Austin (dpa) - The exploitation of seemingly endless oil fields, strict immigration policies, gun ownership: like almost no other US state, Texas was seen, even in Germany, as a stronghold for Donald Trump’s Republicans and their conservative values. This makes the Democrats’ triumph in the mid-term elections all the more surprising; for the first time in decades, they secured a Senate seat and emerged victorious in the gubernatorial election.

“We’ve just reclaimed Texas,” said Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico amid loud cheers late in the evening (local time). The “politics of division” were no match for the “politics of love”. Referring to Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk, the 37-year-old said the Democrats had won against “the richest man in the world, the most powerful man in the world and the entire Washington D.C. establishment”.

Election 2026 Texas Governor — Democratic Texas gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa speaks to supporters at an election night event in Austin, Texas, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026.(Photo: Ashley Landis/AP Photo)Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

In the gubernatorial election, 52-year-old Gina Hinojosa defeated the Republican incumbent Greg Abbott – making her the first Latina to lead the southern state. People with roots in Latin America make up just under 41 per cent of Texas’s population. “We’ve shaken the world today,” said Hinojosa. “We’ve shown that anything is possible.” The Democrats also took further key state government posts from the Republicans. “The blue wave is sweeping through Texas,” wrote the Houston Chronicle.

Hinojosa triumphed over Abbott, even though he had entered the campaign with a well-funded war chest and prominent supporters, including an oil tycoon in the key oil-producing state as well as Musk. Musk has several of his company headquarters and the Starbase spaceport in Texas and is planning a semiconductor factory in the state, which is increasingly becoming a hub for the technology industry.

Trump immediately abandons Republicans

However, the rapid expansion of data centres sparked growing opposition, which Hinojosa exploited to her advantage. She accused Abbott, for example, of making policies that favoured billionaires and of having made the cost of living in Texas significantly more expensive during his previous terms in office. She rarely missed an opportunity to accuse Abbott of prioritising the interests of the wealthy tech industry over those of his fellow citizens by opening the door to data centres.

Trump, who had won the 2024 presidential election in Texas with 56 per cent of the vote, abandoned Abbott shortly after the result was announced. On his platform Truth Social, the US President wrote that Abbott would not have lost the election had he not become a ‘RINO’ (‘Republican in Name Only’) in recent months – a politician who officially belongs to the Republican Party but, in Trump’s view, does not uphold its principles. Republicans had held the office of Governor of Texas without interruption since 1995.

“The long era of one-party rule in Texas is over,” commented The Dallas Morning News. Texas, “the most powerful and reliable of all the deep-red Republican states”, is now Democratic-blue. Nevertheless, there remains significant concern about the uncertainty surrounding how the Democrats will now govern. Despite the results, Texas remains “fundamentally conservative”.

A Democratic rising star as a senator

Talarico, who had previously worked as a teacher and was first elected to the state House of Representatives in 2018, celebrated the first Senate victory for a Democrat since 1988 by referring to the biblical story of David versus Goliath. The alliance between Trump and Musk had been their all-powerful Goliath, said the 37-year-old, who had prevailed over the Republican candidate Ken Paxton: “We have just proved that all the money in the world is no match for the people of Texas.”

Talarico, who had previously worked as a teacher and was first elected to the state House of Representatives in 2018, celebrated the first Senate victory for a Democrat since 1988 by referring to the biblical story of David versus Goliath. The alliance between Trump and Musk had been their all-powerful Goliath, said the 37-year-old, who had prevailed over the Republican candidate Ken Paxton: “We have just proved that all the money in the world is no match for the people of Texas.”

Trump had explicitly backed Paxton – who is frequently described by the media as ‘scandal-plagued’ – in the party’s primary. Just how much the US President and his Republican colleagues had feared losing their Senate seat in this southern state was evident from the fact that the US President made several campaign stops there. “Vote for Ken. Get him in there,” he urged his supporters at a campaign rally in San Antonio in early October, for example. “This is so important. It’s crucial.”

Election 2026 Texas — Texans cheer as a crowd gathers at the Texas State Capitol in Austin to celebrate the results of the election, early Wednesday morning, Nov. 4, 2026.(Photo: Sara Diggins/The San Antonio Express-News via A)© 2026 Sara Diggins / Austin American-Statesman

Prior to this, in September, the Republicans had already held their first-ever major party convention ahead of mid-term elections in Dallas, Texas. Musk backed Paxton with over 150 million US dollars (equivalent to around 134 million euros). Talarico, on the other hand, received support from the family of former US Presidents George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush – one of the Republican dynasties in Texas.

During the election campaign, Talarico presented himself as a politician who would fight in Washington for an affordable standard of living – and against corruption. He portrayed his opponent, Paxton, as the epitome of a corrupt system. He also repeatedly highlighted his Christian faith during the campaign. He emphasised a message of charity and portrayed Texas as a state whose strength lies in its cultural diversity.

Author: klimkeit.lena

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