“Gina’s ahead.”
“Holy crap, Alex Mealer lost.”
“Bo French is about to concede.”
“What if Dan Patrick loses?”
“Gina is still ahead.”
The text message threads among politicos, especially those of the Democratic persuasion, got a little more enthusiastic as election results rolled in last Tuesday night, and the blue wave emoji that had never been used before in the Lone Star State finally came out of hiding.
James Talarico, the 37-year-old state representative from Round Rock, at one point considered Texas’ only hope to flip a seat blue, secured a victory over Ken Paxton with more than 55 percent of the vote and is headed to the United States Senate.
Talarico’s win wasn’t shocking. The flip of the entire state of Texas was.
Almost every Democrat on the ballot — including those at the top of the ticket and unknown political newcomers facing incumbents — won their seats, signaling that Texas voters don’t support President Donald Trump’s policies.
Nancy Sims, a political science lecturer at the University of Houston, says she was stunned that the Texas House flipped blue and four of the five congressional districts drawn to elect Republicans were secured by Democrats.
“Those, to me, are the shockers,” she says. “Kingwood elected a Democratic state rep. That was really hard for me to wrap my head around. Alex Mealer losing one of those redrawn districts, that left my mouth on the ground.”
There’s no doubt that some voters cast straight-party tickets to show their disappointment with federal issues, including affordability, healthcare, immigration, the war in Iran and gas prices. Closer to home, the battle lines were drawn over school vouchers, Christian nationalism, and in some circles, THC.
“Donald Trump repeatedly told the voters, ‘Vote as if I’m on the ballot,’ and they did,” Sims says. “That message could not have been delivered any louder or any clearer.”
Now that the U.S. Congress has a Democratic majority in both chambers and the Texas House is blue with Democrat Gina Hinojosa set to become the state’s first Latina governor in January, some of the hot-button campaign issues will likely be revisited and could even be repealed.
Where’s that “fingers-crossed” emoji?
Public Education and Vouchers
Early the morning after the election, Houstonians were already talking about restoring the city’s original immigration enforcement ordinance and restriping rainbow crosswalks in Montrose, now that the threat of public funds being withdrawn by Gov. Greg Abbott, via directives from Trump, is off the table.
But perhaps the more pressing issue, with a Houston ISD board meeting coming up this Thursday, is public education.
Hinojosa has been critical of what she refers to as Abbott’s “school voucher scam,” a $1 billion fund of taxpayer dollars that allocates grants to families who want to send their kids to private schools, although data from the comptroller’s office shows that most of the applicants weren’t previously enrolled in public institutions anyway.
Lower enrollment from students opting out of public schools leads to less funding, and hundreds of Texas districts are facing massive budget deficits.
The governor-elect has also said her first order of business will be to fire Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath and end school takeovers like the one in HISD. As soon as election results were posted, Houston American Federation of Teachers president Jackie Anderson called upon HISD’s Board of Managers and state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles to resign.
“Your services are no longer needed,” Anderson wrote in an open letter to the appointed board members on Facebook. “I hope Governor-Elect Hinojosa replaces every one of you. Expeditiously. None of you care about HISD or HISD students. Just walk away. History will not be kind to you.”
Sims says she expects Hinojosa, who began her career in public service as an Austin ISD board member, to keep her promises. “I think Mike Morath will be fired on January 2,” Sims says.
Apparently Morath thinks so too.
He met with superintendents on the day after the election for a previously scheduled briefing and said he is committed to ensuring a “smooth and successful transition for the incoming education commissioner.” In response to rumors that he spoke for just a few minutes, then exited the gathering, TEA officials told KPRC that he stayed the whole time, delivering introductory and closing remarks.
Hinojosa said the following day she’s already interviewing potential replacements. And because Morath is the one who appointed the deeply unpopular Miles, it will come as no surprise if the HISD superintendent also finds another job in the coming months, if not weeks.
Sims says she expects to see several public education proposals and “less funding toward private education in Texas” during the upcoming legislative session.
“Will they repeal vouchers? I’m not willing to say that, but will they manage it differently? Absolutely,” she says. Comptroller-elect Sarah Eckhart, an Austin Democrat, has already called for an audit of the voucher program.
Katherine Fischer, director of the Texas Majority PAC that supports Democratic candidates, agrees that vouchers will be up for discussion in January. “I think that will be a high priority,” she says. “I expect that property taxes and other cost-of-living measures will also be a high priority in the next session and probably education funding even beyond vouchers.”
Affordable Healthcare
Democrats have been trying for at least a year to extend the Obamacare subsidies that helped people pay for health insurance. Heated debates and a standoff that resulted in a government shutdown were unsuccessful for the Dems due to the Republican-controlled Congress, a situation that’s no longer in play.
Democrats, including U.S. Rep. Christian Menefee, who was re-elected last week, have also proposed Medicare for All, a universal health insurance system that would extend government-provided coverage to everyone, replacing or substantially changing the current mix of private insurance and public programs.
Some Dems also want to expand Medicaid, a government health insurance program for low-income residents and people with disabilities.
Was it all talk or are Texans going to get some relief?
The Texas Association of Health Plans recently reported that average increases are around 14 percent for Texans and can be as much as 34 percent, depending on the provider. Job-based health insurance premiums are going up by an average of 9.5 percent, and Medicare enrollees are facing higher monthly premiums, increased deductibles, and elevated out-of-pocket expenses for medications and care
But that was before the blue wave.
Bobby Pulido, a Tejano singer who performed at quinceañeras on the campaign trail and defeated incumbent Monica de la Cruz last week for a U.S. House seat in South Texas, promised that, if elected, he would work to provide affordable healthcare for all.
“We need real leadership, not more political rhetoric, if we are ever going to succeed in bringing down costs by negotiating better returns for what we spend on healthcare and prescription drugs,” Pulido said in a statement, bashing Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” that passed last July and slashed healthcare while funneling more money toward Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Talarico said universal healthcare must pass “so no one goes bankrupt just because they get sick.”
What the newly elected officials are willing to do and what they can compromise on with Republicans remains to be seen.
“Both Gina and Vikki spent a lot of time in their campaigns talking about healthcare,” Fischer says. “Texas is one of the least insured states in the nation, even more so thanks to the cuts from the Trump administration. I would guess that will also be a big part of the session.”
Can’t We All Just Get Along?
Houston Mayor John Whitmire notoriously butted heads with County Judge Lina Hidalgo, who did not seek a third term, and what he refers to as finding compromises across both sides of the aisle has been viewed by critics as bending the knee to Abbott.
Is there a chance that some burned bridges could be rebuilt now that a new slate of officials will be leading locally and statewide?
Whitmire, a Democrat who spent 50 years serving in the state legislature, issued a press release the day after the election featuring photos of him smiling alongside County Judge-Elect Letitia Plummer and Talarico. The mayor claims he has longstanding relationships with many of the Democrats who were elected last week.
“The collaboration is going to be strong, and Houston benefits,” Whitmire said. “Everybody knows in Austin that I’m just a can-do guy. I don’t play politics with issues. I get things done.”
Pressure is already mounting for Whitmire to revisit the city’s policy governing how HPD interacts with ICE. Critics said the mayor was too quick to acquiesce when Abbott demanded that HPD continue its cooperation with federal immigration authorities or lose $114 million in public safety grants. Those same critics say Houston’s level of cooperation is above and beyond what’s required by state law and what other metro cities do.
The mayor issued an executive order on November 6 directing HPD officers to contact ICE only if a person they encounter has an administrative immigration warrant and has committed a new, “jailable” offense. Previously, officers could turn people over to ICE if they’d committed a minor traffic offense; now, when that occurs, the offender will be cited and “can go on about their day,” Whitmire said.
He also called on Congress to reform the federal immigration policy.
Plummer campaigned alongside Hinojosa and Talarico, so it’s expected that she’ll have good relationships with the Democrats in Austin and D.C., something that could be beneficial when it comes time to discuss FEMA funding.
Now that the Texas Democrats — some who consider themselves the yellow-dog old guard and others who voted blue for the first time last week — have had time to rest and regroup since the election, their next step is to figure out how to lead as the majority party, says Texas Democratic Party Chair Kendall Scudder.
“The last time Democrats won statewide in Texas, I was 4 years old,” he says. “I think my first priority, I guess, is I’ve got to figure out what the state party’s role is in an inauguration. I don’t know. But seriously, I think what you should expect to see is serious people who are looking to solve problems for people and to do it quickly.”
The Democrats had a calculated plan to increase voter participation during the November midterms. Harris County Democratic Party Chair Traci Gibson says she led teams that visited barbershops, grocery stores and art studios to “meet people where they are” and remind them how important the election was.
“The party replaced one-size-fits-all rallies with culturally grounded events and launched dedicated task forces for Black, Hispanic, [Asian American Pacific Islanders] and young voters,” Gibson says. Scudder says the state party also “built infrastructure in every corner of the state, leaving nobody behind.”
Fischer says Abbott’s pledge, early in his re-election campaign, to “turn Harris County dark red” was posturing and clearly didn’t work.
“We didn’t know how good the cycle would be but we knew it wasn’t going to be a ‘we’re at risk of losing Harris County’-type cycle,” she says. “I think that was political theater, more than anything. We were very much on offense in Harris County. Harris County is the epicenter of Texas politics in terms of population and I don’t think anyone could say we underinvested there.”
If the Republicans had a plan to get out the vote, they didn’t share it. Perhaps they didn’t think they needed one, since they’re so used to winning Texas or they thought it was a lost cause. Several political experts pointed out that for his first three terms, Abbott didn’t have to campaign heavily to secure big victories. Abbott, Paxton and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick all refused to debate their opponents leading up to the November 3 election.
Republicans Lick Their Wounds
The Democratic majority in the Texas House could significantly shake up how business is done at the Capitol, as important committees that oversee public education, healthcare and criminal justice could now be chaired by and stacked with progressives.
Last Wednesday, longtime legislator Senfronia Thompson, 87, filed paperwork to run for Speaker of the House. She immediately received overwhelming support from her colleagues and says she has the votes to make history as the first Black woman in the position when the Legislature convenes in January.
Abbott remains the governor through the end of the year, but he made a cordial concession speech to Hinojosa and no one’s expecting him to cause problems on his way out of the governor’s mansion.
“The Republicans have to go lick their wounds and make a plan for moving forward,” Sims says. “They still control the Texas Senate and they want to be able to continue to govern. I don’t think you’ll see viciousness.”
She adds that if retribution occurs, it could come from Paxton, the outgoing attorney general who lost to Talarico and enjoys filing lawsuits against midwives who offer reproductive healthcare and school districts that refuse to post the state-mandated Ten Commandments posters.
New AG Nathan Johnson, a Dallas Democrat, has said that he doesn’t intend to go after people offering reproductive healthcare such as distributing abortion pills in Texas but he will sue the Trump administration if he deems it necessary.
The GOP-led Christian nationalist movement in public schools — which calls for the Ten Commandments displays, optional prayer time and a reading list stacked with Bible texts — won’t likely be immediately reversed; it just won’t be enforced.
Although the state House now has a blue majority, the Senate does not. If a bill passes the House, it can be dismissed in the Senate and never make it to the governor’s desk. However, Democrat Vikki Goodwin was elected lieutenant governor, and she oversees the Senate, meaning she is responsible for committee assignments, at least for now.
The Senate sets “chamber rules” ahead of each legislative session and could weaken Goodwin’s authority, although it’s unclear at this time if they’ll make that move. Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, who currently chairs the powerful Senate committees on local government and higher education, did not respond to requests for an interview last week.
The Texas Tribune reported on November 5 that the Texas Constitution “grants the lieutenant governor few but notable authorities,” including presiding over the Senate and stepping in as governor when the elected governor is away or disqualified from office.
“But the rest of the powers that made Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick perhaps the most powerful politician since Democratic Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock were prescribed by chamber rules,” the article states. “Under those rules, Patrick had complete control of the Senate. He assigned the committee chairs. He picked which bills reached the floor and when. He decided who joined conference committees that negotiated the disagreements on bills with the House. He was empowered to create special panels and refer bills to the committees of his choice. All that could change under a Lt. Gov. Goodwin.”
Sims says members of the Texas Senate heard voters as loudly as everyone else did. “If they want to survive their next election cycles, then they’re going to find a way to work together with their colleagues,” she says. “If they strip Vikki Goodwin, the first woman lieutenant governor, of her power, they are writing their own death warrants. That is not what the voters want.”
While the United States Congress is now controlled by Democrats in the House and the Senate, that could open the door for some major issues like abortion, immigration policy and affordable healthcare opportunities to be debated again. However, the President is still a Republican with veto power and the Supreme Court hasn’t changed.
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz is now essentially a lone wolf of Republican representation for Texas. On his podcast last week, Cruz called the elections “an ass- kicking” and appeared to blame Trump.
“Food is too high. Gas is too high. Diesel is too high. Insurance is too high. Life is too high,” he said. “Tariffs have made everything too expensive, and the Iran war has dragged on too long.”
Trump could still pull some shenanigans over the next two years to make things difficult for Democrats. While he’s said that he won’t contest the election results, he’s also indicated that Democrats who want to impeach him and reverse his policies will fail.
Sims says, however, that the number of people who are seeking Trump’s approval appears to have diminished.
“Every Republican in the country was afraid of Donald Trump, and they were embracing him because people who opposed him got defeated in their primaries,” she says. “You’re going to see the opposite as we head into ‘28. It’s going to be, oh, I’m not a Trump Republican.”
