

"Texas has been the most significant Republican state this century," outgoing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican, wrote on X. "A Democrat sweep of statewide races—and possible capture of the Legislature—takes away one of the anchors of the modern GOP. A huge loss."

Madrid also noted the national significance of the outcome, saying: "Losing Texas is like having the head cut off of the national Republican snake. It is devastating in terms of morale and setting the narrative for where the party goes from here."

Jillson said the newly elected Democrats in Texas will be judged on how they address voters' concerns.

"Democrats in Texas and across the country enter the 2028 contest with advantages and momentum, but they must avoid party infighting in order to address issues of affordability that voters care most about," he said.

Still, Madrid views the Democratic sweep in Texas as more of a rejection of Trump than an embrace of Democrats. RealClearPolling's average of recent polls shows the Democratic Party's favorability rating significantly underwater.

"Texas remains a conservative state, however, and this was a rebuke of the GOP and Trump, not an affirmation of the Democratic Party, which remains historically unpopular," he said. "Texas will be very competitive for Republicans in the 2028 presidential race."

Jillson also believed that the results don't necessarily indicate a lasting political shift in the state.

"It took Republicans decades, from the 1930s to the 1990s, to displace Democrats as Texas' natural and consistent majority party," he said. "Despite recent results, Texas remains a red state with Democrats rising to competitiveness; how long and how steady that rise turns out to be is for the future to tell."

Rottinghaus agreed that it's still too soon to know whether the results represent a lasting realignment in the state's politics, but he said Democrats had accomplished exactly what they'd been hoping to do for years.

In the next presidential election, Republicans will not be able to assume that all 40 of the state's electoral votes will be safely in their nominee's column.

"Texas is a blue state," Rottinghaus said. "Both parties will certainly act accordingly in 2028."

Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Daniel Orton and Shakeema Edwards.