Republicans Lose Texas as Democrats Sweep the Top of the Ballot and House

Texas Republicans lost the state on Tuesday. Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton all went down, and Democratic candidates led all but one statewide race on the ballot in unofficial returns early Wednesday, according to the Texas Secretary of State.

The losses ran past the statewide offices. Democratic candidates led in 84 of the 150 Texas House districts, eight more than a majority, in a chamber Republicans have controlled since 2003. Nine of those leads were under 2 points.

Gina Hinojosa, an Austin state representative, will be the first Democratic governor since Ann Richards left office in 1995, NPR reported. The Associated Press (AP) called the race at 10:17 p.m. With 253 of 254 counties and 4,650 of 5,302 polling locations reporting at 5:43 a.m. Central, she had 52.8 percent of the vote to Abbott’s 45.7 percent.

“There’s No One Left”

Comptroller Don Huffines, who trailed state Sen. Sarah Eckhardt 46.2 percent to 51.3 percent, blamed his own party’s leaders for the defeat as he spoke to supporters Tuesday night, in a video posted on X by Michael Olaya.

“I blame it on our leadership, I just do,” Huffines said. “I blame this on Greg Abbott. I blame it on Dan Patrick. I blame it on all the mushy middle people that wanna think they’re in the middle.”

He said voters had tired of Republicans in office and that campaigning on property tax cuts had only reminded them the cuts never came. Then he turned to the party’s own rulebook.

“They never cared about our party platform, and they still don’t,” Huffines said. “I know there’s a lot of people that care. There’s a lot of great patriots. What are we gonna do? Who are you gonna call? There’s no one left.”

Huffines, a former state senator, became comptroller in August after Abbott appointed him to the office.

The Platform Nobody Voted On

The platform Huffines named has carried Texas independence for years. Delegates to the Republican Party of Texas convention called for a referendum on Texas independence in 2022 and reaffirmed it in 2024 and again in 2026.

The Legislature those same Republicans controlled never held that vote. Texas Independence Referendum Act bills filed in 2021 and 2023 were sent to the House State Affairs Committee and never got a hearing, according to the Legislature’s own records.

How the Night Went

Abbott conceded. “There are still votes to be counted, but mathematically, we are not going to be able to win this election,” he told supporters, KUT reported. “It has been the joy of my life to have the opportunity to be the governor of the great state of Texas.”

“Here’s what Texas said today, loud and clear: Your government belongs to you,” Hinojosa said in her victory speech.

The AP called the U.S. Senate race for James Talarico, a Democratic state representative, over Paxton, 55.1 percent to 43.0 percent. It is the first Democratic win in a U.S. Senate election in Texas since 1988, KUT noted. “We just took back Texas,” Talarico told supporters. Paxton, conceding, said he would pray for Talarico’s success.

The AP also called the attorney general’s race for state Sen. Nathan Johnson over state Sen. Mayes Middleton, Law360 reported, 52.4 percent to 45.9 percent. Middleton called Johnson to concede, according to a spokesperson for Johnson’s campaign; Middleton had not commented publicly by early Wednesday.

State Rep. Vikki Goodwin led Patrick 51.8 percent to 45.6 percent. Patrick conceded in a written statement. “It was a fair election, and I accept the majority will of the voters,” he said, KPRC reported.

Democrats also led for land commissioner, agriculture commissioner and railroad commissioner, for chief justice and three other seats on the Texas Supreme Court, and for two of the three Court of Criminal Appeals seats on the ballot. Republican John Messinger led Democrat Holly Taylor for Place 9, 50.4 percent to 49.6 percent, the one statewide race a Republican led.

The Texas House and Senate

The 89th Legislature opened in January 2025 with 88 Republicans and 62 Democrats in the House, according to the Legislative Reference Library. Two Republican seats, Districts 1 and 93, have since gone vacant.

Democratic candidates held all 62 Democratic seats and led in 22 districts now held by Republicans or left vacant by them: Districts 14, 28, 34, 37, 52, 55, 63, 80, 89, 93, 94, 96, 97, 112, 118, 121, 126, 127, 129, 132, 138 and 150. The closest was District 14, where Democrat Janet Tycelia Dudding led Rep. Paul Dyson by 315 votes out of 62,813. District 84 in Lubbock had reported no votes.

The Texas Senate held. Republicans led in 11 of the 16 seats on the ballot and Democrats in 5, and no seat changed party. That leaves Republicans 19 seats to 12, down one from the 20 they held when the 89th Legislature opened.

In the U.S. House, Democrats led in 14 of Texas’s 38 districts, up from 13. Democrat Bobby Pulido led Rep. Monica De La Cruz in the 15th District, 62.3 percent to 37.7 percent.

Washington’s $11 Billion

Hinojosa made the money Washington owes Texas a campaign issue. She pressed Abbott over the $11 billion in Operation Lone Star costs the federal government agreed to reimburse and has not paid. “We need a governor who’s going to go fight for our money and get it here for the people of Texas,” she said in May.

What Comes Next

More than 9.5 million votes had been counted in the governor’s race, about 50 percent of the state’s 19,041,684 registered voters, with polling places still reporting. Results stay unofficial until the canvass. Counties canvass local races from November 6 to November 17, and the state canvass falls between November 21 and December 7, according to the Secretary of State. The 90th Legislature convenes in January 2027. District returns are on the Texian Partisan’s election night page.

The Texas Nationalist Movement’s View

The Texas Nationalist Movement (TNM), which does not endorse candidates, has argued since 2005 that winning an election cannot secure Texas, because the next election can undo it. Some Texans woke up Wednesday pleased with the result and some woke up angry. Two years ago it was the other way around.

TNM put the point plainly in its November episode of This Month @ The TNM: “Elections change the management. They don’t change the address.”

Further down the ballot, the question TNM cares about held its ground. All nine Texas House members who signed the Texas First Pledge and ran for re-election led in the unofficial count, on a night when other House incumbents fell behind. Each signer committed in writing to support the right of Texans to vote on independence. Huffines, the pledge’s best-known signer on the ballot, drew more than 4.3 million votes in defeat.

Nothing decided in Austin on Tuesday touched what Texas owes as part of the union. The federal debt stood at more than $40.5 trillion on November 2, according to the Treasury.

Other peoples are pressing the same question. Quebec returned the Parti Quebecois to power in October, and Scotland’s first minister has vowed to keep pressing Westminster for a referendum.

Members of the 90th Legislature can begin filing bills on Monday, November 9, and the session opens January 12. TNM plans to ask every member, new and returning, of both parties, for a public hearing on a bill to let Texans vote.

Party control will keep changing in Austin and in Washington. The Texas Independence Referendum Act, TNM’s model legislation, would let Texans decide the question of Texas independence once, in a statewide vote, whichever party holds the majority.