If the GOP wants to stay in power, it needs to watch what happens at the state level, too, especially in states it controls.
Democratic Texas Senate candidate Taylor Rehmet defeated Republican Leigh Wambsganss, who President Donald Trump endorsed, 57.21% to 42.79% in the runoff election for the District 9 seat.
Woof. It wasn’t even close.
Trump won District 9 by 17 percentage points in 2024. It encompasses Tarrant County and parts of Fort Worth and Arlington.
Republican State Sen. Kelly Hancock left the post in June 2025 for a job in the Texas Comptroller’s Office.
According to FOX 4, the Democrats have latched onto the win, thinking it shows a positive future for the party.
Trump seemed to blow it off, unfortunately.
“I don’t know. I didn’t hear about it,” Trump said. “That’s a local Texas race. Things like that happen.”
Even national-level Republicans don’t care:
Republicans mostly waved away Mr. Rehmet’s victory as a fluke in a low-turnout election and played down the Democrats’ new crop of working-class and union candidates.“They think that they can deceive voters by having all these candidates” who may appear moderate during the campaign, Christian Martinez, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said. “But at the end of the day they’re all pushing the same radical socialist agenda that we’ve seen take hold from New York to California.”
Yeah, um, you should care, especially in districts where Trump dominated in 2024.
Rehmet will hold the seat until November 2026. The Texas senate is weird because it only meets for 140 days in odd years, but could meet for special sessions in 2026.
But hey, go ahead and give the Democrats every opportunity to prove themselves that they’re worthy of any seats.
Nick Arama at RedState had excellent advice for the GOP:
Now, I know, it’s a special election, we shouldn’t flip out. That’s true, Republicans have a tendency not to turn out for special elections. In November, with a Senate seat in play, especially if it’s Rep. Jasmine Crockett (TX-30) who gets the Democratic nod, Republicans will likely turn out in force.But can we please stop not turning out for special elections already? We need to take every election and not give an inch to these characters. This would have been a cake walk if we had.
The Democrats will continue to lie as they did in Virginia. It’s not a moderate party at all.
The Democrats will chip away so you won’t notice until it’s too late, especially if the GOP shrugs off elections.
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