For over a decade, one of the most popular questions in American political reporting has been: “will Texas turn blue?” The first time was in 2013, when former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis filibustered on abortion while wearing pink running shoes. A more serious attempt to flip the state came when Beto O’Rourke briefly gave Ted Cruz a run for his money in 2018. O’Rourke was touted as a generational talent, appeared on Oprah, raised and spent lots of money, and lost by only two points. But he flamed out disastrously when he ran for president, and failed again when he ran for governor in 2022. Texas remained red.

And then came James Talarico, the fresh-faced 37-year-old seminarian who last night defeated Texas’s Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton in the race for the Senate. This is the first time a Democrat from the state has won a seat in the US Senate since 1988. And it wasn’t even close: Paxton lost by 12 percentage points, winning 43% of the vote to Talarico’s 55%.

Both houses of Congress turning blue mean that Donald Trump will find his every move challenged by legislators. There will be hearings, bills, vetoes, and general chaos for the last two years of his administration.

But the more profound question concerns what this means for Texas, considering that Talarico’s victory was just the tip of the iceberg. Democrat Gina Hinojosa also unseated Governor Greg Abbott, and Democrats swept the statewide offices after failing to win any for 32 years. The Supreme Court of Texas went from a 9-0 Republican supermajority to a 5-4 Republican/Democrat split. At the time of writing, it looks as though the Texas House will also come under Democratic control. Only the Texas Senate remains in Republican hands, and in the words of State Senator Charles Schwertner: “Texas stands as long as the Texas Senate Republican caucus holds the line. We will.”

Was it the Iran war? The cost of living? School vouchers? Data centres? Immigration enforcement? Demographic change? All of the above? Latinos, who leaned towards Trump two years ago, swung back to the Democrats. But there can also be no doubt that the Republicans ran a spectacularly terrible candidate in Paxton, pithily described by Bill Maher as a “malfeasant fuck”. His decision to run against the incumbent John Cornyn excited the base, who regarded the sitting senator as a Republican in name only. But Cornyn polled much better against Talarico, and he had the added benefit of never having been impeached by his own party, or reported to the FBI by his own employees. Nor had he ever offered a pedophile a plea deal that involved one day in jail.

Paxton responded by declaring Talarico “too weird for Texas” and endlessly airing footage in which the earnest boy preacher talked about six genders and other Left-wing bugbears. Talarico, however, coupled his attacks with a relentless focus on fighting corruption and the cost of living. When he gets to Congress, he will no doubt revert to his actual beliefs and vote like the progressive Democrat he is, but it will be another six years before he has to face the voters again.

Of course, it was only two years ago that Democrats were unceremoniously kicked out of office themselves. We live in a time of extraordinary volatility. The Democratic Party is not especially popular itself and today’s Democrats are very different from the party that last held power in Texas. But Texas has changed, too. Whether or not this is an enduring generational shift remains to be seen, but the era of near-total Republican dominance is over. Texas has turned blue — for now.

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Daniel Kalder is an author based in Texas. Previously, he spent ten years living in the former Soviet bloc. His latest book, Dictator Literature, is published by Oneworld. He also writes on Substack: Thus Spake Daniel Kalder.

DanielKalder

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