Victories by Democrats in two special elections in Texas are giving the party a pretty big morale boost heading into the midterm elections this fall, with one race already taking a machete to GOP Speaker Mike Johnson’s very slight majority in the House and the other leaving the Republican Party in a state of shock across the country.
Republicans were stoked about November thanks to seeing Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), who many conservatives call a Republican In Name Only (RINO) due to his disloyalty to President Donald Trump and support of gun control laws, lose his primary race. Similarly, they are pumped about seeing Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) likely to lose to Attorney General Ken Paxton. However, this latest news has rained on the proverbial parade.
Christian Menefee beat another Democrat in a congressional runoff to fill a vacant seat in a deep-blue district located in the Houston area. Due to that win, the House Republican majority is now 218-214. If things remain as they are, Johnson can only lose one GOP vote when trying to pass legislation related to President Trump’s America First agenda.
According to CBS News, the bigger upset took place in a state Senate race that nobody was really paying much attention to in Fort Worth’s Tarrant County. Democrat Taylor Rehmet beat Republican Leigh Wambsganss by a 57%-43% margin. This is a big flip for Democrats, gaining a seat the party hasn’t won in four decades, in an area that soundly went to Trump in 2024 by 17 points.
The president had backed Wambsganss in a social media post that was published the day before the election. Rehmet sat down for an interview with CBS News program The Takeout, where he stated that his campaign made inroads in a red area by “going and showing up, knocking doors, making phone calls and really listening.”
Rehmet, who serves as a union leader, advised other Democratic underdogs to “focus on their district and focus on the issues that working people face.” Republican Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick foresaw the disaster coming and sounded the alarm, but things still went sideways for the GOP. Patrick said the upset should serve as a “wake-up call.”
“Our voters cannot take anything for granted,” Patrick went on to write in a social media post. “I know the energy and strength the Republican grassroots in Texas possess. We will come out fighting with a new resolve, and we will take this seat back in November. We will keep Texas red.” Political scientist Mark Jones of Rice University in Houston said the outcome of this race is making Republicans uneasy because it might be a sign they are losing the moderate vote.
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“Texas Republicans have historically relied on the reality that when push comes to shove, moderate Republicans in November stay with the GOP instead of going with the Democratic alternative,” Jones explained. “And I think the risk you run is if the Trump administration and Republicans nationally go too far, the distance between them and moderate Republicans becomes greater than the distance between moderate Republicans and Democratic candidates.” Rehmet and Wambsganss will duke it out with again this November.
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