By Jim Ellis — Tuesday, February 10, 2026
State Senate
Texas Democrat Taylor Rehmet
A Democratic candidate again won a special election in a district that President Trump overwhelmingly carried; is that a precursor for the 2026 midterms? The Democrats and many media prognosticators certainly think so, but it is likely too early to make such a blanket prediction because another potential reason yields a different hypothesis.
On Saturday, Democrat Taylor Rehmet defeated Republican Leigh Wambsganss by a 57-43 percent margin. In 2024, President Trump carried the same district with an even more pronounced 58-41 percent spread. The previous Senate Republican incumbent, Kelly Hancock, was re-elected in 2022 with 60 percent of the vote. The seat was vacant because Hancock was appointed State Comptroller and is seeking election to a full term this year.
The victory pattern is a familiar one when examining the 2025 special election calendar. In the period between January 1, 2025, and January 31, 2026, a total of 68 special elections were held in 24 states for the US House of Representatives (5) and the state legislature (63) according to The Down Ballot political blog statisticians. Each party defended 34 of the races in question.
In those 68 campaigns, Democrats converted eight seats that were previously Republican held. Republicans, on the other hand, converted no Democratic seats. Among the 68 elections, the Republican candidate ran behind President Trump’s 2024 percentage in 53 of these special elections, or 78 percent of the total universe. On average, the Republican candidates ran 6.4 percentage points behind the Trump benchmark when looking at the 68 elections in aggregate.
The victory ratio statistics prompt the question as to why the Democrats are gaining the advantage. Is this a rejection of President Trump and the Republican leadership or are the Democrats running superior campaigns? Likely, the answer will point to a combination of these probable reasons.
While national polls suggest Democrats have an advantage on the generic ballot question: “if the election for the House of Representatives were today would you vote for the Democratic or Republican candidate …” such is typically the case at the early point in the election cycle and is so even in years, such as 2024, where the GOP had won. Therefore, a perceived advantage for one party or the other at this early point in the election cycle has been proven irrelevant on many occasions.
Therefore, another major contributing factor in these one-sided special election results may be campaign mechanics, which are likely exemplified in the Texas state Senate race.
The total turnout in the campaign in question was just under 95,000 voters, or only 15 percent of the number of registered voters in the 9th state Senate District anchored in the city of Ft. Worth. Texas is one of two states, California being the other, where the state Senate districts are larger than congressional seats.
When comparing the special election total with the 2022 state Senate result, the winning Democratic 2026 special election candidate, Rehmet, received 49 percent of the Democratic total from that losing effort. The Republican special election candidate, Wambsganss, managed only 35 percent from the winning GOP incumbent’s vote. The difference was enough to create a landslide win for the previous losing party in a low turnout election.
Thus, as we have seen around the country in the current special election cycle, the Democratic voter turnout operation is clearly superior to that of their Republican counterparts.
While there is little doubt the political media climate appears to be favoring the Democrats at this time, the Republican turnout mechanics may be a larger contributor as to why so many of these special elections are unfolding in the particular manner.
Therefore, despite the Republicans spending heavily in all of these elections, the obvious conclusion is their message delivery mechanism is failing to convince enough of their base voters to participate in down ballot elections.
Unless the Republicans find more persuasive voter turnout tactics, such as more in person contact, the 2026 election cycle could prove a difficult one for the GOP.