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Texas’s first major election of 2026 saw Democrat Taylor Rehmet flip a state Senate seat that has long been held by Republicans. The parties disagree on what that means for the November midterm elections.
The race garnered national attention, including from President Donald Trump who pushed voters to get out to the polls for Rehmet’s Republican opponent, Leigh Wambsganss.
Rehmet is a union leader and an airplane mechanic at Lockheed Martin. He now represents most of Tarrant County in Kelly Hancock’s unexpired Senate District 9 seat. He will hold the office until January 2027, when the November general election winner will take over after a rematch between himself and Wambsganss.
Wambsganss works at Patriot Mobile, a phone company that describes itself as Christian and conservative. She said her team will start immediately on the campaign for November.
As the candidates look ahead, some are looking to the Tarrant-county based race as a bellwether for other 2026 races.
“There’s the old statement, ‘As Tarrant County goes, so goes Texas, so goes Texas, and as Texas goes, so goes the nation,’” said Jim Riddlesperger, a TCU Political science professor. “Is that true? I guess we’ll find out in November.”
The district is both urban and suburban, making it a “cross-section” of where most voters in the United States are.
“And the result of that is that the Republicans are really engaged in looking in the mirror and figuring out what they have to do to turn the tide in the fall,” Riddlesperger said.
Tim Davis, the Tarrant County GOP chair, said he doesn’t think Saturday’s loss means anything in relation to the November general election, though it’s disappointing.
“Did we lose? It looks like it,” Davis said before the results had been finalized. “But what do we learn from that? And how do we go forward from that? That’s what we’re going to learn tonight. I don’t think it’s a bellwether, because Tarrant County really is ruby red.”
Tarrant Democratic Party Chair Allison Campolo said the win is “absolutely a marker of what’s to come” in November for the county and state alike.
Campolo said despite being outspent “10-to-1,” Rehmet flipped a district by 14 points in a special runoff election when Hancock won it in 2022 by 20 points. Trump won the district by 17 points in 2024.
“It’s the future, and it’s here,” Campolo said, promising a blue county in November.
‘Wake up call for Republicans’
As a referendum on Trump, Saturday’s election was a big one, even if it’s for an abbreviated term while the Texas Legislature isn’t in session, Riddlesperger said.
“Yes, Leigh Wambsganss and Taylor Rehmet’s names were on the ballot, but everyone understood what this was, and so this has ramifications, I think, are not just limited to Tarrant County, but are also national,” he said.
Still, it’s important not to overstate the significance of a special election, Riddlesperger cautioned.
Wamganss and other Republicans have cast Saturday’s outcome as a cautionary tale that shouldn’t be repeated in November.
“Tonight is a wakeup call for Republicans in Tarrant County, Texas, and the nation,” she said in an election night statement. “The Democrats were energized. Too many Republicans stayed home.”
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a Republican from Houston, agreed with Wambsganss’s statement that the results should be a wakeup call.
He said low turnout special elections are “always unpredictable” and voters can’t take anything for granted.
The race saw roughly 95,000 ballots cast, according to unofficial election results. In November 2025, about 119,000 ballots were cast in the race between Rehmet, Wambsganss and Republican John Huffman.
“I know the energy and strength the Republican grassroots in Texas possess,” Patrick said. “We will come out fighting with a new resolve, and we will take this seat back in November.”
Asked about the significance of the seat flipping red and contributing factors at his election night watch party, Rehmet said he doesn’t see the race as “red vs. blue.”
“This is right versus wrong,” he said. “This is about public school funding. This is about helping working folks. This is about lowering costs.”
Rehmet said he couldn’t speak to whether the race is a bellwether for November.
“All I can speak to is the hard work that my campaign, the community here, put into this,” Rehmet said.
Democrats tee up for November
The candidates and Republicans and Democrats across the state are already looking to November.
The race is also attracting national attention for both Saturday’s outcome and future implications ahead of the 2026 midterm election
Amanda Litman, co-founder and president of Run for Something, which works to recruit progressive candidates, said the outcome shows that “every seat is winnable” when candidates are embedded in their community and focused on issues that matter most to voters.
DNC Chair Ken Martin highlighted Rehmet’s focus on issues related to rising costs for families, and cast the outcome as a rebuke of Trump.
“Tonight’s results prove that no Republican seat is safe,” Martin said in a statement. “From now until November, Democrats are keeping our foot on the gas and organizing and competing everywhere, including in Texas and the rest of the Sun Belt.”
Fort Worth City Council member Chris Nettles predicted that a Saturday win for Rehmet could also have a trickle-down effect locally, where County Judge Tim O’Hare is up for election in 2026, as are county commissioner seats.
“I think tonight in a highly red area in North Fort Worth turning blue – for whatever reason that may be, Republicans not coming out or Democrats overly coming out – that is going to give us the wisdom and the IDs to help elect people Tarrant County-wide.”
Is there a blue shift happening in Tarrant County?
Riddlesperger said voters do distinguish local politics from national politics, to some degree. That said, Tarrant County has been at a “tipping point” for several years, and Democrats could see success in November if their voters are more energetic in 2026 than Republicans.
“I think we have always had it, but it was always for a higher elected office,” Nettles said Saturday after early voting results were out, pointing to Biden’s 2024 win in Tarrant County as an example. “We just didn’t win local seats, and I think today is a change in that.”
This story was originally published February 1, 2026 at 11:07 AM.
Rachel Royster is a news and government reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, specifically focused on Tarrant County. She joined the newsroom after interning at the Austin American-Statesman, the Waco Tribune-Herald and Capital Community News in DC. A Houston native and Baylor grad, Rachel enjoys traveling, reading and being outside. She welcomes any and all news tips to her email.
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Eleanor Dearman,Rachel Royster
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