Talarico and Crockett Celebrate SD 9 Win
that Gives Dems Massive Momentum Boost
Capitol Inside
February 2, 2026
State Rep. James Talarico told a national audience on Sunday that he's more convinced than ever that Democrats can capture a U.S. Senate seat in Texas after a stunning upset late the night before with State Senator-elect Taylor Rehmet's victory in a special election in a district that had been a Republican stronghold.
"It's huge," Talarico said during interview on ABC News. "It shows there's something happening in the state of Texas."
The Austin lawmaker's chief primary rival - U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Dallas - celebrated Rehmet's surprisingly easy win in the SD 9 runoff vote with a reminder to supporters that the battle is just getting started.
"This isn’t the finish line — it's only the beginning," Crockett said in a post on X complete with a photo that shows her posing with Rehmet. "The momentum is here, and it’s only growing stronger. Never forget who the power belongs to — YOU, the people!"
The prospects for a victory by Talarico or Crockett in the race at the top of the ballot in November appeared to skyrocket after Rehmet defeated Republican Leigh Wambsganss by almost 15 points with 57 percent of the vote in the special SD 9 overtime election on Saturday. Recent polling has shown Talarico and Crockett both trailing U.S. Senator John Cornyn by several points in a hypothetical fall pairing. But both Democrats have been tied with Attorney General Ken Paxton in possible general election match-ups.
But the drubbing of the heavily-armed GOP candidate in SD 9 has Republicans in states of shock and spiking anxiety in contests on the Texas ballot in which Democrats have had some chance to be competitive.
President Donald Trump, who praised Wambsganss the night before the vote as a phenomenal candidate, carried the Senate district just over a year ago with a 17-point win there over Democrat Kamala Harris. Governor Greg Abbott assured Republicans on the eve of the runoff vote that Wambsganss would win as a result of a superior voter turnout machine in Tarrant County. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick picked Wambsganss for the race and pumped more than $750,000 into her bid for the open seat through a political action committee he's funded. The Texas Senate Leadership Fund spent nearly $300,000 on the Wambsganss campaign during the final 10 days before the OT vote.
Rehmet, a labor leader who's a machinist by trade, had one dollar for the special Senate race for every $5 that Wambsganss raised for the fight as the prohibitive favorite at the outset. Trump, who pitched the Wambsganss campaign three times on social media during the week before the runoff election, claimed in a Truth Social post on the eve of the runoff election that Democrats were spending a fortune trying to snag the state Senate seat. But the president has indicated that he hadn't been following the special Texas Senate battle in Texas after the candidate he trumpeted lost badly.
Talarico said on the ABC News show Your Voice Your Vote the SD 9 results and other recent developments reflect a growing backlash to extremism and corruption in government. Talarico said Democrats, independents and Republicans have been showing up at town halls he's staged across the state including a long list of areas that are solid red. The Capitol City representative said cost of living and corruption are the two top issues on the minds of voters he's encountered on the campaign trail.
"So I think you're going to see in November us win this Senate seat and you're going to see us take back our country, which we desperately need now more than ever,"
Talarico predicted.
Talarico suggested that he would be amenable to the abolishment of the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency and shift of the funding that the move would save to health care. He said the time has come for law enforcement to focus on protecting the public safety.
"We should be cracking down on the cartels - not our communities," Talarico argued. "We should be deporting gang members - not small business owners. We should be hunting down human traffickers - not moms and kids. This is the kind of extremism that people are tired of in our government."
Talarico said he would be "1,000 percent behind" Crockett if she wins the nomination in the U.S. Senate competition. Talarico promised to campaign for her "all over the state" if she eliminates him from the contest in the March 3 primary election or a subsequent runoff.
Talarico and Crockett served together in the Texas House during her only term as a state legislator before a promotion to Congress in 2022.
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