House Republicans Would Be Hurt Most
by Senate GOP's Power-Stripping Plan
Capitol Inside
November 5, 2026
Midterm Election Shockers
in the Blue State of Texas
* MS NOW's Lawrence O'Donnell says he wouldn't be surprised if U.S. Senator Ted Cruz switches parties after tsunami. The guess is here is that never happens. Cruz would rather lose to a Democrat in a general election as a Republican than getting beat by Democrat in a primary.
* Democrat James Talarico got more votes for U.S. Senate in the early voting period than GOP stalwart Ken Paxton scored in the early vote and election day counts combined. You can't make this up. The Texas Secretary of State shows Talarico with 4,397,474 early votes compared to Paxton's total of 4,249,373. The Democrat would have won by slightly more than 148,000 if no one had cast a ballot for him on the day of the election.
* The Texas Senate Republicans will enter 2027 with 19 seats after expecting to have 20 with the flipping of one they lost in a special election runoff earlier this year. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick promised a rematch victory by his handpicked GOP candidate in Senate District 9 before Democrat Taylor Rehmet won it for the second time on Tuesday with 51 percent of the vote. The Senate may have gone blue with the rest of the state if all of its members were up this year. How bad was it for the Republicans. Bob Hall and Dennis Paul won by 2 points in districts where Donald Trump won by more than 20 points in 2024. At the rate the Republicans have been going, 2028 could be a lot worse.
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The Texas House's 68 Republicans would be the biggest losers - by far - if their state Senate counterparts for the GOP follow through with a hair-brained scheme to strip the upper chamber's new Democratic lieutenant governor of all her powers at the start of the regular session in January.
After spending their entire Senate careers as rubber-stamp submissives for the revenge-minded chamber president Dan Patrick, the Senate's 19 Republicans went to bed on Tuesday night as lap dogs and woke up on Wednesday as tigers after voters turned Texas into the nation's second largest blue state.
The Senate Republicans had been plotting the power play for weeks behind the back of the Republican lieutenant governor who's been leading them around on puppet strings since he claimed the gavel there 12 years ago. They were expected to huddle on Wednesday to put the novel plan into motion with the eventual election of a majority leader between now and opening day in Austin two months from now.
The taste of freedom can be exhilarating after being on a short leash for so long. Patrick's ouster and the blue Texas than came with out as an opportunity to finally have a chance to unlock their potential that the lameduck lieutenant governor's had muted by every making every important decision and telling them exactly how to vote and what to do. But these are the same Republicans who grumbled privately about Patrick's dictatorial style while doing nothing to challenge it for fears of doghouse stints and retribution with the loss of plum committee seats.
When the Senate Republicans snap out of shock-induced stupors from their own party's fumbling of Texas to the Democrats - after getting a chance to wipe the headlights from their eyes - they may have the vision at that point to see all the many ways they will be hurting the GOP with the neutering of Lieutenant Governor Vikki Goodwin before she's sworn in a week or so after the session convenes.
The Senate Republicans have sought to justify the nuclear power grab by telling themselves and the voters who haven't abandoned them that they have to be the last line of defense against radical left-wing legislation like transgender mutilation surgery on demand and the highest income taxes in history of the world.
The Republicans in the Texas Capitol's east wing watched in wide-eyed horror and disbelief on Tuesday night when James Talarico won the U.S. Senate race, Gina Hinojosa unseated third-term incumbent Governor Greg Abbott and Democrats won every statewide race on the ballot here. They are aware that the Democrats are the majority party now in Texas after Tuesday's midterm vote. They know that U.S. Senator Ted Cruz and a couple of railroad commissioners are all the Republicans have left in Texas beside themselves.
But the Senate Republicans haven't had a chance to ask themselves two very fundamental questions about the consequences from blowing up longstanding tradition with the ostensible amputation of the new lieutenant governor's ability to lead. First of all - what do they hope to accomplish from a move that would be tantamount to spitting into the faces of a majority of the Texas voters who elected Goodwin to be the Senate leader?
Goodwin beat Patrick by more than 6 points with almost 52 percent of the vote. A state representative from Austin, Goodwin received 5,083,581 votes in the general election - almost 600,000 more than Patrick.
The 10 state senators who were on the midterm ballot garnered 1,743,286 votes combined on Tuesday. When you do the math, it shows that Goodwin got 3,340,295 more voters than the Republicans in all the Senate races added together. That's more than 3.3 million when you say it the short way. All of the Senate Republicans when taken collectively received slightly more than one vote for every three that went Goodwin's way.
But the Senate Republicans can expect to their counterparts across the rotunda to pay the steepest price if they seek to undermine the lieutenant governor who set them free from their puppet strings. The Democrats will have 82 House seats if none of the results from Tuesday's vote are reversed in recounts or election contests. That's 20 more than the Democrats had in the west wing of the statehouse going into the midterm election.
If the Senate Republicans really want to get into a power-measuring competition, the Democrats who will be running the House could vote to ban GOP members from serving as committee chairs or vice-chairs or having any seats on the lower chamber's standing panels if it comes to that.
The House Republicans could forget about passing any bills if the Senate's GOP members disrespect the will of the Texas electorate. The Republicans in the House would get to vote on bills on the floor. But that might be the only power they have left if the Senate Republicans mess with the Texas lieutenant governor.
Or the Senate Republicans could go watch some film or read some clips from the Legislature's upper chamber when the GOP had its first majority there in the regular session in 1997 when Democrat Bob Bullock was the lieutenant governor in his second term. Bullock respected the will of the Texas voters and agreed to share the power with the Republicans who had a 16-15 edge in the Senate then. Republicans chaired some of the most powerful committees including the budget-writing and education panels. A lot of Democratic base voters were unhappy about that.
The current crop of Republicans may come to their senses and realize they can do more for their constituents by learning to adapt to a changing world than they can by fighting the inevitable. The main reason the Senate Republicans have pondered the Goodwin power-stripping scheme is for the sake of trying to please conservative base voters whose support they need in future primary elections. The bet here is that the Senate Republicans wake up at some point, look around and see that the voters who they're trying to impress are the same folks who've burned their party to the ground.
Mike Hailey is the editor, publisher and founder of Capitol Inside. He served as press secretary for Bob Bullock in the lieutenant governor's office. His column Hailey's Comment appears on a fairly regular basis here
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