The early Chron headline hedged things, but Christian Menefee was leading Amanda Edwards by almost exactly a two to one margin after early voting – he had 66.64% to her 33.36% as of the first results drop. That total only included the early in person votes as of Tuesday, but his entire lead came from early in person votes – Edwards had literally a one vote advantage in mail ballots, and from there it was all Menefee. I don’t see how she can come back from that, so I’m going to step slightly out on a limb and call it for Christian Menefee. Congratulations to Christian Menefee for his victory.
(UPDATE: In the end, Menefee had over 68% of the vote. Turnout without counting the two extra days of early voting was at 23,652. That’s quite a bit lower than I had estimated, even with the now-provisional ballots factored in. I’ll do a deeper look at that later when all the data is in. Here’s the Chron story on the race and Menefee’s victory.)
In the SD09 runoff, Taylor Rehmet had a shocking 13-point lead over Leigh Wambsganss, amounting to about six thousand total votes, in early voting. I’m hesitant to make any pronouncements here, mostly for fear of angering the gods, but I think we can safely say that he did a hell of a job. I’m not able to stay up late and watch this one to a more conclusive point, so I’ll leave this here for now and update in the morning. You have my permission to feel optimistic about November now.
UPDATE: Holy shit.
Democrat and machinist union leader Taylor Rehmet won the special election Saturday to represent a solidly red Texas Senate district that President Donald Trump carried by 17 points in 2024, a stunning upset that injected a fresh and urgent sense of a panic into the GOP from the Texas Capitol to the White House heading into November’s midterm elections.
With ballots tallied from all but a handful of voting centers, Rehmet had 57% of the vote, besting the 43% for his GOP opponent, conservative activist Leigh Wambsganss, who vastly outspent Rehmet as Republicans including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick mounted a furious funding push in a bid to tilt the election in their favor in the final days.
Patrick, the Senate’s powerful presiding officer, had raised alarm bells about the race and urged Republicans to turn out — as did Trump, who posted three separate get-out-the-vote messages on social media in the 48 hours preceding the election.
The win will be short-lived for Rehmet, a first-time candidate who will serve out the roughly 11 months remaining in the term of Republican Kelly Hancock, who vacated the seat to become Texas’ acting comptroller. But the outcome serves as a warning shot for Republicans that will likely embolden Democrats as they angle for other red-leaning seats across Texas — and the country — in November.
“It’s clear as day that this disastrous Republican agenda is hurting working families in Texas and across the country, which is why voters in red, blue, and purple districts are putting their faith in candidates like Taylor Rehmet,” Ken Martin, chair of the Democratic National Committee, said in a statement. “This overperformance is a warning sign to Republicans across the country.”
In a speech at his election night party late Saturday, Rehmet thanked his supporters for helping secure the victory.
“Tonight, this win goes to everyday working people,” he said to cheers and chants of his name.
The loss was a major setback for Wambsganss, a conservative activist whose advocacy in recent years helped make Tarrant County — nearly half of which is covered by Senate District 9 — a testing ground for socially conservative policies. Long active in GOP circles, Wambsganss rose to prominence in 2022 when she helped the GOP fill North Texas school boards with candidates who held Christian conservative views. The movement’s success resulted in an explosion across the country of book bans, rewriting of curricula and a thinner line separating church and state.
In a statement, Wambsganss said the outcome was a “wakeup call” for Republicans, but she insisted things would shake out differently in November, when she and Rehmet will face off again for a full four-year term representing the district.
“The dynamics of a special election are fundamentally different from a November general election,” Wambsganss said. “I believe the voters of Senate District 9 and Tarrant County Republicans will answer the call in November.”
I thought Rehmet could win, but by this big a margin? I’m stunned. There are going to be a lot of people with their hair on fire today. I’ll have more soon. Congratulations, Taylor Rehmet and everyone who helped him win. Here’s more from The Downballot and G. Elliott Morris, who looks at where the vote was and concludes as follows:
There are two reasons for the swing: persuasion (voters breaking hard against Republicans) and Republican dropoff (Trump voters staying home). The second scatter below shows that vote centers with lower turnout relative to 2024 saw the biggest Democratic swings.
While special elections don’t predict the exact margin of a future general election, turnout patterns can be revealing. Democrats are unlikely to get the full D+32 swing across the country that they got in TX SD-9. But if you take the relationship above and predict the swing we’d see in a higher-turnout election (in Texas, the 2022 midterms had 70% the turnout of 2024), you get a D+9 swing. That would put the generic House vote at D+7.
Of course, lots of assumptions are being made here, so don’t consider this a concrete prediction. I’ve done the same analysis in other special elections, and generally gives the same result. Sometimes the data is more R-leaning, sometimes more D-leaning.
On the other hand, do to public backlash against his agenda of mass deportations and unrestrained enforcement against unauthorized residents and U.S. citizens, political conditions have been deteriorating quickly for the president this month. It’s likely that if this election were held a month ago, the Republican candidate would have done better.
The point is this: A big wave is gathering for 2026. There is at present no question of the existence of this wave, just its height. For Democrats, tonight is another piece of evidence that the 2026 midterms are going to be a good year for them (if the elections are free and fair, which is not guaranteed). The environment could grow more or less favorable for them in the next 9 months.
And, coming back to my home, the Lone Star state, if tonight is any indication, Republicans should be worried about holding onto Texas in this year’s Senate race. Especially if Ken Paxton wins the primary.
Oh, yeah. That’s what we all want to hear.
UPDATE: Get a load of this:
Dana, there was no split in this election tonight. But you know that. It was the run off from the special election in the fall. And Leigh didn’t pick up a single one of Huffman’s R voters from the special election. November vs. Tonight’s election. ⬇️
— Laney Hawes (@LanetHawes) 11:47 PM – 31 January 2026
Amazing.
This is bigger than Dan Barrett’s HD 97 special election win, which preluded some really good future election results. It’s also nice to have a Tarrant County based Democratic State Senator after losing one to what should have been an illegal gerrymandering.
I’ve thought a lot about Dan Barrett and that HD97 special election win, which was also shocking, and what it presaged. Here’s hoping.