Democrats flipped a seat in the Texas Senate on Saturday when Democrat Taylor Rehmet won 57% of the vote in a special election for state Senate District 9.
Rehmet, a union leader and an Air Force veteran, won the seat for the Fort Worth-area district against Republican candidate Leigh Wambsganss.
President Donald Trump made a late push for Wambsganss, posting three separate times on social media in the two days leading up to the election. Wambsganss had a massive spending advantage compared with Rehmet, and the state’s lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, also mounted a funding push in the final days of her campaign.
The seat had been vacant since last summer, after Republican Kelly Hancock resigned to become the state’s acting comptroller. Rehmet will serve the remaining 11 months of Hancock’s term.
The district, which Trump won by 17 points in the 2024 presidential election, represents a large portion of Tarrant County, one of the largest Republican counties in the nation.
Rehmet came within about 3 percentage points of an outright win in the November election that led to Saturday’s special runoff election.
Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin called Saturday’s win “a warning sign to Republicans across the country.”
“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,” Martin said in a statement.
Rehmet and Wambsganss are both slated to run unopposed in their parties’ respective primaries for the same seat again in March.
Kathleen Creedon is a platforms editor for MS NOW. She has previously worked as a web producer for Vanity Fair and Texas Public Radio.