Texas Voters Oust Abbott, Shift Power to Democrats

Gina Hinojosa defeated Greg Abbott in Texas, ending the Republican governor’s bid for a fourth term and shifting the state’s top office to a Democrat. The election also handed Democrats comfortable majorities in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate, with control due to begin in January. The ballot has changed who holds those offices; the decisions made inside them still shape ordinary people’s lives.

A rebuke at the ballot box

Chris Brennan, a USA TODAY columnist, described the Texas result as part of a sweeping rejection of Republicans in the state. James Talarico, a Democratic state legislator whom President Donald Trump had criticized, won by 12 points, according to Brennan’s column. Trump had endorsed state Attorney General Ken Paxton and avoided some campaign visits to Texas. Abbott lost after Trump branded him a “RINO” — Republican in name only.

Democrats’ victories in the midterm elections give the party comfortable majorities in both chambers of Congress. The incoming majority will include democratic socialists, progressives and moderates. Republicans gained control of Congress in 2024, and the latest results reversed that arrangement. Another shift could come in the 2028 presidential election, Brennan wrote. Power changes hands through elections; the institutions remain the ground on which that contest is fought.

Brennan tied voters’ frustration to Trump’s handling of the economy, his war with Iran, international trade wars, the use of government power against perceived enemies, and what the column called his family’s open corruption in cashing in on his presidency. The column compared the result with the 1994 midterms, when Republicans won under the “Contract with America” and reshaped then-President Bill Clinton’s ability to govern. It also pointed to the 2006 Democratic midterm wave against then-President George W. Bush’s Iraq war and refusal to acknowledge public anger.

The apparatus and the vote

Trump wasn’t on the ballot, but Brennan said he asked supporters to act as though he was. Trump wrote on social media that “we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE” if he had been. On the first day of his second term as president, he had declared, “The golden age of America begins right now.” Brennan called the election a “total Trump slap-down” and said Trump’s allies in Congress were routed.

Polls and voter sentiment had signaled a Democratic victory, though Democrats remained “Nauseously optimistic,” the column said. Trump held off on actions some feared, including sending armed federal agents or troops to polling places to intimidate voters. Brennan said such action would have violated federal law. Federal judges repeatedly rejected Department of Justice attacks on states’ ability to administer elections under the U.S. Constitution. The election was counted, and Brennan reported no court case to overturn the results and no rally that could change them.

A new majority, familiar limits

Congressional Republicans remain tied to Trump, whom Brennan described as a lame-duck president. Democrats now face tasks that the column identified: reducing health care costs, repairing economic damage from Trump’s war and trade wars, and bringing accountability and regulation to what it called his lawless administration. The incoming majority has institutional power to pursue those goals; the column does not report that voters have already received those changes.

No grassroots organizing, mutual aid, or community-run alternative appears in Brennan’s account. The story instead follows officeholders, party majorities, courts and the presidency—the official channels through which political power is contested and administered. The winning party inherits those channels, along with the demands voters have placed before it. Brennan’s closing account leaves the test with the new majority: whether it will reduce costs and repair damage, or let the next transfer of seats do the talking.