A Democrat just captured a Texas state senate seat that Republicans held for more than three decades in a district Donald Trump carried by 17 points just over a year ago.
Story Snapshot
- Taylor Rehmet, a machinist union leader running her first campaign, defeated Trump-endorsed Republican Leigh Wambsganss 57% to 43% in a special election runoff
- The upset occurred in Texas State Senate District 9, where Trump won by 17 points in 2024 and Republicans have dominated for decades
- Wambsganss vastly outspent Rehmet and received Trump’s personal endorsement, yet still lost by 14 percentage points
- Both candidates will face off again in November 2026 for a full four-year term, setting up a high-stakes rematch
When Money and Trump Can’t Buy Victory
Republicans threw everything they had at this race. Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick mounted what observers described as a furious funding push in the final days. Trump himself posted on social media urging voters to support Wambsganss, calling her a successful entrepreneur and incredible supporter of his Make America Great Again movement. The Republican candidate’s campaign spending dwarfed her opponent’s war chest. None of it mattered. On February 1, 2026, first-time candidate Taylor Rehmet delivered one of the most shocking election results in recent Texas political history.
The district shouldn’t have been competitive. Four-term Republican incumbent Kelly Hancock had easily won reelection every time his name appeared on the ballot. When he resigned in March 2025 to become Texas’s acting comptroller, conventional wisdom suggested Republicans would simply slide another candidate into the seat. The initial special election in November 2025 should have served as the first warning. Rehmet captured 47% of the vote, coming within three percentage points of winning outright and avoiding a runoff entirely. Republican operatives recognized the danger, but couldn’t stop what came next.
The Suburban Shift Republicans Cannot Ignore
Tarrant County tells the story Republicans don’t want to hear. Biden carried the county by roughly 1,800 votes out of more than 834,000 cast in 2020. Trump won it back by 5 points in 2024. Yet District 9, significantly redder than the county overall, just elected a Democrat by a comfortable margin. The numbers don’t lie about what’s happening in suburban Texas. Voters who traditionally backed Republicans are peeling away, and Trump’s endorsement appears to accelerate rather than arrest the exodus.
Patrick’s pre-election statement revealed what GOP leadership already knew but couldn’t publicly admit. When he pleaded with Tarrant County Republicans to vote and stated he was very concerned about the election, he was acknowledging the vulnerability. The turnout numbers explain part of the problem. Fewer than 14,000 early votes and mail ballots were tallied in the runoff compared to nearly 39,000 in the November special election. Republican voters stayed home despite desperate appeals from their leaders and their president. That’s not apathy. That’s rejection.
Pattern Recognition for 2026
Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin didn’t mince words when characterizing the victory. He called it a warning sign to Republicans across the country and further evidence that voters under the second Trump administration are motivated to reject GOP candidates and their policies. The statement carries weight because this result fits a documented pattern. Democrats have consistently overperformed in special elections throughout the current election cycle, suggesting something systematic rather than coincidental is underway.
The rematch in November 2026 will provide critical data about whether this represents a durable shift or a special election anomaly. Both Rehmet and Wambsganss face no primary opposition in March, guaranteeing the same matchup for a full four-year term. Expect significantly more campaign funding to flood the district as both parties recognize the stakes. If Rehmet wins again with higher turnout and sustained Republican engagement, the implications for GOP prospects nationwide become impossible to dismiss. Republicans must diagnose why their traditional advantages failed here before similar failures metastasize across suburban districts.
What Republicans Should Learn
The post-mortem for this loss needs to be brutally honest rather than politically convenient. Trump’s endorsement didn’t move the needle. Massive spending disparities didn’t determine the outcome. Leadership panic and public appeals couldn’t motivate the base. Each of these failures demands serious analysis. Republicans can blame low turnout or special election dynamics, but those explanations merely describe the symptoms rather than diagnose the disease. Conservative voters in a reliably red district chose not to participate or actively crossed party lines despite every institutional advantage favoring the Republican candidate.
Rehmet ran as a working-class union leader focused on practical concerns affecting everyday families. Wambsganss positioned herself as a Trump-aligned conservative activist. The voters chose the former by 14 percentage points. Republicans must grapple with what that choice reveals about their current message and messengers. Suburban voters appear increasingly resistant to Trump-branded politics even in districts he carried handily. Whether party leadership acknowledges this reality or dismisses it as a one-off aberration will likely determine how many more seats flip before they recognize the pattern.
Sources:
Democrat wins a reliably Republican Texas state Senate seat, stunning GOP – Politico
Democrats hold out hope to flip red Texas Senate seat in Saturday’s special election – KSAT
