Why Texas Is the Wildest Story in U.S. Politics Right Now

On Saturday night, Texas delivered something truly unexpected in American politics: a big surprise.

A Democrat prevailed — by 14 percentage points — in a special election runoff for a State Senate districtPresident Trump had carried by 17 points in 2024. The stunning result had Democrats across the country giddy about the possibility of a blue wave this fall.

In the days since, the Texas discussion has shifted from how the Democrat, Taylor Rehmet, prevailed (and what Republicans did wrong) to what the result means for the high-profile race in Texas for the U.S. Senate. Both parties are holding intensely competitive primary elections next month that are likely to have a big impact on the tenor of the general election.

The Republican incumbent, Senator John Cornyn, faces primary challenges from Ken Paxton, the right-wing attorney general, and Representative Wesley Hunt. No candidate is expected to win a majority of the primary vote on March 3, which would send the top two candidates to a runoff election in late May.

Texas Democrats will choose between James Talarico, a state legislator who presents himself as a progressive Christian, and Representative Jasmine Crockett, a fiery lawmaker who has often picked fights with Republicans.

To explain what is happening in Texas politics, I called our bureau chief in the state, J. David Goodman. Here is an edited version of our chat.

David, what happened in Texas on Saturday, and why is the rest of the country paying so much attention to a State Senate special election? Even Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida posted on social media about it, calling the result “not something that can be dismissed.”

It was a truly surprising result.

The Democrat had performed better than expected in the first round of voting. Once that happened, Republicans across Texas began to get concerned and started trying to rally support.

You also saw a lot of money and effort flood in from Democrats. This was a Trump plus-17 district, and if they could get close to flipping it, they thought they had a good story to tell. And if they could win it, obviously it’d be a better story.

What should people take from this result as they look at the election for U.S. Senate in Texas and its primary contests next month?

Independents and probably some Republicans voted for the Democrat in the State Senate race. And that’s got to concern Republicans about the general election, but it also raises some questions about what kind of nominee they might want in the U.S. Senate race.

In the first round of voting in this State Senate race, you had two Republicans going at each other. The more conservative candidate won among Republican voters in that first round, but she got significantly fewer votes than the Democrat did. What you ended up with was a real choice between a Democrat who was presenting himself as a moderate, and this pretty hard-line activist Republican who had been fairly well known in the area for helping flip school boards.

You had a Republican candidate who was more aligned with the faction of the party that backs Ken Paxton, defeating another Republican who might be seen as more in line with the Cornyn side. And then she loses decisively in the runoff — which was like a general election — to a Democrat.

On the Democratic side of the U.S. Senate primary, do you think this special election result will change the argument for Talarico or Crockett?

You could imagine Talarico — or at least his people — arguing that the special election backs up their theory of the case: that Democrats need to have a candidate who presents as someone whom Republicans would feel comfortable voting for.

He’s going for this image of himself as a progressive Christian and someone who can unify both parties, or at least offer people a safe haven from extreme partisanship.

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Crockett’s proposition is completely opposite to that. She’s saying: This is a time for fighting, and if you want a fighter, vote for me.

The kind of campaign that seemed to have worked in this area of Tarrant County was one that was not about fighting. Taylor Rehmet, the candidate there, told me when I interviewed him that he was not about culture-war issues. He’s all about economic issues, and he tried to shy away from party labels.

He didn’t have anything about being a Democrat on his signs. He had the word machinist, which is what he does at an Air Force plant up in Fort Worth.

I have seen some Democrats worry that the party’s Senate primary in Texas could get ugly. What is that all about?

Yes, Democrats have worried that as the primary gets closer, the race between Talarico, who is white, and Crockett, who is Black, could devolve into racial politics. That could hurt either candidate’s chances in a general election, but it has especially been a concern for Talarico. He’s been careful not to say anything negative about Crockett, who has strong support among Black voters.

But race suddenly became an issue in the campaign anyway on Monday after Colin Allred, a former Senate candidate and onetime congressman who is Black, posted a video responding to an allegation on social media that Talarico had referred to him as a “mediocre Black man.”

In a statement — and I’m reading here — Talarico called the allegation a “mischaracterization of a private conversation,” and said that “I described Congressman Allred’s campaigning as mediocre — but his life and service are not. I would never attack him on the basis of race.”

Trump endorsed the Republican candidate in the State Senate race and wrote a social media post for her the day before the election. He has not endorsed anyone yet in the U.S. Senate race, but said recently that he would give it “a serious look.” What would a Trump endorsement mean here?

Everything, to the candidate who gets it. But if Trump stays out, that probably benefits Ken Paxton more than John Cornyn. John Cornyn really needs that endorsement to get over the hump here. He’s quite unpopular with many in the base of the Republican Party. And that is who’s going be voting in this election. Then, especially in the runoff election, it’s going to be an even harder line, an even more distilled part of the base voting.

So Cornyn is going to need all the help he can get.

number of the day

Nearly $100 million

That’s how much the Democratic National Committee was trailing the Republican National Committee in cash on hand at the start of the year, according to new federal financial filings, a gap that has privately alarmed Democratic officials.

And speaking of midterm money, my colleague Theodore Schleifer took a look at the new filings and identified four players — the A.I. and crypto industries, pro-Israel groups and Trump’s super PAC — as the financial wild cards of this year’s elections.

Quote of the day

“We’re not going to outgun the federal government.”

That was Jacob Frey, the Democratic mayor of Minneapolis, speaking about his city’s turmoil in a lengthy interview with my colleague Lulu Garcia-Navarro. “Now, fortunately, we don’t need to fight in a physical format,” he added. “We can fight in a legal one.”

ONE LAST THING

Five takeaways from Gavin Newsom’s memoir

My colleagues Shane Goldmacher and Laurel Rosenhall obtained early copies of the California governor’s book. Here are some of Shane’s observations:

Newsom’s forceful anti-Trump approach is relatively new. A decade ago, he believed attacking Trump “was a losing game.”
He reflects on his marriage to Kimberly Guilfoyle, portraying it as a union of two ambitious climbers.
He juxtaposed his upbringing in the rarefied orbit of his father’s wealthy friends with the challenges his mother faced as a single parent.
His father, who was largely absent in Newsom’s childhood, rarely expressed his love, at least not directly.
He wrapped up the book with a personal moment of loss for him and his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom.

To read more, here is Laurel’s analysis.

J. David Goodman, Taylor Robinson and Ama Sarpomaa contributed reporting.

Reid J. Epstein is a Times reporter covering campaigns and elections from Washington.

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