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James Talarico won the Democratic nomination for a US Senate seat in Texas on Tuesday, capping a remarkable rise from state lawmaker and seminary student to the party’s standard-bearer in one of the key races of the 2026 midterm cycle.
With his blend of faith-based populism, bipartisan appeal and generational energy, Talarico defeated Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, a firebrand beloved by the party’s base but who struggled to dispel concerns that she could defeat a Republican in a state that has not elected a Democrat statewide in more than 30 years.
A jubilant Talarico told supporters in Austin before the race was called: “We are not just trying to win an election. We are trying to fundamentally change our politics. And it’s working.”
“This is proof that there is something happening in Texas,” he said, adding that the state “gave this country a little bit of hope”.
After the result was called, he said in a statement: “We’re about to take back Texas.”
The fiercely contested primary – unfolding in a state Democrats have not carried statewide in more than three decades – drew record-level turnout and outsized national attention.
It was also clouded by confusion over voting in Dallas county, the state’s second largest and Crockett’s home base.
Earlier in the evening, Crockett said her campaign planned to file a lawsuit over the voting issues. “I can tell you now that people have been disenfranchised,” she told supporters at her election night event in Dallas.
The stakes are unusually high because a messy Republican primary was headed to a runoff on Tuesday night, with the four-term incumbent senator John Cornyn fighting for his political life against the scandal-scarred attorney general, Ken Paxton.
“We are not just trying to win an election,” Talarico said. “We are trying to fundamentally change our politics – and it’s working.”
Enthusiasm among Texas Democrats surged across the state, with young people and first-time voters showing up in unusually high numbers and waiting in long lines to cast their ballots. But by Tuesday evening, confusion over ballot-counting in a key county clouded Democrats’ election night excitement. Late on Tuesday evening, the state supreme court halted a county judge’s order extending voting hours in two Texas counties – Dallas and Williamson – and ordered election officials to set aside ballots cast by anyone who was not in line by 7pm. Paxton, in his role as attorney general, had filed the emergency petition to strike down the extension.
Earlier in the evening, a judge had ordered polling locations to stay open for an additional two hours owing to confusion over a change to election day voting rules stemming from a decision by the county Republican parties not to hold a joint primary with Democrat. As a result, voters were forced to cast their ballot at their local precincts rather than the countywide polling centers they usually use. It remains unclear how many voters were affected – and whether the ballots cast by voters during the extended window would be counted.
Speaking earlier on Tuesday evening, Crockett accused Republicans of intentionally targeting the voters she represents in Congress. “Unfortunately, this is what Republicans like to do,” she said. “They specifically targeted Dallas county and I think we all know why.”
The contest between Crockett, the 44-year-old former public defender who has built a reputation as a rhetorical brawler, and Talarico, the 36-year-old former middle school teacher and seminary student, was an early test of competing political playbooks for challenging Republican dominance – and Donald Trump. Democrats and Republicans in Washington have argued that if Paxton emerges as the nominee, his string of legal and ethical troubles would hand Democrats an opportunity in a state the president carried by a thumping 14 percentage points in 2024.
In the final weeks, the race has raised fraught questions about race, identity and electability for a party searching for a path back to power in Washington. Crockett vowed to energize disaffected and first-time Democratic voters – young people and people of color furious with the president and desperate for their leaders to take a more confrontational approach. Talarico, by contrast, pitched a “politics of love” and argued that the central divide in American political life was not “left v right” but “top v bottom”.
Texas Democrats have hailed both candidates as rising stars who can help lift the entire slate of candidates down-ballot. Beto O’Rourke, a Democrat who narrowly lost to Texas senator Ted Cruz in 2018, has not endorsed either candidate but called them “generational talents”.
“Just look,” Montserrat Garibay, a Democratic candidate running for the state legislature, said, gesturing to the long line of students waiting to vote on campus at the University of Texas in Austin on Tuesday afternoon. “When you have quality candidates, you bring people out, and that’s exactly what they’re doing.”
Anusha Adusumilli, a 19-year-old public health student, said she planned to vote for Talarico because she believed he was a “bit more progressive” and liked his pledge not to accept corporate Pac money.
“I hear a lot of people saying that they think Texas is going to turn blue this year,” she said. “I’m not completely sure about that considering our history but I think there’s a better chance than in previous years so I’m really excited.”
Julia Berliner, a 27-year-old student, wrestled with what she described as the critical question of “what works in Texas”.
“I don’t want to betray any chance of flipping Texas,” she said, still undecided as she stood in line to vote. She ultimately went with her heart, and voted for Crockett.
Texas voters, like voters across the country, have soured on Trump over his handling of the economy and immigration.
“Things have gotten bad,” said Raquel Rivas, 53, a custodian who took on a second full-time job to support her undocumented husband, who no longer feels safe working the jobs he used to. She is also helping to support her four adult children struggling to afford groceries and pay their electricity bills.
“We’re suffering,” she said. On Tuesday, she voted for Crockett, saying: “She speaks up”.
At Talarico’s event in Austin, Texas representative Greg Casar, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, blamed Republican officials for the confusion on Tuesday and predicted it would serve only to make Democratic voters even more “fired up”.
“What I’ve seen time and time again when Republican officials try to suppress voting or try to make it hard for you to vote,” he said, “is that voters come back with a vengeance.”
