Texas Democrat Taylor Rahmat flips the Republican Senate seat that Trump won by 17 points

Democrat Taylor Rahmat flipped a reliable Texas Senate district in Saturday’s special election, continuing a string of surprise victories for Democrats across the United States in the year since Donald Trump returned to the White House.

The Republican president immediately distanced himself from the loss in a district he won by 17 points in 2024.

“I’m not involved in that. It’s a local race in Texas,” Trump told reporters on Sunday at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

However, just one day before the race, Trump praised Republican challenger Lee Wambsgans, a conservative activist and entrepreneur, on his social media platform, declaring that she would be “a great candidate and has my complete and total endorsement.” A longer post came later, urging Texans to get out and vote, calling Wambsganss a successful businessman and an “incredible supporter” of his “Make America Great Again” movement.

Despite the plugs, Wambsganss was easily defeated in a Fort Worth-area district by Rehmet, a union leader and veteran, for a partial term that expires in early January. With almost all the votes counted, Rahmat was ahead by more than 14 percentage points.

“This victory belongs to ordinary workers,” Rahmat told his supporters.

Texas Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick called the result a “wake-up call for Republicans across Texas,” where the GOP controls every statewide office.

“Our voters cannot take anything for granted,” Patrick wrote on X, while noting that low-turnout special elections are not always predictable. “I know the energy and strength of the grassroots of the Texas Republican Party. We will emerge from the fight with renewed resolve, and we will return to this seat in November.”

Rahmat’s victory added to Democrats’ record of overperformance in special elections so far this cycle, starting in March — when they prevailed in a Pennsylvania legislative district made up of suburbanites and farmers that Democrats had not carried in a century — and continuing through November, when they dominated candidate contests and ballots from Maine to California.

Zahran Mamdani, an outspoken democratic socialist, was elected mayor of New York City, a Democratic stronghold that witnessed the highest voter turnout in a mayor’s race in fifty years.

These performances come at a time when Trump’s approval ratings among the public have remained steady at around 40%. An AP-NORC poll in January showed that a majority of US adults disapprove of the way he is handling foreign policy, trade negotiations and immigration, as well as the economy.

Democrats said Saturday’s results in Texas were further evidence that voters under Trump’s second administration have incentives to reject GOP candidates and their policies.

Read more: Democrats believe that the path is narrow to win the Senate, but there is no room for error

Texas Democratic Party Chairman Kendall Scudder said Rahmat won by standing with workers and talking to Texans about the future.

“This win shows what is possible in Texas with strong organizing, great candidates and strategic investments,” he said in a statement. “People are noticing that Democrats support workers and get results.”

Other Democratic state victories since 2025 have included gubernatorial wins in Virginia and New Jersey and in special elections in Kentucky and Iowa. Although Republican Matt Van Epps won the special elections in Tennessee to obtain a seat in the US House of Representatives, the relatively small margin of victory gave Democrats hope in the midterm elections this fall.

With that backdrop in mind, Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance have pushed states to redraw their political maps in favor of Republicans ahead of those contests, which will determine partisan control in Washington. Some Democratic states — most notably California — have pushed back with their own redistricting efforts.

The Texas Senate seat was open because Kelly Hancock, a four-term GOP incumbent, resigned to take statewide office. Hancock won election handily each time he ran for office, and Republicans held the seat for decades.

The area is redder than its home, Tarrant County. Trump won the county by 5 points in 2024, but Democratic President Joe Biden carried it in 2020 by a margin of about 1,800 votes out of more than 834,000 votes cast.

But Rahmat received support from national organizations, including the DNC and VoteVets, a veterans group that said it spent $500,000 on ads. Rahmat served in the Air Force and is a mechanic, focused on cutting costs, supporting public education and protecting jobs.

Wambsgans called Saturday’s result a “wake-up call for Republicans in Tarrant County, Texas and the nation” and warned her party against complacency.

“Democrats are energized,” she said in a statement. “Too many Republicans have stayed home.”

Rahmat’s victory allows him to serve only until early January. He will face Wambsganss again in the general election in November to determine who will hold the seat for a full four-year term. The Texas Legislature is not scheduled to reconvene until 2027, and the Republican Party will still have a comfortable majority.

Will Weissert contributed to this report from Palm Beach, Florida.