Dem
54
Ties
2
GOP
44
We needed a little time to get organized, but as promised, we're going to run reports from readers about election developments in their neck of the woods. Today, as the headline suggests, we have some reports from the Lone Star State:
G.B. in Collin County, TX: Yee-haw, what a night.
I went into Election Day cautiously optimistic about the Senate, and by the end of it there was a blue Texas that I wasn't sure I'd see in my lifetime, let alone in my twenties. The state wasn't even particularly close in the end; Sen.-elect James Talarico (D) crushed Ken Paxton (R) by twelve points, Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa (D) comfortably blocked Gov. Greg Abbott (R) from a fourth term as governor by six points, and the two of them together had coattails to flip every statewide office on the ballot, flip the state house, and come within shouting distance of a trifecta in 2028. My home turf in Collin County flipped to the Democrats for the first time since native son Lyndon B. Johnson's 1964 landslide. The governor, lieutenant governor and speaker of the state house will all be women, and the chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court will be a Democratic lesbian. That court's 9-0 GOP majority is now down to 5-4, within reach of flipping in 2028 when more seats are on the ballot. The state's board of education is also, as of this writing, expected to narrowly flip to the Democrats; something that will effect students across the country due to how large a market the state is for textbooks. Even when I came around to thinking Talarico could win, I didn't think it would come with completely upending the character of the state government overnight as a bonus.
That said, the GOP did hold onto control of the state Senate; it appears to be the only Republican gerrymander in the country that held. This may end up being to Hinojosa's benefit, long-term. By having to negotiate to get appointments confirmed and legislation passed, it puts a check on moving so quickly that voters convinced to give the Democrats a chance by gas prices, data centers and a war could get scared off. If the sky doesn't fall and the state economy keeps chugging along, then she could end up like Gov,. Phil Scott (R-VT); a cross-party governor that doesn't rock the boat because the legislature won't let them go all-out. If there is a path to winning a second term in 2030 and cementing a competitive future for the state, that is probably it.
It is the dawn of a new era, deep in the heart of Texas, now that the default thought about the state has gone from "It'll never go blue!" to "How did it go blue?" History only looks inevitable once it already happened; it took a perfect storm to create a blue monsoon that flipped the state. But now that it has happened once, it can happen again. I expect that Texas will be a real battleground in 2028, both for president and for the possibility of flipping the state Senate and getting a trifecta. Each morning when I pull up Electoral-Vote.com, seeing my home state in that shade of solid, deep, royal blue doesn't quite feel real. But it hasn't gotten old yet.
R.T. in Arlington, TX: It is 7:00 a.m. CT on Wednesday. You guys wrote that Tarrant County (greater Fort Worth) would be a bellwether. My jaw is scraping the floor and the outcome is so far beyond my fantasies that it looks like the stars in the windshield do when a starship goes into hyperspace.
I drilled into the county results and want to point out that the true indication of how deep the resentment of Republican leadership goes are the results in the elections for judges for our civil, criminal, family and probate courts. These positions have no political decision-making and no opportunity for political grandstanding. Few voters ever know the names of these judges. As a practical matter, they are a pure party preference or coin-toss decision for a voter. Republicans have historically been so dominant that about half the (R) judges ran unopposed this time. Those unopposed judges got vote totals just shy of 400,000. In every contested judge race, the Republican lost 55-45 and the total vote count was just over 700,000.
Results were extremely uniform from race to race. That tells me that a lot of voters feel like I do: that no Republican, for any office, no matter how objectively decent they might seem, deserves my vote, even when no one is running against them. Even the very best Republicans have been sitting silently on their hands while their party perpetrated a disaster on us all. I now doubt that even Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) could have won.
J.P.R. in Westminster, CO: I just couldn't be more pleased for my home state this Wednesday morning. In previous weeks, my mom and sister—both blue-voting north Texas denizens (Hood and Denton counties, respectively)—seemed in utter despair that Ken Paxton would pull it off despite polling, probably in no small part due to Elon Musk's ad blitz. They both tend toward the pessimistic, and I learned long ago that chiming in with any countering optimism yielded little in productive returns, so I would just casually note "[James] Talarico sure did draw a crowd in Lubbock the other night, though." Them: "Yeah. But..."—not that I could blame them at all.
I texted them at 9:08 pm CT, though I wanted to at least an hour earlier: "Sure don't wanna jinx things, but it sure is looking promising." My sister: "Shut up!!" My mom: "Hush!" And then, moments later, my sister: "Abbott is conceding!!" That, even more than Gina Hinojosa's win, was the genuine shock of the evening for me. Me: "I think it's because I wore my shirt today."
(NB: My eldest sister, who lives in Vermont, who actually went to church with a pre-adolescent James Talarico and his family in Austin, but who 20 years ago all but gave up on everything Texas, was already asleep but rejoined the conversation early this morning: "OOOOO MMMMM GGGG.")
This, of course, can't be understated. I am so relieved at the prospect of not having to worry about my college-aged niece's healthcare being in jeopardy should she need something uterus-involved or uterus-adjacent. I can fear less for my young adult trans niece's well-being. Bonus: They're both Latina, and they just got to see what a brown woman could do against an old white man, for whom the cruelty is the point,when they and their friends get out to vote.
T.F. in Austin, TX: I don't often make political predictions, but in September 2025, after James Talarico declared his candidacy for the Senate, I e-mailed a prediction to you that ended with: "I'm cautiously optimistic that [Talarico] could be this year's big surprise candidate."
I'm humble enough to realize that I was only partially right about that. He was one of many surprise candidates in Texas and around the country this year.
The feeling where I live just north of Austin is euphoric. We have hoped for decades for any Democrat to win statewide in Texas, and yesterday all of them did.
The state government's attacks on our public schools, on trans people, on immigrants and on reason will, for a time at least, come to a stop.
H.M. in Hannover, Germany: From the New York Times; a graphic is worth a thousand words:
D.T.M. in San Francisco, CA: There are now more Democrats in Texas than there are in New York State. Let that sink in.
If readers have insight into their state and/or local elections, please do let us know at comments@electoral-vote.com. (Z)