Democrat James Talarico has won the US Senate race in Texas, breaking a 38-year drought for his party in the Republican stronghold and delivering a stunning blow to Donald Trump.
Talarico defeated Republican Ken Paxton, the state attorney general and a staunch ally of the US president, in one of the most closely watched contestsof the midterm elections to decide control of Congress.
“We just took back Texas!” the 37-year-old told jubilant supporters at an election night party in Austin, the state capital and his home city. “We just proved that all the money in the world is no match for the people of Texas. We have just shown that a politics of division is no match for a politics of love.”
The result has major implications for control of the Senate, where Republicans were defending a narrow majority, and complicate Trump’s efforts to advance his agenda during the final two years of his presidency.
The Democrat’s victory signifies a rupture in the political landscape in Texas, the country’s second biggest state, which Trump carried by nearly 14 percentage points in the 2024 presidential election.
No Democrat had won a Senate seat in Texas since Lloyd Bentsen in 1988 and none had won any statewide office since 1994. Repeated attempts by the party to turn the state blue had fallen short.
A crowd erupted in cheers at Talarico’s watch party at a performing arts center in downtown Austin after the race was called. Supporters wearing Talarico T-shirts hugged one another and punched the air.
Wearing a dark jacket, white open-collar shirt and blue jeans, Talarico spoke from a lectern mounted with a sign that said “Love they neighbor”. He was joined on stage by more than a hundred supporters, some wearing caps or cowboy hats, waving mini-Texas flags against the backdrop of a giant one.
Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian who has preached a gospel of hope on the campaign trail, compared his improbable run with the biblical story of David and Goliath. “In this race, we went up against our own Goliaths: the richest man in the world, the most powerful man in the world and the entire Washington DC establishment,” he said, referring to multi-billionaire Elon Musk and the US president. “The people of Texas were my slingshot and tonight we defeated Goliath.”
Talarico will become the Senate’s youngest member and replace John Cornyn, 74, who lost a bruising Republican primary to the scandal-plagued Paxton, whose nomination bolstered Talarico’s appeal to Republican and independent voters.
The state representative and former middle school teacher built his campaign around economic concerns, Christian faith and a message of political unity.
He sought to appeal to independents and Republicans disillusioned with the administration, arguing that the cost of living and the influence of wealthy donors mattered more to Texans than partisan divisions.
His campaign also sought to capitalise on controversies surrounding Paxton, 63, who, as attorney general, was impeached by the Republican-controlled Texas House of Representatives in 2023 over allegations of corruption and abuse of power. He was acquitted by the state senate.
Separate securities fraud charges were resolved in 2024 under an agreement requiring community service, ethics training and restitution. Paxton denied wrongdoing.
The race became one of the most expensive Senate contests in US history, with advertising spending topping $500m, according to campaign spending estimates. Republican-aligned groups poured hundreds of millions of dollars into efforts to elect Paxton, including substantial funding linked to Musk, whom Talarico accused of trying to buy a Senate seat.
“We just sent a message to every billionaire mega-donor, every trillionaire mega-donor, every corrupt defender of this broken political system, in this state, in this country: power belongs to the people,” Talarico said in his remarks on Tuesday night.
Talarico countered the spending advantage with a formidable fundraising operation. His campaign reported raising $64m in the third quarter of the year, with 97% of donations under $100.
Republican advertising focused heavily on Talarico’s positions on transgender issues, his religious views, and his interpretation of scripture. Factcheckers have challenged claims made in some of the advertisements.
Trump rallied in Texas and branded him “James Talafreako” and falsely claimed that he is vegan, while Vice-President JD Vance implied that Talarico is gay, even though he has a girlfriend. Rightwing influencers even spread a false claim that he checked into a mental health clinic in Ohio when in fact he was ill with flu.
Talarico told supporters on Tuesday: “We were the underdogs in this race. We went up against nearly 40 years of doubt and disillusion. We went up against more than $300m, more than any Senate campaign in American history. We went up against all negative ads, smear campaigns, foreign bots and AI deepfakes that money can buy.”
He added: “Those attacks were the final howls of a dying establishment, the death rattle of a status quo that knows its day are numbered. They played dirty because they were desperate but we never lost hope. We never lost faith and, against big money and long odds, we took our power back. Always, always bet on the underdog.”
Previewing his move to Washington, Talarico called for universal healthcare and an end to forever wars and big money in politics. He also urged an end to 10 years of “politics as bloodsport, politics as trolling, politics as professional wrestling” in favor of a “politics of love”.
His victory represents a breakthrough for a party that had repeatedly come close to winning Texas in recent elections, only to fall short on polling day. Among those disappointments was the 2018 defeat of Beto O’Rourke by Ted Cruz by a margin of just under 215,000 votes, or 2.6%.
It is also a setback for Musk, who moved his personal residence to Texas and owns companies that are building datacenters there.
Democrats celebrated the outcome. Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, said: “James Talarico just showed Democrats how to win in Texas by consistently challenging billionaire power, calling out Wall Street and Big Tech, and calling for bold structural change.”
María Teresa Kumar, president and co-founder of Voto Latino, said: “For too long, Texas has been a state others wrote off. Voto Latino never did. We saw the energy building over the cycles, and we’ve always had faith in the state.
“Today, that demand for change turned into history. In a state where Latinos make up over 40% of the population, this win is proof that when young Latino voters are invested in and listened to, they flex their muscle and decide the future.”
