Texas Was Supposed to Be Safe

Republican leaders spent years talking about Texas as though the state belonged to them. Texans took it away, office by office...

Politibrawl

Nov 04, 2026

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By Wendy M. Yurgo

Republicans called Texas safe right up until Texans took it away.

They replaced a sitting U.S. senator and a sitting railroad commissioner in the primaries. Donald Trump had carried Texas by double digits two years earlier. How much trouble could they possibly be in?

Enough to lose the U.S. Senate race, the governor’s mansion, the lieutenant governorship, the attorney general’s office, and a seat on the Railroad Commission. In unofficial returns reported early Wednesday, James Talarico led Ken Paxton by roughly 12 percentage points and Gina Hinojosa led Greg Abbott by about seven. Vikki Goodwin, Nathan Johnson, and Jon Rosenthal also won. Texans had gone more than three decades without electing a Democrat as governor or railroad commissioner. On Tuesday, they did both.

Some Republican nominees were vulnerable, and the party knew it. Ken Paxton beat John Cornyn after Republicans warned Paxton would be easier to beat in November. Bo French beat Jim Wright in the runoff and lost the seat in the general. We can argue about how Cornyn or Wright would have done. Then somebody needs to explain Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick. They had the name recognition, the organization, and years in office. Texans knew exactly whom they were voting out.

South Carolina was the Republicans’ race to lose. And they lost it.

Lindsey Graham made his name as a foreign-policy hawk. National security was his thing. His sister Darline was appointed to finish his term. When she was asked in a Republican primary debate about Taiwan and the South China Sea, she said, “National security is not my thing.” Trump encouraged her to run, endorsed her, and campaigned for her. Republican voters chose her over Ralph Norman, a sitting congressman. That was a misplaced use of the president’s influence. What did he see in her candidacy that justified asking South Carolinians to give her six years in the United States Senate?

I have no patience for treating a Senate seat like a family inheritance. About two-thirds of South Carolina Senate voters told AP that Graham lacked the right experience. Then they elected Annie Andrews, the first Democrat to win a U.S. Senate race there in 28 years. The national mood made the seat harder to hold. Republicans made it easier to lose.

Then came Kansas. The last time Kansas elected a Democrat to the United States Senate, Franklin Roosevelt was on the ballot. Ninety-four years later, a Methodist pastor named Adam Hamilton beat Republican incumbent Roger Marshall. Trump rallied in Kansas twice in October. Hamilton won roughly seven in ten moderates, according to AP’s voter poll. If two visits from a Republican president can’t save a Republican senator in Kansas, the people running the party should spend less time asking where Trump needs to rally and more time asking why voters in Kansas needed convincing in the first place.

Georgia was a battleground Republicans knew they had to fight for. They still lost the governor’s mansion for the first time in more than two decades. Former Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms defeated Republican Rick Jackson and became the first Black woman elected governor of any U.S. state. Jon Ossoff held his Senate seat by a wide margin, and Democrats picked up other statewide offices. By the time you get to Georgia, the excuse that Republicans picked the wrong candidate in a few races starts to wear thin.

Yes, the president’s party usually takes a beating in the midterms. That’s a reason to prepare for one. Republicans lost both chambers of Congress and the governor’s offices in Texas, Georgia, Nevada, Iowa, and Ohio. Democrats flipped at least seven Republican-held U.S. Senate seats in Iowa, Kansas, Maine, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, and Texas. In Texas, Iowa, and Ohio, Republicans lost both a Senate seat and the governor’s office. How much of the map did Republican leaders think they could defend on habit alone?

We will not give up hope, and neither should you

Tuesday was a wake up call to all American patriots…

The battle ahead will surely be hard and up-hill. But think of the brave Americans who stormed the beaches of Normandy, or the men who fought and bled at Shiloh and Lexington.

They had a dream for America they were willing to die for. We cannot let their sacrifice be in vain.

We must fight for our nation with every thing we have within us, even on the darkest days, as our ancestors did.

PolitiBrawl will hold our place in line on the battleground for information and news.

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Do not give up hope. Tomorrow is a brighter day.

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If you want to understand the size of the beating, start at the gas pump. People were angry about gas and groceries. They were watching a war in Iran and asking what it was costing us and how long we’d be in it. In the AP Voter Poll, roughly half of voters said the cost of living was crucial to their vote for Congress. Roughly half said the same about government corruption. Fewer said that about the war itself. Republicans had spent years telling Americans to judge the people in charge by what it cost to live. Americans took them at their word.

Nevada and Michigan are both home to me. In Nevada, Joe Lombardo was nearly 94,000 votes behind in the unofficial count in Clark County, where he used to be sheriff. Democrats swept all six statewide executive offices. In Michigan, a state Trump carried two years ago, Democrats held the governorship, the U.S. Senate seat, the attorney general’s office, and the secretary of state’s office. Republicans had two years to make a case to Michigan voters worried about the economy. What did they give those voters to come back for?

Abdul El-Sayed walked out to give his victory speech in a white dress shirt, open at the collar, looking like he was on his way to a nightclub. Then I heard what he had to say. “We don’t want our money sent to do apartheid, or genocide, or war,” he said, in remarks The Times of Israel understood as aimed at Israel. El-Sayed is the first Muslim elected to the United States Senate. I’ve read the Quran, and I believe its teachings are incompatible with the U.S. Constitution. Michigan has given him six years in the Senate to turn his positions into votes. This is a warning.

Arizona may be the hardest result for either party to explain away. About 57 percent backed a measure restricting school sports participation and locker room access based on sex at birth in the unofficial returns. On the same ballot, Arizona reelected Katie Hobbs, who had vetoed similar legislation three years running. I’m a mother with a daughter who plays volleyball. I care who gets to compete in girls’ sports. I also understand why a mother who agrees with me wants to know what the person asking for her vote plans to do about the price of gas. She gets to ask both questions. A party asking to govern should be able to answer both.

Democrats won both chambers of Congress, and the returns were still coming in when Robert Garcia, the Democrat in line to chair House Oversight, posted “LAWYER UP.” Senator Ron Wyden needed one word. “Subpoenas.” Hakeem Jeffries pledged on election night to reverse Medicaid cuts. He’d left the door open to impeachment back in September. The AP Voter Poll found broad support for Congress doing more to check the president. Where the facts warrant an investigation, hold one. But if the first thing you want Americans to hear after they hand you a majority is that somebody in Washington should call a lawyer, you’d better have something to say to the people who handed it to you. They still have to fill up their cars on Friday.

James Talarico gets six years in the United States Senate. That alone would have been devastating. Look at the rest of the Texas ballot. Democrats took the governor’s mansion, the lieutenant governorship, the attorney general’s office, and a seat on the Railroad Commission. The consequences will be felt in Washington and in Austin long after the people who lost those races have finished explaining them away.

Republican leaders spent years talking about Texas as though the state belonged to them. Texans took it away, office by office.

The votes belonged to Texans. The loss belongs to the Republican Party.

About the Author

Wendy M. Yurgo is a Christian, attorney, entrepreneur, and the Founder and CEO of Revere Payments, a conservative fintech company serving many of the nation’s leading faith based and freedom driven organizations. She writes about where faith collides with the systems shaping our culture, bringing a legal and executive lens to the most urgent issues of our time. Her work is rooted in light, guided by principle, and grounded in truth. Follow Wendy on Instagram @wendyyurgo and X @paymentsSHEEO.