Democrat James Talarico turns blue in Texas by defeating Ken Paxton for key Senate seat

Democrat James Talarico pulled off an election victory unthinkable for years, flipping a Senate seat in red Texas, NBC News projects — an against-the-odds victory that dislodged Republicans’ three-decade hold on the state, overcame a $168 million ad attack from the world’s richest man and rebuked the MAGA movement in a state that President Donald Trump won handily three times.

Talarico, a state lawmaker and seminarian, defeated Trump-aligned state Attorney General Ken Paxton after gaining national prominence with a message focused on wealth disparity and corruption. All the while, he incorporated Christian themes and sought to transcend traditional politics in a state where his party had not won in years.

He campaigned on a message of “top versus bottom rather than left versus right,” telling his supporters that the richest 1 percent of Americans wanted the rest of the country to fight against each other instead of controlling those in power.

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Meanwhile, on the Republican side, the “I told you so” were flying in before the vote was even over.

Paxton has battled personal scandals for years, but Trump still endorsed him against Republican Sen. John Cornyn in the primary. During the general election, a series of prominent Republicans publicly promised to support Talarico rather than support Paxton.

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives impeached Paxton in 2023 before the state Senate acquitted him in a vote for which Trump took credit after lobbying lawmakers. Paxton’s ex-wife, Angela Paxton, a state senator, publicly revealed that she filed for divorce on “biblical grounds.” She ended up cutting an ad urging her party to support the ticket without ever mentioning Paxton.

Although Cornyn said he would support the Republican ticket, he never specifically endorsed Paxton and he even held a joint fundraiser with former President George W. Bush for Republican Senate candidates that did not include him.

Paxton still had plenty of firepower behind him, including nine-figure super PAC donations from Elon Musk. But it wasn’t enough.

Bottom line: Democrats took control of a key Senate seat under Trump’s leadership, in a state that once epitomized the movement he built.

Instead, it was Talarico who mobilized voters in the Lone Star State. Early voting numbers showed Texans showed up in record numbers in many counties, and Latino voters shifted back to Democrats after supporting Trump in the state in 2024. Early voting data showed Hispanic voters turned out in massive numbers, including waves of young people and those who hadn’t voted in 2022 or 2024.

Talarico’s campaign caught fire early. When he launched his bid for Round Rock in 2025, he drew 1,500 people to a rally later that day. He went on to break fundraising records with the help of small donors from across the country.

Talarico focused on appealing to independents and Republicans unhappy with Paxton’s history or their party’s 30-year rule in the state. Two members of the legendary Bush family in Texas – Bush’s daughter Barbara and brother Neil – threw their support behind Talarico.

Early on, Talarico’s campaign made a strategic decision not to campaign with out-of-state surrogates, trying to prevent Paxton from drawing parallels with national Democrats who might not play the same way in Texas. That meant no fundraising from former President Barack Obama, who rallied in states like Michigan in front of stadium-sized crowds.

Talarico nevertheless had the gift of capturing attention. Podcaster Joe Rogan, who supported Trump in 2024, hosted Talarico on his show, urging him to run for president. Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel’s invitations to Talarico angered the White House, leading to him being blocked from television airtime, citing a rarely enforced equal time rule. But it only exploded interest, generating millions of views and fundraising.

Of the states up for grabs on Tuesday, Texas may be the biggest blow to Trump. His support for Paxton in May, helping to oust Cornyn, widened a chasm within the Republican Party that remained until Election Day. As Paxton struggled in polls and fundraising, Trump tried to mount a rescue mission. He traveled to Texas three times in October to hold rallies, hitting red zones along the way to increase turnout.

Talarico has consistently held the lead in polls throughout the general election, although usually by a margin of error. He was a different phenomenon from Beto O’Rourke, the last Democrat to nearly win a statewide race in Texas, in 2018. He then narrowly lost his bid to oust Sen. Ted Cruz.

In the final days of the election, Talarico increasingly presented the race as a classic David versus Goliath story — not between him and Paxton, but between him and Musk.

He accused Musk – who has significant business interests in Texas – of trying to buy off his own personal senator. In recent days, Musk has stepped up his attacks on Talarico on X, amplifying his past comments about transgender people and repeatedly calling him “weird.”

Talarico campaigned heavily across the state, working to narrow the margins in red areas of Texas that have overwhelmed other Democratic candidates in recent years. While Paxton participated in far fewer campaign events than Talarico over the summer, in October Talarico disappeared from the trail while recovering from the flu.

Republicans launched a costly ad campaign against Talarico on the airwaves, repeatedly airing ads quoting him saying God was “non-binary” and that there were six genders, as well as a video in which Talarico said he loved transgender children.

Trump also amplified Talarico’s past comments in his Texas speeches. He often hailed Paxton as the “greatest attorney general in the country,” saying he stepped forward to fight Joe Biden’s presidency in a way that other attorneys general had not.

Among the lawsuits Paxton filed on behalf of Texas: a lawsuit challenging the results of the 2020 presidential election. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected it.

Even though Talarico called Paxton corrupt, he had this to say when asked in a recent interview if he liked Paxton.

“Yes, Ken Paxton is a child of God. He is my brother in Christ,” Talarico said. “That doesn’t mean there isn’t responsibility, does it? Love requires responsibility.”