Texas & Virginia 2026: The Post-Election Read

I've spent this cycle splitting my time between Austin and Virginia/DC, which gave me a front-row seat to both: the Talarico and Abbott races in Texas, and the Commonwealth that saw this coming a year ago. What follows is the data first, then who moved, then why Virginia 2025 was the warning nobody in my party should have ignored.

Just the numbers

Unofficial results as of 12:30 PM ET, Friday, Nov. 6. Votes are still coming in: provisional, mail, and military/overseas ballots are still being counted and cured, and nothing is certified. Virginia must certify by Dec. 7. Expect small movement in the margins, not the outcomes.

Texas: statewide

Raw vote, top of ticket: Talarico 5,444,982 to Paxton 4,249,373 (Libertarian Ted Brown 190,237). Hinojosa 5,230,789 to Abbott 4,524,527 (Libertarian Pat Dixon 148,078).

Historic firsts: Democrats' first statewide wins since 1994, first U.S. Senate win since 1988, and the first Democratic governor since Ann Richards left office in 1995. Hinojosa will be Texas' first Latina governor.

Turnout: About 9.8 million votes, 51.6% of a record 19 million registered. That's the most votes in a Texas midterm since at least 1970, but the turnout rate fell short of 2018 (53%) and well short of 2024 (61.2%). The early vote alone was 7.7 million (40.5%), a midterm record.

Down ballot: Democrats flipped the Texas House (14 seats). Republicans keep the Texas Senate 19–12, but a Democratic lieutenant governor now presides over it. On the gerrymandered congressional map, Democrats hold 13 Texas seats so far, and CBS projects a likely 14th.

The Paxton tax: Talarico won by 12 points while every other Democrat on the statewide ballot won by 4.5–7. Paxton received roughly 177,000–328,000 fewer votes than every other Republican statewide nominee, and about 275,000 fewer than Abbott. The wave would have been there anyway, but the weakest name on the ballot widened it. Having watched it up close in Austin, I'd say Paxton came across as a Bond villain and Talarico came across as affable and caring. Voters noticed.

Virginia: statewide

Turnout: More than 3.5 million Virginians voted. More than 1.6 million voted early, over 650,000 more than in 2022.

Congressional delegation goes from 6–5 D to 8–3 D: VA-01: Shannon Taylor (D) beat Rob Wittman, ~51.1–48.7. Flip. VA-02: Elaine Luria (D) beat Jen Kiggans, ~53.0–44.6 with 97.7% in. Flip. VA-05: John McGuire (R) held off Tom Perriello 50.2–48.0; AP called it Thursday, and Perriello says he no longer sees a path. VA-07: Eugene Vindman (D) re-elected 59.7–37.8.

Who showed up and who moved

Texas didn't set a turnout-rate record. The Texas Politics Project's Joshua Blank put it well: this was a national wave, not a turnout surge. What changed was who voted and how they broke. Compared with 2022, turnout and Democratic margins rose in every kind of county (urban, suburban, exurban, rural, and border), but the gains were lopsided.

The GOP floor fell out with Latino and young Texans: Republican share of the vote, Trump 2024 vs. Paxton 2026

2024: certified result (all voters), Edison/NEP exit poll (Latino), AP VoteCast (18–29). 2026: Texas SOS unofficial (all voters), NBC/NEP exit poll (Latino, 18–29). Mixed sources and methods: read the shifts as direction and scale, not decimals.

Hispanic voters came home, and fast. Latino voters were about 24% of the electorate and broke 68–30 for Talarico and 65–33 for Hinojosa (exit polls). In 2024 Trump won about 55% of Texas Latinos. AP VoteCast has the group roughly split in 2024 and about 7 in 10 for Talarico now, with swings of around 20 points among Hispanics under 65. The gender gap ran inside the community too: Latina women went 73–25 Talarico, Latino men 63–36.

The border flipped back. Turnout in the 16 border counties rose more than 8 points over 2022. Starr, Zapata, Maverick, Hidalgo, and Webb each shifted more than 38 points toward Democrats. These are the majority-Hispanic counties that were the GOP's proof of concept in 2024.

Young voters reversed completely. Voters 18–29 (13% of the electorate) went 79–19 for Talarico, and 30–44 went 66–32. In 2024 Trump won 18–29 Texans with 51%. Paxton carried only voters 65 and older (55–44), and 45–64 was a 49–49 tie.

The suburbs finished turning. Collin, Denton, and Fort Bend gave Cruz about a 19-point margin in 2018. Talarico narrowly carried them. Collin is Paxton's home base.

Men were not a firewall. Talarico won women 58–40 and also won men 51–47.

Rural Texas held, but it can't carry the state alone anymore. Cruz won rural counties by 54 points in 2018. Paxton won them by about 45, and rural turnout rose only about 1.4 points. The GOP's base is still there, but there wasn't enough of it to offset losses everywhere else.

A note for campaign people: voters contacted only by the Talarico campaign went 76–23 for him. Voters contacted only by Paxton's campaign went just 58–40 for Paxton, and 35% of voters said neither campaign reached them. The field gap was real.

Exit polls are preliminary and get reweighted as final counts settle. Comparable 2026 exit data for Virginia hadn't been published as of this writing.

Virginia 2025: the canary in the post-2024 coal mine

One year after Trump came within about six points in Virginia, the 2025 off-year told us exactly what was coming:

Winsome Earle-Sears lost by 15.4 points (Spanberger 57.6–42.2). The polling average had Spanberger around 52.5%, and she beat it by about five points. Texas just did the same thing: Talarico led narrowly in the polls and won by 12, and Hinojosa trailed the RealClearPolling average by 2.5 and won by 7.

The weakest name paid the biggest price. Earle-Sears ran behind her own ticket: Reid lost the lieutenant governor race by 11.5 and Miyares lost the AG race by about 7. Paxton ran behind his ticket in exactly the same way.

The House of Delegates was the real tell. Democrats flipped 13 Republican seats (51–49 to 64–36), their most seats since 1988. Twelve GOP incumbents lost, the most since 2017. Forecasters expected roughly 7–9 flips. In Texas, almost nobody had the Texas House flipping 14 seats.

The 2024 coalition was already cracking. Exit polls had Spanberger winning about 67% of Hispanic voters, 92% of Black voters, and 81% of women under 30. Those are the same groups that broke toward Trump in 2024, and they broke back in Texas on Tuesday.

What I wrote a year ago, and how it held up

After Virginia and New Jersey in 2025, I sent friends and clients a memo with one headline: "It's still the economy and healthcare, stupid." I argued that despite real policy wins on taxes, voters still judged the GOP as out of touch with the kitchen-table concerns shaping their daily lives. Here is that memo, checked against Tuesday:

The prescription I gave a year ago was to return to kitchen-table issues, deliver visible wins, recruit stronger candidates, engage suburban women and independents, and invest early to define opponents before they define us. We didn't do enough of any of it. Virginia was the canary. We just didn't know we were standing in a coal mine.

My read: why it happened

None of this came from one thing. It was a stack of grievances that all landed on the party in power at once.

The economy, starting at the pump

Of course the economy was a big part of this. About 4 in 10 voters named it their top issue, and voters were more than twice as likely to say their finances had gotten worse as better. Gas averaged about $4.14 a gallon on Election Day, up roughly 38% since the Iran strikes in February. September inflation ran 3.7% annualized, and gasoline drove more than half of that. A gas station sign is the one price every voter sees every week. On the economy, the issue voters ranked first, Democrats ended up with a 6-point trust advantage.

Iran

Of course the war with Iran was part of this. Nearly three-quarters of voters called it a crucial factor in their vote, and that group broke 62–35 for Democrats. About 6 in 10 said going in was the wrong decision. It was sold as a four-to-six-week operation and it is now in its eighth month. The war and gas prices are the same story told twice: voters connected them, and the President and Vice President have both now said so publicly.

Young voters: abortion and Epstein

Of course young voters care about abortion and Jeffrey Epstein. Nationally, voters under 30 backed Democratic House candidates nearly 3-to-1 after narrowly backing Harris in 2024. Young men swung 48 points, from Trump +15 to Democrats +33. In Texas it was 79–19. Abortion is the steady motivator, and Virginia's reproductive-rights amendment passed with 62.5% on the same ballot. Epstein is different. It doesn't show up in exit-poll issue lists, but I think it did real damage to the outsider brand that won young men in 2024. The promise was to expose the insiders. When the files became a stonewall, a lot of those voters decided they had been sold the same thing as always.

Immigration: above water, until it showed up in their neighborhoods

Immigration was the only issue where Republicans were above water, and the edge was slim: +3 on trust to handle it. The same electorate said by majorities that enforcement had gone too far, and about 3 in 5 disapproved of how ICE was doing its job.

With Hispanic voters, the edge disappeared. Two-thirds of Hispanic voters told Fox's September poll that enforcement had gone too far. Nationally, Hispanics backed Democratic House candidates by 27 points, up from a 12-point Harris margin, and Hispanic men went from Harris +2 to Democrats +15. In Texas, the border counties that were our 2024 proof of concept swung back more than 38 points. My read is that South Texas voted for a secure border in 2024. What it got in 2026 was enforcement at traffic stops in Houston and fear that reached citizens too. Those voters never signed up for the second part.

Cost of living: we didn't move the needle

We didn't show much movement on cost-of-living issues, and voters noticed. For the second election in a row, most voters said inflation had caused their family hardship. Close to 9 in 10 were worried about grocery, gas, utility, and health-care prices. About two-thirds said the tariffs hurt the national economy, and nearly as many said they hurt their local one. We campaigned on the price of eggs in 2024. In 2026 we owned the price of everything.

Prime Now expectations, dial-up Congress

This is the part I think the party has to sit with. Congress runs slow and behind public sentiment, and people now expect Prime Now results. Tariffs and DOGE were sold as fast, visible change, but voters never felt them in their own lives. Bills, rents, and grocery receipts didn't move, and in many cases they went up. Only about a quarter of voters approved of Congress. The President finished at 38% approval, a net −24, twice as deep as his −12 at the 2018 midterms. When you promise disruption and deliver process, the voters who wanted disruption go find it somewhere else.

Money didn't move an angry electorate

Republicans are usually the ones who get outspent. This year we had the money, and it didn't matter. Nationally, the GOP and allied groups spent about $5.45 billion on ads, roughly $430 million more than Democrats, in a cycle where ad spending topped the 2024 presidential race. Republicans outspent Democrats in competitive Senate, House, and governor's races every week from Labor Day to Election Day.

Republicans outspent Democrats in both top Texas races and lost both

Senate: campaign spending plus outside money benefiting each candidate, FEC via VoteLog. Governor: total ad spending, Texas Tribune. The two races use different measures: compare within each race, not across them.

Texas was the extreme case. Outside money benefiting Paxton totaled about $316 million, nearly three times the roughly $109 million that helped Talarico. Elon Musk alone put more than $200 million into the race. Abbott began the year with more than $100 million in the bank and outspent Hinojosa on ads more than four to one. Both lost, and by more than the polls predicted.

The money also didn't go as far as the topline suggests:

• Candidate dollars beat super PAC dollars. Democrats raised money at the candidate level: Talarico raised about $146 million to Paxton's $22 million, from more than 1.3 million donors. Candidates get the lowest unit rate by law. In September's nine closest Senate races, Republicans spent nearly twice as much on broadcast but got only about 40% more ratings points. Democrats paid about $201 per point and Republicans about $274.
• We spent on defense, late. In the final weeks, money came out of North Carolina and Georgia to prop up Texas and Kansas, buying airtime when it was most expensive.
• The message didn't fit the mood. Pro-Paxton ads leaned on culture-war attacks, and PolitiFact flagged several as misleading. Voters were talking about gas, groceries, and a war.

For those of us who sell campaigns, the lesson is uncomfortable. When the electorate is this angry about prices, no ad budget buys back a bad environment or a weak candidate.

Candidate quality still matters, and money can't fix it

Candidate quality absolutely matters. Texas ran the experiment side by side. The same voters, on the same ballot, gave Paxton a 12-point loss and gave every other Republican statewide a 4.5–7 point loss. The difference was the candidate. Paxton read as a Bond villain: scandal-plagued, no debate, culture-war attack ads, and a closing tour daring Texans to "come and take it." Talarico read as a former teacher and seminarian who seemed to actually like the people he was asking for votes.

The bigger lesson for Republicans is tone. We cannot seem cruel. When enforcement turns into fear at traffic stops, when the answer to $4 gas is "the bigger picture," and when our ads are about who to be angry at instead of what we'll fix, voters hear cruelty, even if that isn't what we mean. We have to message compassion and competence just as effectively as we message toughness. And $316 million in outside money proved that no ad budget can do that for us. It has to come from the candidate.

What's next

Dust off. This was a beating, not the end of the party. We've been here before. Virginia Republicans came out of 2018 badly beaten, learned the lessons, and won back the House of Delegates and the governor's mansion. Take the week, read the data honestly, and get back to work.

Get on message. Voters told us exactly what they care about: prices, gas, groceries, and a war they didn't want. Every candidate, ad, and mail piece has to start there. Culture-war attacks didn't save Paxton, and money didn't save anyone. A message that sounds like the voter's own kitchen table is the price of admission.

Use the technology and tools to get back right with the American public. Democrats beat us at the candidate level: small-dollar fundraising, lower ad rates, and direct voter contact. Voters reached only by Talarico's campaign broke 76–23. We need to put modern tools to work: data, digital, and AI that find Hispanic and young voters where they actually are and stay in touch with them between elections. And we need to use those same tools to find and recruit candidates people can actually get behind, the kind who build their own grassroots following. Super PAC air cover is not enough.

Rebuild trust, issue by issue. On cost of living, immigration enforcement, Epstein transparency, and foreign policy, we have to show work, not just talk. That means visible, measurable wins voters can feel, delivered on a Prime Now clock, not a congressional one.

Be ready for Democratic overreach. Democrats now hold both chambers of Congress, the Virginia trifecta, and Texas statewide offices. They're already promising aggressive oversight, with impeachment on the table, and a Democratic Texas leadership will be under pressure from its own left. Majorities built on anger at the party in power have a short shelf life. The opening comes the moment they govern for their base instead of the people who just lent them votes.

The proof is on the same ballot. In several states, voters backed conservative positions and still voted out Republican candidates:

• Trans issues: Washington, Arizona, and Nebraska passed measures restricting transgender girls in girls' sports. In Colorado, a similar sports measure and a limit on gender-transition care for minors both appear to have passed. Arizona, Colorado, and Washington elected Democrats for governor and U.S. Senate on the same day.
• Voter ID and citizenship: Ohio, North Carolina, Nevada, Arkansas, Kansas, South Dakota, West Virginia, and Alaska passed measures requiring voter ID or limiting voting to citizens.
• Taxes and limits on government: North Carolina passed a property-tax limit and a 3.5% income-tax cap. Wisconsin passed an affirmative-action ban and limits on the governor's power to raise taxes. Iowa now requires a two-thirds vote to raise income-tax rates.

Our positions didn't lose on Tuesday. Our candidates, our results, and our credibility did. Voters showed they will vote with us on the issues when they trust us to deliver on their bills. Rebuilding that trust is the work for 2027 and 2028.

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