AUSTIN, Texas — Just three weeks before Election Day, James Talarico’s allies received internal polling showing him leading his Texas Senate race by 7 points. For the first time, they began to believe he might actually win, according to a person close to the campaign who shared the previously unreported numbers.
But even Talarico hadn’t anticipated a victory so early Tuesday night, a person close to him said.
Talarico’s stunning defeat of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, President Donald Trump’s pick for the Senate seat, sent shock waves through Texas and the rest of the country. Even on an astounding night for Democrats nationwide, what happened here stands in its own stratosphere. Democrats have spent years trying to identify fissures in Republicans’ decades-long stranglehold on Texas, praying that changing state demographics could open up a new and lasting path to power. It didn’t work in 2014, when Wendy Davis’ much-hyped campaign for governor fell flat against Greg Abbott. It didn’t happen in 2018 either, when great hopes for Beto O’Rourke went bust against Ted Cruz.
But on Tuesday night, Abbott fell alongside Paxton. In the end, it wasn’t even close. With nearly 90% of the votes tallied, Talarico beat Paxton by nearly 10 points.
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Democrats have finally proven they can win Texas — a state with 40 votes in the Electoral College. The ripple effects over just the next two years could be dramatic.
“Texas is going to be ground zero when it comes to the Democrat and Republican parties fighting for the 40 electoral votes,” Julián Castro, the former mayor of San Antonio and a 2020 presidential candidate, told The Washington Sun. “A Democratic candidate could win in 2028. And if a Democrat takes the 40 electoral votes in Texas in the general election in 2028, it’s game over.”
What Talarico did to give Democrats their breakthrough here could serve as a guide for his party’s future.
His allies say the win didn’t happen overnight. It was the culmination of more than a year of work, a message rooted in his Christian faith and economic populism, a shift toward the political center and a fundraising operation that helped make him competitive in one of the most expensive political battlegrounds in the country.
“James is a unique, fresh voice,” said Garry Jones, the director of the pro-Talarico Lone Star Rising PAC. “He’s young. He’s got a very different message than your average Democrat.”
His unlikely path to becoming senator-elect began with an appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast, back when a Senate bid was still just a rumor. Then came a bruising, personal primary battle against Rep. Jasmine Crockett, which ended with Talarico getting pushed over the top by a swell of Latino voters.
On Tuesday, Talarico was able to peel off enough Republican voters and take advantage of a Latino surge to pull off a victory in a state that some of the most seasoned Democratic strategists had doubted their party could flip this cycle.
It’s difficult to understate the impact Talarico’s win will have in Texas politics going forward, Kendall Scudder, the Texas Democratic Party chair, told The Washington Sun in an interview.
“Show me another state where they’re having to accomplish what we’re accomplishing while also competing against $350 million,” he said, referring in part to the millions of dollars Elon Musk poured into the race to support Paxton. “The richest man in the world is dumping coppers into dragging us down, and it’s not moving the needle at all because of how hard we’re working, because of the infrastructure that we built.”
Texas Democrats had a historic night Tuesday beyond Talarico’s win. State Rep. Gina Hinojosa beat Abbott in a massive upset, and Democrats flipped House seats Republicans had been confident about winning, including the state’s 15th and 34th Congressional Districts.
The top three positions in Texas state government are now going to be held by Democrats. Vikki Goodwin beat incumbent Dan Patrick for lieutenant governor, and Jon Rosenthal beat Bo French for Texas railroad commissioner.
For Talarico, the challenge was forming a coalition of voters that could succeed where previous Democratic candidates had fallen short.
“James, after the primary, had to deal with this issue of Black voters, and his team … appears to have figured it out and created a lot of goodwill in the Black community,” Scudder said. “He has done an incredible job in the primary and in the general in exciting Hispanic voters, particularly in the border where Democrats have lost voters. And he has kept progressives on his side without moving too far to the left.”
But it was his inroads with disillusioned Republican voters, his allies said, that pushed him across the finish line, and it provides the clearest road map to Democrats for how to keep Texas in their column.
“We knew there was doubt in voters’ minds who typically would default to Republican, and that James had unique ability to [reach out to them],” Jones said. “Not just because of his campaign style and his approach this year — and I think unique ability to connect with a wide swath of voters — but also Ken Paxton’s, like, extraordinarily high negatives.”
Paxton and his allies were quiet Tuesday night. He didn’t call Talarico to concede, a person familiar with Paxton told The Sun.
“For a Democrat to win in Texas is a Herculean effort, not just because of the size and not just because of the cost,” Scudder said. “You have to build unique coalitions to even get close to your win number, which is expensive and politically taxing.”
Luke Warford, the founding partner of the Agave Democratic Infrastructure Fund, a group in Texas that is trying to help build more Democratic infrastructure, summed up Talarico’s success as both a response to the political environment and the campaign’s hard work.
“Paxton is so bad, and Trump is so bad, and James is such a good candidate, but I just really think we shouldn’t skip over like how unlikely this was a year ago,” he said. “Hundreds of people on his team and across maybe thousands of people, if you include volunteers and everything, so many people did so much work to make this happen. We shouldn’t skip over that.”
One thing is clear: The attention on Texas won’t ease up anytime soon.
“If we don’t have Texas or North Carolina in the Democratic column, you won’t have a Democratic president anymore,” Scudder said. “We’re going to be really grateful, I think, the Texas Democrats put in the infrastructure now instead of waking up the day of and deciding we needed to scramble to do it.”
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