Texas Democrats' rare upset win overshadowed by internal conflict

Texas Democrats woke up on Feb. 2 believing they had just witnessed a political breakthrough.

In a special election to fill a vacant state Senate seat the previous Saturday, an underfunded first-time candidate running in deep-red territory decisively defeated a Republican who, on paper, had every advantage heading into the runoff — a result that briefly felt like proof that the party’s long drought might finally be ending.

On Sunday, the political airwaves were nearly breathless over how Air Force veteran and union organizer Taylor Rehmet had pulled off one of the most stunning upsets in Texas politics in years. Republican Leigh Wambsganss had President Donald Trump's full-throated endorsement. She billed herself as "uber-MAGA," and had the full weight of the Texas GOP behind her. Her cash advantage was 6-to-1, yet she still lost in a district that had been solidly Republican since the 1980s.

What truly fueled Democratic giddiness Monday morning was Rehmet’s 14-point win in a district Trump carried by 17 points in 2024 — a result many saw as a possible harbinger for the 2026 midterms.

By lunchtime, though, the glow had faded.

Former U.S. Rep. Colin Allred took to social media with sharp words for state Rep. James Talarico, reopening tensions in the Democratic U.S. Senate primary just as the party was celebrating its rare good news. Allred and Talarico had been rivals for the Senate nomination before Allred exited the race after U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett entered it.

Allred was reacting to an unproven claim that Talarico, who is white, called him a “mediocre Black man” during a private conversation with a Democratic activist who later shared the allegation in a TikTok video. Talarico has since called the claim a "mischaracterization of a private conversation" and said he called Allred's campaign strategy mediocre.

The allegation, followed by Allred's response and Talarico's denial that he had disparaged Allred based on race, ricocheted across social media and into mainstream news coverage. Democratic activists — some choosing sides, others urging patience — worried the episode could fracture the party’s base along racial lines ahead of the March 3 primary, with damage that might linger into November.

That anxiety stood in contrast to the Republican side of the race, where a far deeper rift has been simmering between the candidates for months with comparatively little public concern about party unity after the primary.

One reason may be experience. Bitter Republican primaries over the past decade have rarely translated into general-election weakness. The 2022 primary runoff between incumbent Attorney General Ken Paxton and challenger George P. Bush was brutal, yet Paxton cruised to reelection that November. In 2014, then-state Sen. Dan Patrick unseated Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst after a bruising primary and runoff — and Republicans barely blinked.

Maybe that's because Republicans are expected to win statewide races in Texas, and they largely have since the 1990s. Democrats, by contrast, are still searching for a perfect storm capable of ending their prolonged losing streak.

Rehmet’s victory suggested — briefly — that such a storm might be forming.

He won Senate District 9 in bellwether Tarrant County, the only one of Texas' five largest counties that Democrats have not been able to lock down and hold in recent elections. The district's sizable working-class population has long been a Democratic target, and Rehmet offered something the party has lacked for decades: a blueprint for winning blue-collar voters.

Then there's the Trump factor.

Trump exerted an almost spellbinding hold on Republican voters during his first term — a grip that persisted during his four years out of office and held firm through his successful 2024 comeback.

Yet even after Trump personally boosted Wambsganss with no fewer than three social media posts before the runoff, emphasizing her MAGA credentials and the race’s importance to him, scores of voters in a district that had recently embraced Trump defected to the Democrat.

Rodney Ellis, a veteran of Texas politics since winning a Houston City Council seat at age 29 in the 1980s, said the factors that led to Rehmet's victory remain in place despite the Monday flare-up. Ellis also served 27 years in the Texas Senate before his election to the Harris County Commissioners Court in 2017.

Ellis, who is backing Crockett in the primary, said Talarico should be able to weather the current storm — and so should the party — if Democrats avoid overreacting.

"He had a bad week, (but) there are four weeks left," Ellis said. "In the process of running for the United States Senate, there'll be ups and downs on both sides. And I'm just hoping that we have more ups than downs."