Tag: Texas Politics

Lightning finally struck Saturday for Texas Democrats.

But you know the old saying about it hitting the same place twice.

The party won a state Senate seat that should not have even been competitive, based on all the usual factors in politics. Taylor Rehmet, a previously unknown first-time candidate, stared down everyone from the president to the prevailing powers in Tarrant County politics. Republican Leigh Wambsganss had advantages in demographics, campaign resources and high-level connections that seemed sure to yield a comfortable win.

All eyes in politics will gawk at Texas for a while. And they should. It’s well understood that Tarrant County is a bellwether for the state. If one of the largest Republican-dominated counties in the country is newly competitive, that changes political calculations from the courthouse and the statehouse to the White House.

But is Rehmet’s victory replicable? It doesn’t matter much who the state senator is in District 9 for the next year. He’ll fill out an unexpired term for a stretch when the Legislature won’t even meet.

What everyone wants to know is if Rehmet’s accomplishment can carry over to other races, perhaps for Congress or even statewide offices, where Republicans are on a 30-year winning streak.

Tarrant County Democrats worked hard to take advantage of an unexpected opportunity. They displayed the acumen and effort required to overcome decades in the wilderness. They also caught almost every possible break in an unusual set of circumstances. Consider:

Strong turnout. Democratic voters, seething at President Donald Trump and his Texas allies, turned out strongly for a special election, usually a sleepy affair. Rehmet managed a solid, if not spectacular, fundraising haul. He exercised a sound strategy and impressive message discipline, talking about meat-and-potato issues at the top of voters’ minds: Jobs and wages, inflation, and health care access and costs.

Special election circumstances and luck. Rehmet got lucky. Wambsganss was weakened in the first round of voting when former Southlake Mayor John Huffman peeled off some of the GOP vote. Saturday’s runoff was the only contest on most ballots, allowing for a focused effort.

Weird timing. What’s this about a January election? With campaigns for the March 3 primary also underway, voters were confused. Wambsganss, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Tarrant Republican leaders had to shout from the rooftops that this wasn’t the primary and voters needed to turn out on a cold Saturday.

November ballot will be different for Texas Republicans

Such factors won’t be at play in November. Prominent Republicans will be all over the ballot, led by an unbeatable Gov. Greg Abbott and his nine-figure campaign war chest. Democrats have a few primaries to settle and don’t know yet which, if any, of their candidates can run like Rehmet.

Plus, Republicans will learn the lessons of this loss. They didn’t come to dominate the state by accident. It took years of planning, building campaign infrastructure and honing strong messages. It’s not the kind of thing that Democrats can match in nine months.

Energized Democrats nationwide will pour money into the possibility of winning Texas. They’ve done so several times with less reason to hope than Rehmet’s victory provides. If they merely send tens of millions of dollars for the party’s U.S. Senate nominee to spend on TV and digital ads, that won’t do it.

Rehmet didn’t win because he could saturate air waves, social media feeds and mailboxes. The party needs an infrastructure to help do that regularly and provide a framework for reliable voter turnout. Even if Democratic candidates aren’t up to snuff this year, it may be an opportunity to build the ship for better choices to pilot in 2028 and beyond.

How Leigh Wambsganss lost Texas Senate runoff

There’s also this: Wambsganss was far from the ideal candidate for this moment.

Republicans selected a standard-bearer laden down with political baggage. Wambsganss was weighed down by her leadership in a far-right Christian conservative movement through a political committee that spent years targeting school board races. That kind of local activity won’t get much attention on the Sunday news shows, but it came to a head last year, when Keller school board members badly overreached with their attempt to split the district in half. Plenty of voters remembered.

Wambsganss was MAGA to the point of absurdity, embracing nationalist cartoon character Steve Bannon, a former Trump aide. She tried to coast on her endorsement from Trump, likely engineered by Patrick without the president knowing much about Wambsganss or the race.

She ran on issues that have worked for Texas Republicans for years: Cut property taxes, defend gun rights, secure the border and protect women and girls on gender issues.

The problem is that GOP voters feel as if those wins are banked. “Maintain the status quo” isn’t much of a slogan. Independents, meanwhile, are worried more about their checkbooks than school library books.

When the race changed, Wambsganss didn’t adjust well enough. She painted Rehmet as a dangerous liberal, highlighting stances of his that haven’t gotten much attention. By then, though, his identity was better established than most Texas Democratic candidates.

In closing days, Wambsganss’ message was less about why she would be a good senator and more of a direct partisan appeal, warning local Republicans of the caliber of disaster indicated by a Democratic upset in their community.

She even compared the race to the Alamo. Setting aside the faux pas of using that sacred battle to measure a run-of-the-mill legislative election, Wambsganss seemed to forget how that chapter in Texas history went.

It ended up being a rallying point, and perhaps this will similarly lead Texas Republicans to stave off the most serious sustained barrage from Democrats in a long while.

But the Alamo battle itself? It was a loss.