LONE STAR STATE REVOLT

Trump Suffers Ultimate Humiliation in MAGA’s True Heartland

The president installed the losing candidate all by himself.

Democrat James Talarico delivered an earthquake in Texas, winning the Senate race as Donald Trump failed to drag scandal-plagued MAGA candidate Ken Paxton across the finish line.

Democrats have not won statewide in Texas in more than 30 years after the president embraced the state attorney general over the longtime GOP incumbent.

The 37-year-old state representative’s win gave Democrats one more seat on their quest to flip the Senate majority, and was a brutal humiliation for Trump, who repeatedly returned to Texas in a desperate attempt to help Paxton.

It’s also extremely embarrassing for Elon Musk, who poured hundreds of millions into helping Republicans, including $168 million to the Senate Leadership Fund, which essentially went straight to the Texas Senate race, as well as $4 million through his America PAC.

Talarico’s victory will change the U.S. political landscape going forward by shifting Texas from a battleground state to a purple one.

Texas would not have been such a competitive race without a series of factors coming into play at the same time, giving Democrats their best chances in years.

Paxton jumped into the race against a longtime incumbent despite having a massive amount of political baggage. He launched his campaign to challenge Republican Sen. John Cornyn, setting off what became an expensive, ugly primary race that went to a runoff earlier this year.

While he repeatedly led Cornyn in the polling of GOP primary voters, establishment Republicans warned he could be too extreme and damaged a candidate for the general election and carried out a fierce campaign to try and defeat him.

Trump stayed out of the primary until late in the game, but then threw his support behind Paxton when it looked like the MAGA ally had the primary locked up. The president accused Cornyn of not being loyal enough even though he had voted lockstep with Trump’s agenda at every single turn since he came back into office.

Cornyn responded to Talarico’s massive victory in an X post on Tuesday.

“The voters have spoken, and I want to extend my congratulations to James Talarico on his election to the U.S. Senate. I look forward to meeting him and offering my assistance with his transition as he prepares to serve Texans in the U.S. Senate,” the retiring senator wrote.

After the primary against Cornyn, Paxton faced an ugly general election season where he was repeatedly plagued by leaked audio of the Republican candidate disparaging the president, complaining about the campaign and his chances, and making a series of other blunders.

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That was on top of the fact that he came to the race with a series of corruption allegations against him and questions about how he amassed his wealth, was impeached as attorney general by Texas Republicans in 2023, and his wife accused him of cheating on her when she filed for divorce last year.

Democrats saw Paxton as their best chance to flip Texas, as the party largely united behind Talarico when he beat Rep. Jasmine Crockett in the primary.

Polling for months indicated that Talarico could pull off an upset in the once deep-red state after Beto O’Rourke’s 2018 attempt to unseat Republican Sen. Ted Cruz drew massive attention and came up just short by just over 2.5 points.

Trump held the first-ever Republican midterm convention in Dallas as he tried to boost Republicans in the state, though Paxton even indicated in leaked audio that the move backfired.

The president then traveled down to Texas multiple times for rallies to help Paxton. He also repeatedly blasted the Democratic nominee as “Talafreako” while raging about culture war issues.

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Democrats’ hopes continued to surge as early voting across the state surpassed the total voting in the 2022 midterms in multiple counties, with some even on track to surpass early voting levels from the 2024 presidential election. More than 763,000 Texans who didn’t vote in 2024 voted in the 2026 midterms, and early voting among Hispanic voters soared.

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Sarah Ewall-WicePolitical Reporter

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