Democrat Flips Texas Senate District 9 in Runoff Win

In a surprising upset, Democrat Taylor Rehmet, a 33-year-old Air Force veteran and union leader, won a special election runoff on Saturday for a Texas State Senate seat in District 9, covering parts of Tarrant County including Fort Worth and its suburbs. Rehmet defeated Republican Leigh Wambsganss by 14 percentage points, with 57 percent of the vote to her 43 percent, flipping a district that President Donald Trump carried by 17 points in the 2024 presidential election. The victory marks the first time Democrats have held the seat since 1992.

The contest filled a vacancy created when four-term Republican Sen. Kelly Hancock resigned over the summer to become Texas comptroller. In the initial special election on Nov. 4, Rehmet received 48 percent of the vote, falling just short of a majority and forcing the runoff against Wambsganss, who had 36 percent. The two other Republican candidates in the first round together garnered 52 percent, splitting the vote and setting the stage for Rehmet's stronger performance in the head-to-head matchup.

Rehmet, a machinist at the Lockheed Martin plant in Fort Worth and president of his local chapter of the International Association of Machinists...