Trump is Texas toast as ‘Talafreako’ trounces Paxton in stunning Senate midterms rebuke
In a historic victory that will rock Texas politics and pave the way for a Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate, Texas voters have elected Democratic candidate James Talarico, becoming the first Democrat in the state to be elected to the upper chamber of Congress in nearly 40 years.
Texas voters also elected Democrat Gina Hinojosa to the governor’s office, flipping the state’s top office held by Republican Greg Abbott and making her the state’s first-ever Latina governor. The state has not elected a Democrat to the governor’s mansion since 1990 — marking yet another political earthquake in a series of them across the country on Tuesday night.
Talarico is projected to defeat the state’s Republican attorney general Ken Paxton, who was endorsed by President Donald Trump despite investigations, a fraud indictment, an impeachment and endless scandals that were an albatross on his campaign.
The Senate race was among the most expensive Senate competitions in U.S. history with Democrats eying the scandal-plagued Paxton as a key target in a campaign to tip the balance of power in Congress and derail the second half of Trump’s chaotic return to the presidency.
Democratic candidates needed to flip four seats, and hold onto their existing ones, to win a majority in the upper chamber. Along with Talarico’s victory in Texas, Democrats also flipped Republican-held Senate seats in North Carolina, South Carolina and Ohio.
Texas voters have not sent a Democrat to the Senate since 1988. North Carolina’s Roy Cooper will be the first Democrat to win a Senate seat in the state since 2008. South Carolina’s Annie Andrews defeated Trump-backed Republican Darline Graham — the sister of late Senator Lindsey Graham — in a stunning rebuke of the president’s agenda. That South Carolina seat has been held by a Republican since Strom Thurmond switched parties — in 1964.
Trump, meanwhile, has repeatedly mocked Talarico as “Talafreako,” compared him to Mad magazine character Alfred E. Neuman and falsely and bizarrely claimed the Democratic lawmaker is a vegan who eats barbecue then vomits from “meat poisoning.”
Paxton has also smeared Talarico as “Low-T,” or low testosterone, in an apparent attempt to question his masculinity using right-wing stereotypes that have dominated opposition to Democratic candidates in midterm elections this year.
But Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian, was breaking fundraising records and energizing voters with a campaign focused largely on a growing cost of living crisis up against a billionaire- and corrupted-corrupted bureaucracy.
Talarico had even been leading several reliably Republican suburban Dallas-area counties that backed Republican Senator Ted Cruz in 2024.
Republican Senator John Cornyn, the incumbent defeated by Paxton in the Republican primary election earlier this year, congratulated Talarico on Tuesday night.
“The voters have spoken, and I want to extend my congratulations to James Talarico on his election to the U.S. Senate,” he said. “I look forward to meeting him and offering my assistance with his transition as he prepares to serve Texans in the U.S. Senate.
Cruz, who is up for re-election in 2030, opened Election Day by calling Talarico a “radical” who is putting on an “act” as “a nice young man and a moderate.”
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee chair Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said they are eager to work with Talarico to “root out corruption, lower costs for all Texans, and finally give families across his state a voice in Washington.”
