AUSTIN — Texas Democrats won statewide office on Tuesday for the first time in more than three decades, taking both the state’s open U.S. Senate seat and the governor’s office in the biggest Republican state in the country, according to race calls by the Associated Press.
State Representative James Talarico defeated Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton in the Senate race, which the AP called at about 10 p.m. on election night. Talarico, 37, a former middle school teacher from the Austin area, is the first Democrat Texas has elected to the U.S. Senate since Lloyd Bentsen in 1988, and his win was the party’s first in any statewide race since 1994.
An incumbent governor falls
The governor’s race produced an even bigger surprise. State Representative Gina Hinojosa defeated three-term Republican Governor Greg Abbott, who had been seeking a record fourth term and conceded on Tuesday night. Hinojosa, a lawyer who has represented part of Austin in the state House since 2017, will be the first Democratic governor of Texas since Ann Richards left office in 1995, and the first Latina governor in the state’s history. She takes office in January, in a state where Republicans still control the legislature.
Democrat Vikki Goodwin was also leading Republican Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick in the lieutenant governor’s race on Wednesday morning, though that contest had not been called, according to Texas reporting.
The most expensive Senate race in U.S. history
The Senate contest, for the seat left open by retiring Senator John Cornyn, became the most expensive Senate race in U.S. history, according to CNN. Paxton, who had beaten Cornyn in a Republican primary runoff in May, was endorsed by President Donald Trump. CNN reported that Elon Musk put $168 million into two Texas super PACs supporting Paxton and the Republican effort to hold the Senate.
Why it matters
Texas has been at the centre of Republican politics for a generation, and Democrats had lost every statewide race there since 1994 despite repeated predictions that demographic change would make the state competitive. Tuesday’s results, which followed Democratic gains in the Rio Grande Valley counties that Trump carried in 2024, suggest the shift has finally arrived. The Senate win also formed part of a seven-seat Democratic sweep of Republican-held seats that gave the party control of the chamber.
Talarico and Hinojosa will be sworn in in January 2027. Full AP results for the Texas governor’s race are published by the Associated Press: AP Texas governor results.
