James Talarico wins Texas Senate seat, ending GOP control
The Democrat defeated Attorney General Ken Paxton in a race that broke the Republican hold on statewide Texas offices.
By Austin Reed ·
The Associated Press called the U.S. Senate race in Texas for Democratic state Rep. James Talarico on Monday. Talarico defeated Republican state Attorney General Ken Paxton, a close ally of President Donald Trump, in one of the most closely watched contests of the year. The result marks the first time a Democrat has captured a statewide office in Texas in three decades.
Talarico’s victory breaks the Republican Party’s long-standing monopoly on state-wide positions in the Lone Star State. Paxton becomes the first Republican to lose a Texas Senate seat since the 1990s. The race drew heavy financial investment from both parties, with conservative super PACs and national figures pouring millions of dollars into the campaign.
President Trump frequently attacked Talarico during campaign rallies across the country, using the Democrat as a national stand-in for his party. The president also campaigned for Paxton at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas in September. However, Paxton had previously expressed concern that the president’s declining popularity might hurt his chances. Trump’s support may have acted as a drag on the attorney general’s campaign.
Paxton secured the Republican nomination by defeating incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in a primary runoff. He received a last-minute endorsement from Trump that helped him win that primary. Paxton, who had never lost a race since entering the Texas House of Representatives in 2002, faced a challenging general election. He battled negative perceptions regarding past scandals, including an impeachment by the Texas House in 2023 that he survived in the Senate. His ongoing divorce from state Sen. Angela Paxton also added to the scrutiny.
Talarico, a four-term state lawmaker from Austin, led Paxton in fundraising for most of the year. He tied or led the attorney general in most statewide polls starting in midsummer. Conservative super PACs offset Talarico’s fundraising advantage with heavy advertising spending in the final two months of the campaign. Talarico first gained national attention through interviews on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast in July 2025 and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in February 2026.
A former San Antonio middle school teacher and Presbyterian seminarian, Talarico focused his campaign on education. He fiercely opposed efforts to inject religion into public schools, including a law requiring the display of a Protestant translation of the Ten Commandments in classrooms. That law is now subject to multiple federal lawsuits. Talarico’s national profile grew significantly after a CBS interview went viral on YouTube, despite the network initially declining to broadcast it under apparent pressure from the Trump administration.
