How Texas Turned Against Ken Paxton: County Results Explained - Newsweek

Democrat James Talarico's victory over Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton was powered by a coalition that Texas Democrats have spent decades trying to assemble: dominant support in the state's largest cities, breakthroughs in once-reliably Republican suburbs, and a renewed advantage in South Texas.

Talarico defeated Paxton 55.1 percent to 43 percent, becoming the first Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate from Texas since 1988 and helping deliver the party's first statewide victory in Texas since 1994.

"I knew we were building something special. I didn't know we were going to win Texas by double digits," Talarico told CNN Wednesday.

The county-level results reveal how Talarico assembled a winning statewide coalition in a state that President Donald Trump carried by 13.7 percentage points in the 2024 presidential election. It also shows where Paxton and Republicans lost ground.

"The key constituencies we lost were blue-collar voters ... evangelical Christians who didn't show up with the same numbers and fervor as prior elections, farmers and ranchers. Tragically, we alienated rural America. Young people ... shifted hard blue this cycle. And of course, Hispanics." Republican Senator Ted Cruz said in a post-election podcast.

Newsweek reached out to both campaigns for comment.

Talarico’s victory came against the backdrop of a state transformed by rapid population growth and demographic change.

Texas had an estimated 31.7 million residents in 2025, an increase of 8.8 percent since 2020 and more than 6.5 million since the 2010 census, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Hispanic or Latino residents now account for 40.9 percent of the state’s population, compared with 37.3 percent who are non-Hispanic white. Black residents make up 13.4 percent of the population and Asian residents 6.7 percent. More than one-third of Texans age 5 or older speak a language other than English at home.

The change is evident within the electorate as well. Census data shows that Hispanic Texans made up 31.6 percent of the state’s citizen voting-age population in 2024, an increase of 1.7 percentage points over five years. The non-Hispanic white share fell 3.3 points to 48.3 percent over the same period.

Much of Texas’ population growth has occurred in and around its largest metropolitan areas, increasing the political weight of suburban counties such as Collin, Denton, Fort Bend and Williamson. The 2026 results showed how politically consequential those population shifts can be when Democratic candidates are able to compete effectively for suburban and Hispanic voters.

Demography alone, however, does not explain Talarico’s win. President Donald Trump carried Texas by 13.7 points in 2024, after Republicans made substantial gains among Hispanic voters. Talarico’s victory two years later suggests that the state’s rapidly changing electorate remains politically fluid.

For years, Democrats argued that Texas would only become competitive if they could crack the Republican strongholds north of Dallas. In 2026, they did more than compete there. They won.

Talarico carried Collin County, home to more than 1.1 million residents, by 12.1 percentage points and won neighboring Denton County, with a population of roughly 1 million, by 8.4 points.

Democratic gains extended beyond North Texas. Talarico won Fort Bend County outside Houston by 28.6 points and captured Brazoria County, a long-Republican county south of Houston, by 5.4 points.

He also carried Williamson County north of Austin by 20.3 points and narrowly flipped Kaufman County, an outer-ring Dallas suburb that Trump had carried in 2024.

Those results suggest Talarico's coalition was not confined to Texas' largest cities. It spread into the suburban counties that have accounted for much of the state's population growth over the past decade and that increasingly determine the outcome of statewide elections.

Those results gave Talarico substantial margins in some of the fastest-growing parts of Texas and helped offset Republican strength elsewhere in the state.

Talarico did not win Texas by threading together a coalition. He ran up overwhelming margins in the state's largest metropolitan counties. Harris, Dallas, Bexar and Travis counties alone cast more than 3.3 million votes, and Talarico won each by at least 33 percentage points, creating a Democratic vote bank that Paxton struggled to offset elsewhere.

In Travis County, home to Austin, Talarico won 78.5 percent of the vote and defeated Paxton by 58.5 percentage points. He also carried Dallas County by 45.6 points and El Paso County by 47.9 points.

The state's two largest population centers delivered some of his most important margins. Talarico won Harris County, home to Houston and more than 1.38 million votes in this race, by 33 percentage points. In Bexar County, home to San Antonio, he defeated Paxton by 35.5 points.

Harris County cast 1,382,875 ballots, while Dallas County cast 783,308, Bexar County 658,445 and Travis County 548,521. Together, those four counties accounted for more than 3.37 million votes.

Those results gave Talarico a substantial foundation in the state's largest metropolitan areas before accounting for gains in growing suburban counties such as Collin, Denton, Williamson and Fort Bend.

Talarico's gains in South Texas came after a concerted effort to connect with Latino voters. Throughout the campaign, he aired Spanish-language television ads, launched Spanish-language social media outreach and invested heavily in Spanish-language media. A Dallas Morning News analysis of AdImpact data found Talarico's campaign spent about $2.6 million on Spanish-language advertising between the May runoff and Sept. 30, compared with roughly $1.4 million by Paxton and allied groups.

Talarico won Hidalgo County by 46.5 points, Webb County by 47.3 points, Cameron County by 38.5 points and Starr County by 55.8 points. He also posted wide margins in counties including Zapata, Maverick, Presidio and Jim Hogg.

Those results marked a significant turnaround compared with Republican gains in the region during the 2024 presidential election.

Paxton won much of Texas on the map. Talarico won where most Texans live.

Roughly 80 percent of Texans live in Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio and Austin. Only about 20 percent live in the more than 200 sparsely populated rural counties that tend to be Republican dominated.

Paxton continued to dominate those rural counties, winning dozens of counties by margins exceeding 40 and 50 percentage points.

He carried counties such as Armstrong, Archer, Roberts and Shackelford by overwhelming margins.

Take Armstrong County,, for example, which Paxton carried by more than 75 points. Fewer than 1,000 votes were cast there, compared to the 1.4 million votes that were cast in Harris County, where Talarico won by 33 points.

Whether Talarico's victory represents a lasting political realignment or a uniquely favorable Democratic environment remains an open question.

The county map points to several forces working simultaneously. Talarico dominated Texas' largest metropolitan counties, won key suburban battlegrounds that Republicans once considered safely in their column and posted overwhelming margins in heavily Latino counties across South Texas.

Those gains occurred against the backdrop of a rapidly changing state. Texas has added millions of residents over the past decade, with much of that growth concentrated in and around the state's largest metropolitan areas. Hispanic Texans now account for roughly 41 percent of the state's population, while many of the fastest-growing counties are suburbs surrounding Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio.

Republicans have also begun offering their own explanations for the defeat. In a post-election podcast, Cruz argued that voters were driven by economic frustration and said the GOP lost support among blue-collar workers, young voters and Hispanic Texans.

"Food is too high, gas is too high, diesel is too high, insurance is too high, life is too high," Cruz said.

Cruz also described the outcome in stark terms.

"Texas is blue. That is a hard sentence to utter, but Texas, today at least, is blue," he said.

Talarico, meanwhile, framed the result as a rejection of division and big-money politics.

"We just took back Texas. We just proved that all the money in the world is no match for the people of Texas," he told supporters after the race was called.

Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story.