Democrat Taylor Rehmet won a Texas state Senate race in a district that then-former President Donald Trump carried by 17 points in 2024, flipping a longtime Republican seat in a low-turnout special election that both parties say carries lessons for the fall.
The win came on the same night that Democrat Christian Menefee prevailed in a special election for a Texas U.S. House seat, narrowing the GOP’s already slim majority in Congress’s lower chamber.
Rehmet, a labor union leader and Air Force veteran, defeated Republican Leigh Wambsganss, a conservative activist and entrepreneur, by more than 14 percentage points in the Fort Worth–area Senate District 9, with all votes counted. The final results were 54,280 (57.21 percent) to 40,600 (42.79 percent), according to the Tarrant County Elections website….
Democrat Scores Upset in Deep Red Texas Senate District; GOP Warns of ‘Wakeup Call’
