Democrat Taylor Rahmat flipped a reliable Texas Senate district in Saturday’s special election, continuing a string of surprise victories for Democrats across the United States in the year since President Donald Trump returned to the White House.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a Republican, called it a “wake-up call for Republicans across Texas,” where the GOP controls every statewide office.
“Our voters cannot take anything for granted,” Patrick wrote on social platform X, while noting that low-turnout special elections are not always predictable. “I know the energy and strength of the grassroots of the Texas Republican Party. We will emerge from the fight with renewed resolve, and we will return to this seat in November.”
Rahmat, a union leader and veteran, easily defeated Republican Lee Wambsgans, a conservative activist, in the Fort Worth-area district, which Republican Trump won by 17 points in 2024. With almost all the votes counted, Rahmat had a lead of more than 14 percentage points — a swing of more than 30 points.
“This victory belongs to ordinary workers,” Rahmat told his supporters.
Rahmat’s win added to Democrats’ track record of outperformance in special elections so far this cycle, which began in March — when they prevailed in a Pennsylvania legislative district made up of suburbanites and farmers that Democrats had not carried in a century — and continued through November, when they dominated candidate contests and ballots from Maine to California.
Zahran Mamdani, an outspoken democratic socialist, was elected mayor of New York City, a Democratic stronghold that witnessed the highest voter turnout in a mayor’s race in fifty years.
These performances come at a time when Trump’s approval ratings among the public have remained steady at around 40%. An AP-NORC poll in January showed that a majority of US adults disapprove of the way he is handling foreign policy, trade negotiations and immigration, as well as the economy.
Democrats said Saturday’s results in Texas were further evidence that voters under Trump’s second administration have incentives to reject GOP candidates and their policies.
Texas Democratic Party Chairman Kendall Scudder said Rahmat won by standing with workers and talking to Texans about the future.
“This win shows what is possible in Texas with strong organizing, great candidates and strategic investments,” he said in a statement. “People are noticing that Democrats support workers and get results.”
Other Democratic state victories since 2025 have included gubernatorial wins in Virginia and New Jersey and in special elections in Kentucky and Iowa. Although Republican Matt Van Epps won the special elections in Tennessee to obtain a seat in the US House of Representatives, the relatively small margin of victory gave Democrats hope in the midterm elections this fall.
With that backdrop in mind, Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance have pushed states to redraw their political maps in favor of Republicans ahead of those contests, which will determine partisan control in Washington. Some Democratic states – most notably California – have pushed back with their own redistricting efforts.
The Texas Senate seat was open because Kelly Hancock, a four-term GOP incumbent, resigned to take statewide office. Hancock won election handily each time he ran for office, and Republicans held the seat for decades.
The area is redder than its home, Tarrant County. Trump won the county by 5 points in 2024, but Democratic President Joe Biden carried it in 2020 by a margin of about 1,800 votes out of more than 834,000 votes cast.
Trump posted about the race on his social media platform earlier Saturday, urging voters to come out to support Wambsganss. He called her a successful entrepreneur and a “wonderful supporter” of his “Make America Great Again” movement.
But Rahmat received support from national organizations, including the DNC and VoteVets, a veterans group that said it spent $500,000 on ads. Rahmat served in the Air Force and is a mechanic, focused on cutting costs, supporting public education and protecting jobs.
Wambsganss warned her party against complacency.
“Democrats are energized,” she said in a statement. “A lot of Republicans have stayed home.”
Rahmat’s win allows him to serve only until early January, and he will face Wambjans again in the general election in November to retain the seat for a full four-year term. The Texas Legislature is not scheduled to reconvene until 2027, and the Republican Party will still have a comfortable majority.
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