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Democrats just made history in Texas.
President Donald Trump’s gamble on Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a strong ally of the president’s, backfired on him after Texas state Rep. James Talarico pulled off an upset to score Democrats their first Senate seat from the Lone Star State in nearly four decades.
The Fox News Decision Desk called the Texas Senate race in Talarico’s favor shortly after 11 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday night.
It comes after Trump opted to back Paxton over longtime incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, earlier this year, who Republicans in Washington, D.C., believed would be a better candidate during a midterm cycle in which political headwinds, spurred by economic stress and war, pushed back against the party in power.
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Texas Senate candidate James Talarico speaks during a “Talarico for Texas: Frontera Tour” campaign news conference at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection — World Trade Bridge on July 14, 2026, in Laredo, Texas. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
Trump made near-weekly visits and his deep-pocketed war chest, MAGA Inc., along with national Republicans, dumped hundreds of millions of dollars to support Paxton’s struggling campaign.
But it was not enough to overcome the insurgent Talarico, who styled himself a moderate dedicated to representing Texans and not Democratic interests, like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s, D-N.Y., in Washington.
It was a bitter campaign from start to finish, with Talarico painting Paxton as unfit to serve following several allegations of corruption, including his impeachment for alleged corruption by the Texas House — he was later acquitted by the Texas Senate.
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“This Senate seat has been held by some of the finest Texans,” Talarico said. “Ken Paxton should be nowhere near Lyndon Johnson’s Senate seat. Ken Paxton should be nowhere near Sam Houston’s Senate seat.”
Paxton, Trump and national Republicans painted him as a “communist,” a vegan in BBQ-loving Texas, and zeroed in on his support for the transgender community while in the Texas Legislature, most notably his floor speech on God being “non-binary.”
“I’m not asking you to imagine what I do as your U.S. senator,” Paxton told voters at a rally ahead of Election Day. “I’m asking you to look at my record and then compare it to another guy, James Talarico, the most radical Democrat ever to run statewide, bar none.”
“And no matter how many commercials he runs lying about his record, James Talarico is a, simply put, a Democratic Socialist just like AOC. And just like the New York mayor, Mamdani,” he continued.
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Ken Paxton, Texas attorney general and Republican U.S. Senate candidate, speaks during a campaign event at The Angry Elephant in Magnolia, Texas, on Feb. 19, 2026. (Mark Felix/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Talarico even scored a nickname from Trump.
“The name happens to be ‘Talafreako’ because he is one of the worst candidates I have ever seen,” Trump said ahead of the GOP’s midterm convention largely meant to bolster Paxton’s struggling campaign.
Nonetheless, there was a schism within the GOP caused by Trump picking Paxton over Cornyn, and the longtime lawmaker made it clear that he would not be in Paxton’s corner campaigning for him after losing a bloody and bitter primary fight earlier this year.
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“I refuse to allow a flawed, self-centered and shameless candidate like Ken Paxton to risk everything we’ve worked so hard to build over these many years,” Cornyn said after losing his primary earlier this year.
“Judgment Day is coming for Ken Paxton,” he continued.
The news comes on a brutal midterm election night for Republicans on both the state and federal level. At the time of the race call, Democrats were already projected to win control of the House majority.
And the Fox News Decision Desk projected Texas Gov. Greg Abbott losing to his Democrat challenger Gina Hinojosa at the same time.