Democrat James Talarico defeated Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton by 12 percentage points and more than 1 million votes to become the first Democratic US senator elected from Texas since 1988, leading a sweep of every statewide office after a 32-year party drought. In the governor’s race, Gina Hinojosa unseated three-term Republican incumbent Greg Abbott by 7 points and over 700,000 votes, winning 5.23 million votes to Abbott’s 4.52 million despite Abbott spending $150 million on his campaign. Hinojosa, who becomes Texas’s first Latina governor, saw Abbott call to concede before the race was officially projected.
Talarico carried 55% of the statewide vote, winning Hispanic-majority precincts by 40.5 points and Black-majority precincts by 78 points while flipping border counties and educated suburbs in the Texas Triangle. He also carried young men by 34 points, reversing President Donald Trump’s 24-point margin with the group in 2024. Meanwhile, Abbott’s margin over Hinojosa dropped 16 percentage points in rural counties and 20 points in exurban counties compared with his 2022 race against Beto O’Rourke, amid local disputes over school vouchers and data centers.