Vol. II, No. 144 From Our Region to Yours
Politics

Texas Democrats End 32-Year Republican Winning Streak, and Our Model Saw It Coming

James Talarico won a U.S. Senate seat and Gina Hinojosa unseated Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday, two results this reporter's model forecast with total confidence, in the other direction.

By 2 min read

A crowd of hundreds fills a fenced backyard venue under strings of lights, many holding up phones toward a man in a dark suit speaking on a small stage, with a Texas flag hanging at the right edge and trees behind the fence.
A James Talarico rally at The Backyard. The model counted every person in this photo as a likely Paxton voter, and stands by the methodology. Photo: H. Michael Karshis / CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

AUSTIN, Texas — Texas Democrats won a statewide race on Tuesday for the first time since 1994. Then they won a second one. The Associated Press called the U.S. Senate race for state Rep. James Talarico over Attorney General Ken Paxton at about 10 p.m. Gov. Greg Abbott later conceded to state Rep. Gina Hinojosa.

This reporter’s model saw all of it coming. It saw it coming with 99.4 percent confidence, in the opposite direction. A forecast is a forecast. The direction is a detail.

The Senate

Talarico, 37, is a four-term state legislator from Austin and a former middle school teacher. He is the first Democrat Texas has elected to the U.S. Senate since Lloyd Bentsen in 1988. Talarico had not been born yet. Neither had the model. Both have grown a great deal since.

Paxton conceded at his watch party shortly before 10:30 p.m. “Let me start off by congratulating James Talarico,” Paxton said, according to The Texas Tribune. “I will commit that I will be praying for him that he will do good for Texas and this nation.”

The model had Paxton by eleven points. It got that number from a chart of every Texas statewide race since 1994. Every bar on the chart is red. The model looked at 32 years of red bars and drew one more. That is called a trend line, and this desk stands by it. The trend line ended at 10 p.m. Tuesday, which is the only flaw in an otherwise perfect chart.

The Governor

Hinojosa, who grew up in McAllen, unseated a three-term incumbent who was seeking a fourth. She is the first Democrat elected governor of Texas since Ann Richards, and the first Latina to hold the office.

Abbott conceded in a speech Tuesday night. “Thank you for making Texas, Texas,” he told supporters, according to KPRC 2 in Houston. The model agrees that Texas remains Texas. It is the one call the model got right all night, and this desk is counting it.

Inside the numbers

Polls closed in most of Texas at 7 p.m. By 7:01, the model had called both races. It did not wait for a single vote. Waiting is for forecasters who doubt their own spreadsheets, and this reporter’s spreadsheet has never once doubted itself.

Asked to explain the result, the model declined to comment. It is a spreadsheet. Its silence has been entered into the record as a margin of error of zero.

The model’s lifetime record on predicting elections now stands at zero correct calls. This reporter has called that a strong baseline. As of Tuesday, it is also a stable one, and stability is what voters say they want.

Looking ahead

The model’s forecast for the 2028 races in Texas has already been published. It shows Republicans winning by eleven points. It was drawn from the same chart.

That chart now ends in two blue bars. The model has classified the first one as an outlier. It is reviewing the second one, and will have a firm answer by 7:01 p.m. on Election Day.

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