Texas GOP sounds alarm after Dem victory: "Cannot take anything for granted"

Democrats' victories in a pair of special elections in Texas are raising the party's hopes for November, with one race cutting into Speaker Mike Johnson's already razor-thin majority in the House and the other sending shockwaves through the Republican Party nationwide.

In a congressional runoff on Saturday, Christian Menefee defeated another Democrat to fill a vacant seat in a deep-blue district in the Houston area. This narrows House Republicans' majority in the chamber to 218-214. And it means that if conditions stay the same, Johnson can now only afford to lose a single Republican on party-line votes.

But the weekend's bigger upset came in a lower-profile state Senate race in Fort Worth's Tarrant County, where Democrat Taylor Rehmet defeated Republican Leigh Wambsganss by a 57%-43% margin. It's a major flip for Democrats, gaining a seat that hadn't been won by the party in over 40 years — in an area that went for President Trump in 2024 by 17 points.

Mr. Trump had endorsed Wambsganss in a social media post on the eve of the election.

In an interview with CBS News' "The Takeout" on Monday, Rehmet said his campaign made inroads by "going and showing up, knocking doors, making phone calls and really listening."

Rehmet, a union leader, advised other longshot Democrats to "focus on their district and focus on the issues that working people face."

It was a low-turnout race, but GOP Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who had sounded the alarm ahead of time that he was worried about Democrats' enthusiasm before the race, still referred to the upset as a "wake-up call."

"Our voters cannot take anything for granted," Patrick wrote in a social media post. "I know the energy and strength the Republican grassroots in Texas possess. We will come out fighting with a new resolve, and we will take this seat back in November. We will keep Texas red."

Political scientist Mark Jones, of Rice University in Houston, says the reason this race is making Republicans nervous is that it may be a sign that they're losing the support of moderates.

"Texas Republicans have historically relied on the reality that when push comes to shove, moderate Republicans in November stay with the GOP instead of going with the Democratic alternative," Jones said. "And I think the risk you run is if the Trump administration and Republicans nationally go too far, the distance between them and moderate Republicans becomes greater than the distance between moderate Republicans and Democratic candidates."

Rehmet and Wambsganss will face each other again in November, and since the state legislature is not scheduled to be in session until 2027, it's unlikely Rehmet will ever participate in any votes in Austin, making the victory largely symbolic.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also sounded the alarm. While noting that special elections can often produce unexpected results, he said the swing in the Texas state Senate district is "not something that can be dismissed. Republicans should be clear-eyed about the political environment heading into the midterms."

Mr. Trump told reporters Sunday that "you don't know whether or not" the results are "transferrable." Mr. Trump had posted twice before Election Day to get out the vote for Wambsganss.

Texas Democratic strategist Chuck Rocha pointed out that Republicans seem to be losing support from a constituency they've had some success with in the past two elections.

"What should absolutely terrify Texas Republicans is that Latino voters moved dramatically back to Democrats in this election," said Rocha, who is working on House and Senate races in the Lone Star State and nationally. "Texas Republicans made Latinos a centerpiece of their mid-cycle gerrymandering strategy, and now it's going to bite them in the ass."

Republicans relying on boost from redistricting

Mr. Trump, in an effort to help the GOP hold the House, last year kicked off a mid-decade push to redraw Texas' congressional districts — especially in South Texas — and net up to five seats for Republicans.

The redistricting campaign could make Menefee's long-term future in Congress uncertain because the new maps put him in the same district as longtime Houston Rep. Al Green, a fellow Democrat.

But Saturday's results in the Tarrant County state Senate race indicated the redistricting push could make Johnson's House majority more precarious. Redistricting comes with tradeoffs: In order to turn five Democratic districts into GOP-leaning districts, mapmakers needed to make some solid-red districts slightly more Democratic, creating some risks for the party, said Joshua Blank of the Texas Politics Project.

"There's been no indication at the time of or since the redistricting effort here in Texas that those efforts were based off some overwhelmingly sophisticated analysis of the electorate," Blank said. "They appear to have been based off one year, one election and that may have been a mistake — and I think that question that Republicans are asking themselves this morning."

Democrats take advantage of low turnout

Republicans have been quick to note that special elections often bring out low turnout, and this one in particular occurred on a Saturday in January during a historic cold front in a state with typically moderate winters.

Jones noted that there were signs of trouble for Republicans ahead of Saturday, since Rehmet had already won the most votes in the November special election, but the Tarrant County Republicans didn't start sounding the alarm until much later.

Even though Mr. Trump posted twice about the race last week, the GOP "didn't do the work they needed to mobilize the Republicans to turn out the vote the way they needed to," Jones said.

While Mr. Trump will not be on the ticket in November, there will be a blockbuster U.S. Senate race for Sen. John Cornyn's seat that's likely to turn out far more Republicans than last weekend's special election. Texas isn't on the list of Senate seats Democrats are focusing on in November, but nonetheless, the Senate race is still likely to attract record fundraising money and national attention.

"At the end of the day, there are more Republican voters in this district than there are Democratic voters," Jones said. "It's just that Democratic voters were more mobilized, and some of those moderate Republicans defected and voted for the Democratic candidate."

But some Texas politics watchers see potential warning signs for Republicans.

Jorge Martinez, strategic director of Libre, a national grassroots organization that mobilizes Latinos, says that there are Republicans who largely support Mr. Trump, others don't like everything he's doing.

"When I look at independent voters and some Republicans that I've talked to, they're concerned with some of the ICE raids here locally as there have been operations at housing construction sites," Martinez said.

Martinez has been leading the organization's efforts to knock on doors across Texas in efforts to identify the most pressing issues for voters ahead of rolling out endorsements in congressional races. The economy continues to be the most important priority, Martinez says, with voters acknowledging lower gas prices, but immigration is on people's minds.

"People might be upset with what's happening around the country, but ICE is enforcing the laws in the books and if they don't like it, they have to work with a member of Congress to change that."

Rehmet told CBS News that the most potent issues in Saturday's race were education and the cost of living.

Although Tarrant County is a Republican district, it has become a moderate GOP district, Jones said, despite its strong support for Mr. Trump in 2024. Wambsganss, an executive for the Patriot Mobile phone company, was the more conservative Republican running in November's primary election.

Texas' upcoming races

Early voting kicks off on Feb. 17 for the March 3 primary. While Democrats are extremely unlikely to make significant gains in the GOP-controlled Texas Legislature, Democrats have zeroed in on the U.S. Senate race, which some see as winnable if Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton wins the GOP primary. Democrats have two candidates competing in the March primary for the Senate race: U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett and state Rep. James Talarico. Democrats have not won a statewide race in Texas since 1994.

Paxton, who has faced a number of personal and professional scandals since taking office as the state's top law-enforcement officer, is challenging GOP Sen. John Cornyn, who has served in the Senate since 2003. Rep. Wesley Hunt is also running.

Paxton is a close ally of Mr. Trump's, and was one of the first Republicans to endorse his 2024 election bid. But Mr. Trump has so far refused to make an endorsement in the race, although he appeared to be waffling on that on Sunday, saying he is "giving a very serious thought" to an endorsement.

If Mr. Trump endorses Cornyn, who was the longtime GOP majority whip in the Senate and is generally seen as more electable, Jones, the political scientist, said Paxton would be the "major loser" in Sunday's results.

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