In the long run, it wasn’t shut in any respect.
On election night time, Texans handed sweeping victories to the Republican Social gathering that controls the state, and specifically its ascendant MAGA faction.
As Vice President Harris carried out far worse throughout the state than President Biden did in 2020, Democratic hopes shortly fizzled.
Along with a decisive loss for Democratic Senate challenger Rep. Colin Allred, the occasion did not flip the final main city county exterior its management and misplaced floor in its key strongholds, from Harris County to the Rio Grande Valley.
Republicans on Tuesday night time declared whole victory.
“President Donald Trump’s victory ensures that America’s future will be brighter and more prosperous than ever,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) wrote in an announcement.
“The Trump-Vance Administration will cement America’s energy dominance, crack down on crime, secure our borders, and restore American strength, prosperity, and success once again.”
These weren’t upsets, as such: Whereas the margin of Allred and Harris’s loss outpaced the shut polling earlier within the race, neither was favored to win the Republican stronghold.
But it surely was down the poll the place state Democrats obtained their largest rejection: shedding a sequence of races within the Texas suburbs and the Rio Grande Valley that the occasion had hoped would offer some bulwark in opposition to the rise of a MAGA faction that seeks to make use of institutional reforms to relegate them to everlasting minority standing.
Listed below are 5 issues to know.
Harris, Allred did far worse than predecessors
Regardless of perennial Democratic hopes {that a} blue Texas is simply across the nook, President-elect Trump beat Harris by a staggering 14 factors — greater than twice the 6-point margin by which he beat President Biden within the state in 2020, and about 2 factors greater than the margin by which Trump gained in 2016.
For Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), the margin was nearer, although nonetheless decisive: a victory of 8 factors. That was far bigger than the closest polls — or the senator’s more and more plaintive late-campaign messages — had prompt.
That signifies that almost three-quarters of 1,000,000 Trump-supporting Texans cut up their tickets and voted for Allred — along with the million who voted for Libertarian Sen. Ted Brown, who ran beneath the slogan “The Higher Ted” and called for “an Ellis Island-style immigration system that welcomes folks.”
The hole between Cruz and Trump means that Allred’s marketing campaign did peel off some conservative Texans, and that Cruz was a drag on the Republican ticket — however not almost to the extent that Democrats would have wanted to win.
MAGA is on monitor to take full management of the state Legislature
One of many largest Texas political tales of the previous yr was the try by Abbott, state Legal professional Basic Ken Paxton (R) and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R), the state’s highly effective — and internally divided — trio of statewide leaders, to purge conservative Republicans who had voted with Democrats to kill college vouchers.
Divisions between the MAGA faction in state authorities and the state Senate, and a extremely conservative however extra business-centric faction within the Home, flared into open battle with the failed 2023 impeachment of Paxton.
Within the pivotal vote, a far-right stress marketing campaign threatened state senators with main challenges in the event that they voted to question Paxton.
In the primaries that adopted, the three state leaders started a posh and considerably uncoordinated marketing campaign to purge Republicans within the comparatively impartial state Home who had defied them on Paxton and vouchers.
The rebel main candidates largely swept the sphere of those incumbents, abandoning a closely divided occasion — and one which, to state Democrats, appeared rife with pickup alternatives as MAGA allies got rid of average Republicans in purple districts.
One of many few survivors — after the most costly main battle in state historical past — was state Home Speaker Dade Phelan (R), who fought Abbott on vouchers and led the impeachment of Paxton. Within the legislative session that begins in January, he’ll face a well-funded problem from state Rep. David Prepare dinner (R) and would doubtless want Democratic help to battle him off.
When that session begins, a small however essential energy bloc would be the Republican signatories of the Contract with Texas, which accuses Audio system like Phelan of “[colluding] with Democrats to advance progressive policies and stop Republican priorities.”
To keep away from this, the contract signatories name for an finish to the state Legislature’s uncommon collegiality, which at the moment splits up committee chair positions evenly by occasion — fairly than depart Democrats out — and makes certain that no Democratic payments attain the ground earlier than all GOP payments have been thought of.
Of the letter’s 24 signatories, 15 are new Abbott-, Patrick- or Paxton-backed members who gained their races final night time, and who will be part of the Legislature in January, proper on time for what are more likely to be bruising fights over the Speakership, college vouchers and the function of Democrats in state authorities.
Their new strategic place will probably be enabled in massive measure by Democratic failures.
Democrats failed to select up — and misplaced floor — in key cities and suburbs
Democrats went into this election hoping to full their takeover of the state’s 5 large city counties — and broaden into the purpling suburbs round them.
This largely failed. Harris underperformed Biden in Harris County, the place Democratic incumbents barely gained in what the Houston Chronicle referred to as “shockingly close” races in what had been seen as a Democratic stronghold, and considerably underperformed Biden within the suburban county of Fort Bend.
Basically, Trump beat Harris by 100,000 votes in these counties, and of the ten largest Texas suburban and exurban counties, solely three — Fort Bend, together with Williamson and Hays exterior Austin — went for Allred.
Harris additionally misplaced Tarrant County, the state’s third-largest city county and one which Biden narrowly gained however the ascendant far proper sees as its middle of energy.
In that county, Democrat Patrick Moses, who challenged MAGA-aligned Invoice Waybourn (R) for the important thing strategic place of sheriff — a bellwether place within the different city counties — misplaced by 8 factors.
And conservative and former state Rep. Matt Krause (R), a proponent of placing the Ten Commandments in public colleges, flipped a commissioner’s court docket seat, giving the suitable a majority within the nation’s most populous Republican county.
These victories, which are available in a county beneath the aegis of avowed tradition warrior and county Decide Tim O’Hare, will doubtless push Tarrant County additional proper, The Texas Tribune reported.
In the meantime, Democrats did not flip key state legislative seats within the middle and suburbs of Dallas, in addition to the suburbs of Austin, that may have allowed them to finish their takeover of these city counties and the contested hinterlands that encompass them.
Democrats misplaced races in Denton, Williamson and Dallas counties — although, in a uncommon vivid spot for the state occasion, they did efficiently maintain state Rep. Mihaela Plesa’s seat in Collin County, dwelling of Paxton, the lawyer normal.
Rio Grande Valley now in play
Flagging help for Democrats amongst Latino males — to not point out a large inflow of money into border communities by Gov. Greg Abbott (R) — meant Harris did not take key blue counties in South Texas, which additionally voted down Texas Home Democrats.
Basically, Trump beat Harris by a slim 9,000 votes alongside the border. The vice chairman misplaced each single border county aside from Presidio, whose most populous metropolis is the artwork colony of Marfa, and Democratic El Paso, although she held a number of sparsely populated South Texas counties reminiscent of Dimmit and Jim Hogg, that are simply in from the Rio Grande.
That included losses in Webb County, dwelling of Laredo, a longtime occasion bastion within the Rio Grande Valley, in what Texas Observer Editor Gus Bova referred to as an instance of a “Democratic nightmare in South Texas.” Webb County is the house court docket of U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar (D), who gained regardless of being at the moment beneath federal indictment.
Allred did higher within the area, suggesting that a few of his messaging on the border related with voters. The Dallas congressman and native native gained Webb in addition to populous Hidalgo and Cameron counties, dwelling of the border-straddling metropolis of McAllen-Reynosa and Brownsville-Matamoros — however by far lower than previous Democrats.
These losses have been most substantive and, for Democrats, disappointing when it got here to regulate of state authorities.
Democrat Solomon P. Ortiz Jr. seems to have misplaced his Nueces County seat, and Cecilia Castellano — the goal of raids by Paxton — misplaced to Don McLaughlin, whose marketing campaign cited a “new wave of support for Republican values in traditionally Democrat territories.”The Democrats additionally did not reclaim Rep. John Lujan’s (R) seat in South Texas.
On the state Senate facet, Republican Adam Hinojosa flipped the physique’s solely aggressive seat by edging out state Sen. Morgan LaMantia (D) on South Padre Island. Hinojosa, like McLaughlin, was endorsed by conservative South Texas Democrats.
“The election results in our District are nothing short of historic. Our campaign has changed the balance of power in South Texas and the Rio Grande Valley,” Hinojosa mentioned.
Basically, Trump beat Harris by a slim 9,000 votes alongside the border.
Paxton supporters take the state’s highest legal court docket
In 2022, Paxton obtained a decisive rebuff from the state’s Court docket of Legal Appeals, whose conservative justices dominated his workplace couldn’t unilaterally prosecute election fraud — however must work with native prosecutors.
On the time, Paxton declared he was the goal of “lawfare,” referred to as on his supporters to name the court docket en masse and swore revenge on the justices who had dominated in opposition to him. Within the main elections earlier this yr, he backed far-right opponents to 3 sitting justices — all of whom gained.
One in every of these, Barbara Hervey, advised the Tribune after her main loss that “Darth Vader is not supposed to win the war in those movies.”
The entire Paxton-endorsed candidates gained their races on Tuesday, eradicating an influence base that has served as an occasional block on the lawyer normal.
