A near upset in North Texas Senate race jolts frayed Democratic hopes ahead of 2026
By Kayla Guo, The Texas Tribune
November 5, 2025
For months, the special election to succeed Acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock in a red-leaning North Texas Senate seat revolved around the two Republicans in the race.
But once the early voting and Election Day ballots were all counted on Tuesday, it was Democrat Taylor Rehmet who raked in the most votes out of all three candidates, coming within three percentage points — fewer than 3,000 votes — of a stunning outright win. He led with 47.6% of votes over conservative activist Leigh Wambsganss’ 36% and former Republican Southlake Mayor John Huffman’s 16%.
It was a remarkable finish for a Democrat running in a Tarrant County-based district that voted for President Donald Trump by more than 17 points last year, and who spent just $68,000 compared to the millions deployed by each of his GOP opponents.
Because nobody won a majority of the votes, Rehmet and Wambsganss will face off in a runoff election, likely in January. Despite coming out of Tuesday on top, Rehmet remains an underdog in the overtime contest, with his nearly 48% support in the first round outweighed by the combined GOP vote for his opponents.
Still, Rehmet’s surprise near-win — and Democratic victories around the country — seemed to offer hope for a beleaguered Texas Democratic Party going into 2026 desperate to reverse course after getting blown out in virtually every statewide race since Trump’s first midterm cycle eight years ago. Some in the party saw Tuesday’s surge as evidence that Democratic turnout and backlash to the Trump administration next year could resemble the blue wave that swept through the nation in 2018 and made Democrats competitive statewide in Texas.
Matthew Wilson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University, said Rehmet’s overperformance was driven by voters angry with the Trump administration and the broader state of the country.
“The fact that Rehmet did as well as he did speaks to the level of energized anti-Trump sentiment in the Democratic base, and the fact that Republicans going into the midterms have a real turnout and enthusiasm gap that they are going to have to address, or else they’re going to see some surprising and painful losses,” Wilson said.
GOP strategists acknowledged that backlash to the Trump administration and energized Democratic voters could threaten Republicans next year, but warned against drawing conclusions from the Senate District 9 results and other off-year contests.
“I really think it turns on the economy,” Vinny Minchillo, a Plano-based Republican strategist, said. “I hate to read too much into anything like this.”
Rehmet, a union leader, machinist and Air Force veteran, largely stood to the side as his Republican opponents battled each other for the GOP vote. He spent less than half of the $150,000 he raised over the course of his campaign in one of the country’s most expensive media markets. Yet he ran several points ahead of the district’s Democratic nominee in 2022 and Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024, both of whom received about 40% from voters in Senate District 9.
Wambsganss, meanwhile, spent around $1.4 million on her campaign, while Huffman’s bid was largely financed by casino magnate Miriam Adelson and her Las Vegas Sands empire, whose PACs spent some $3.5 million donating to Huffman’s campaign and paying for advertising on his behalf.
“For them to spend several million dollars and for Republican turnout to not be higher and more favorable for the Republicans combined is a pretty good sign in the short term,” said Katherine Fischer, director of Texas Majority PAC, which supported Rehmet’s campaign.
In the long term, Fischer said it was difficult to forecast what Tuesday’s results mean for future contests.
Still, she said that “there’s just no doubt that all election results since November indicate that voters are extremely frustrated with the Trump administration and are punishing Republicans for it.” She noted that Rehmet captured 44% of early votes — even though only 35% of early voters in the race were tagged as likely Democrats.
Rehmet focused his campaign on working interests, with a populist message based on affordability and kitchen table issues, echoing that of numerous Democrats nationwide, including the leading candidates for the U.S. Senate nomination in Texas, state Rep. James Talarico and former U.S. Rep. Colin Allred.
Matt Angle, a Democratic strategist and director of the Lone Star Project, said Rehmet’s campaign showed that Democrats focusing on “nuts and bolts issues” was effective. He added that Tuesday’s result reflected a rejection of Republican extremism and devotion to Trump that Democrats had to capitalize on.
“The Republicans have veered off the road, driving on the far-right shoulder, throwing up mud and dust,” he said. “And it’s left the middle lane wide open, and Democrats need to get in and cruise.”
Minchillo, the GOP strategist, said the runoff election would be decided based on turnout, and that while Rehmet’s win suggested more Democrats showed up at the polls than expected, Wambsganss still remained the favorite in the comfortably red district. She also has endorsements from Trump, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, each of whom carried the district by wide margins in their most recent elections and have significant war chests and donor networks at their disposal.
Democratic strategists also acknowledged that the runoff favors Wambsganss, given the district’s partisan lean, yet they said Rehmet’s near-win suggests it will be a competitive race. Both the candidate and Texas Majority PAC vowed to double down on his campaign.
“If we don’t at least try to win, we would be doing everyone a serious disservice,” Fischer said.
On the Republican side, strategists predicted that the GOP would coalesce around Wambsganss and go on the offensive against Rehmet, after a bitter first round that saw the two Republican candidates direct much of the campaign spending against each other. Indeed, Wambsganss on Wednesday touted new endorsements from Hancock, U.S. Rep. Beth Van Duyne of Irving and numerous state lawmakers.
Even if Rehmet loses the runoff, Angle said, Tuesday’s results gave Democrats a desperately needed jolt of energy going into 2026, particularly in a highly competitive county that has become something of a bellwether, having evolved from one of the nation’s largest red counties into one that swings regularly between the two parties, after years of rapid growth and demographic change. In 2024, Tarrant County went for Allred over Cruz by a quarter of a percentage point, and for Trump by just 5 points, as he won the state by a 14-point margin. The county narrowly voted for Gov. Greg Abbott two years earlier, after siding with Joe Biden by a hair in 2020 and Beto O’Rourke in 2018.
While Angle argued that Republicans in the county “have gone off the edge,” he said Democrats will still need to work to scoop up disaffected swing voters.
“The question is, can we overcome the fact that a lot of people just default to Republicans in Tarrant?” he said. “It’s getting closer and closer. The question is whether or not Democrats can occupy not just the left, but the middle, too.”
Rehmet promised to continue pushing for a victory in round two.
“Here’s the truth: When you talk to people instead of at them, you win,” he said on social media Wednesday. “When you organize block by block, instead of begging billionaires for checks, you win. When you fight like hell for working families because you are one, you win. And we will win this runoff.”
Disclosure: Las Vegas Sands Corporation and Southern Methodist University have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.