Democrat James Talarico has won the United States Senate seat in Texas, defeating Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton in a result that redraws the American political map. Projections from Decision Desk HQ and NBC News called the race for Talarico on election night, handing Democrats a seat in a state they had not won at statewide level for more than three decades.
With around four-fifths of the vote counted, Decision Desk HQ put Talarico on about 56 percent to Paxton’s 42 percent, a lead of roughly 14 points. The figures are projections based on counted votes and will move as the remaining ballots are tallied; results stay unofficial until local officials canvass and certify them.
The scale of the upset is what makes it historic. No Democrat had won a statewide election in Texas since 1994, and no Democrat had won one of the state’s Senate seats since Lloyd Bentsen’s re-election in 1988 — before Talarico was born. Texas, long treated by Republicans as safe ground, has now delivered Democrats one of their biggest prizes of the night.
Talarico, 37, is a state representative and former public school teacher who also trained as a Presbyterian seminarian. He won the Democratic nomination in March with about 52 percent of the primary vote, ahead of Representative Jasmine Crockett. The seat was open because its holder, four-term Republican John Cornyn, lost his bid for renomination to Paxton in a May runoff — the first time a sitting Texas senator had lost renomination since 1970.
Paxton entered the general election as the favourite in a Republican state, carrying a late endorsement from President Donald Trump in the primary runoff and heavy financial backing, including from Elon Musk. But he struggled to widen his support beyond his base, while Talarico led in aggregate polling for much of the race, with his autumn lead the largest for any Texas Senate Democrat since 1988.
The Texas result is one of several Democratic Senate gains on the night, alongside North Carolina and South Carolina, but control of the Senate itself remains undecided while other races are still being counted. That uncertainty is the story to watch now: the chamber’s balance will decide how much of the president’s agenda can pass in the final two years of his term, from spending and tariffs to foreign policy and judicial appointments.
For readers outside the United States, the Texas result matters for the same reason. A Senate no longer reliably in Republican hands changes the arithmetic behind American commitments abroad — including aid debates, trade measures and the direction of the next Congress. Texas did not just elect a senator; it signalled that the country’s largest Republican stronghold is competitive again.
Attention now turns to the races still uncalled. Until those results are in, neither party can claim the Senate, and the full shape of the new Congress — a Democratic House, and a Senate still in the balance — will take days to settle.
