Democrat James Talarico has won the Texas Senate race, defeating Republican Ken Paxton and flipping a seat Democrats had not won since 1988, in one of the most significant results of the 2026 midterms.
Talarico, a 37-year-old state legislator and former schoolteacher, took around 59 percent of the vote to Paxton’s 39 percent in early counts with most precincts reporting, according to Associated Press-based reporting, a margin wider than the final polls had suggested.
The win ends a 32-year statewide losing streak for Texas Democrats, who had not won a statewide office since 1994, and it puts Texas, with 40 electoral votes, in play ahead of the 2028 presidential election in a way it has not been for a generation.
Paxton was Texas attorney general and a close ally of Donald Trump, and he had survived impeachment and years of scandal before winning the Republican nomination. Trump endorsed Paxton over four-term Senator John Cornyn, and Paxton defeated Cornyn in a Republican primary runoff, ending Cornyn’s time in Washington.
That choice shaped the general election. Talarico had defeated Representative Jasmine Crockett for the Democratic nomination, and he campaigned on working-class issues, while Paxton’s campaign was weighed down by his record and by heavy outside spending.
The race became the most expensive Senate race of the cycle, with Republicans spending more than 316 million dollars to retain the seat, according to Reuters-based reporting, and total advertising in some counts exceeding 570 million dollars, making it one of the most expensive non-presidential contests in American history.
Talarico’s win also came on the same night that Democrat Gina Hinojosa defeated three-term Governor Greg Abbott in Texas, giving Democrats two statewide wins in a state long treated as a Republican base.
For the Senate battle, Talarico’s gain was one Democrats needed after entering the night needing a net gain of four seats to overturn a 53-47 Republican majority, and combined with flips in Ohio and South Carolina and a hold in Georgia, it kept that fight alive into the final counts.
For Texas, the win does not turn the state blue overnight. Republicans still hold much of the state government, and Paxton’s loss will be debated inside the party for months, but a Democratic senator from Texas changes how both parties will campaign there from now on.
Talarico will take his seat when the new Congress convenes in January, alongside a Texas delegation that now includes a Democratic governor and a Democratic senator for the first time in a generation.