Tarrant Vote Dem Won Had Record Turnout
for a State Senate Runoff Election in Texas

Capitol Inside
February 5, 2026

The fight for an open Texas Senate seat that Democrat Taylor Rehmet won in a runoff romp last weekend had the highest turnout for a special election for the upper chamber in Austin in 25 years of GOP rule in a race that wasn't on the ballot on the same day as a presidential or gubernatorial contest.

A Capitol Inside analysis of the Texas Senate's modern voting history shows that the Republicans have been completely off base with an attempt to pin the blame for a monumental upset in Senate District 9 on a low turnout in an unpredictable special election.

The overtime vote in the special SD 9 race wasn't predictable as a far as the outcome was concerned in a Tarrant County district where President Donald Trump won by 17 points just 15 months before Rehmet beat the GOP's Leigh Wambsganss there by 14 points in the SD 9 runoff on Saturday.

But the special vote in SD 9 was a record-breaker in terms of combined turnout for the second round - with the highest number of ballots cast in an overtime election in a race for the Legislature's upper chamber in the current century in a state where 12 have taken place since 2001.

That should have been predictable for the Republicans after the initial vote in SD 9 attracted more voters to the polls in November than the 13 other special Texas Senate contests that were held on days when the White House and major statewide offices were not on a general election ballot here in an even-numbered year.

According to the Tarrant County elections office, a total of 118,912 voters were counted in the initial vote for SD 9 on the same day in November that constitutional amendments and some local races were on the ballot. Rehmet captured 57 percent of the vote in the special SD runoff election on Saturday when 94,880 ballots were submitted for the two candidates in overtime.

The second and third largest turnouts in special state Senate runoffs came in early 2004 when Republicans Kevin Eltife of Tyler and Kel Seliger of Amarillo defeated GOP foes in districts where the candidates garnered 89,540 and 73,196 combined respectively in overtime.

The overall turnout for the runoff vote in the special SD 9 race was almost twice as high as the number of voters who showed up for the last special Senate when Muenster Republican Drew Springer beat GOP rival Shelley Luther in overtime in 2020. Less than 58,000 turned out for the special Senate District 30 runoff election that Springer won that year just two months after 69,419 cast ballots in the opening round.

More than double the number of voters turned out for the runoff vote in SD 9 last weekend than the total tally in special overtime elections for seats that current Republican State Senators Pete Flores of Pleasanton and Lois Kolkhorst of Brenham, Charles Perry of Lubbock, Brian Birdwell of Waco and Joan Huffman of Houston during a 10-year span from 2008 to 2018.

When special elections that were held in Senate District 17 on the same days as the general elections in 2008 and 2002 are excluded from the equation, the special SD 30 race during the first year of the covid pandemic attracted the highest turnout for a first round vote in a special contest for the chamber that Patrick has presided over since 2015 before that record fell this past weekend.

But it's close for second-place in the turnout tally for initial elections in special Texas Senate races in the current century. The special SD 30 race that Luther led in the opening round had four more ballots cast in it than the first election in the race that Seliger won 22 years ago. first the initial elections. A total of 69,206 votes were recorded in the first round of the special SD 1 competition - the third highest total for an initial election in special races for the Texas Senate that aren't held on the same days as general elections for the presidency or governor and most other statewide posts.

The turnout for the initial vote in a special Senate District 17 race hit an all-time high in 2008 when Democrat Chris Bell finished first in the opening vote that was held in conjunction with the presidential election that Barack Obama won that year. Bell led the field with 38 percent of 223,295 votes that were cast in the special SD 17 race on the day of the general election as a former congressional member who'd been the Democratic nominee in the governor's race two years earlier.

Huffman advanced from a field with four Republicans and two Democrats with 24 percent of the first-round vote and claimed the seat when she defeated Bell with 56 percent of the runoff tally. But the combined turnout for the special SD 17 runoff in 2008 came in at 43,673 - less than half of the number who showed up for overtime in SD 9 last weekend.

more to come ...