James Talarico and Ken Paxton are tied in the polling averages. Will Talarico flip Texas's Senate seat on Nov 3?

James Talarico flipped Texas's U.S. Senate seat for Democrats, defeating Republican Ken Paxton in the November 3, 2026 general election. The Associated Press called the race for Talarico around 10:04 p.m. CT; Paxton conceded roughly 20 minutes later. Unofficial returns tallied by the Texas Secretary of State put Talarico's final share at about 55% of the vote.

Pre-election polling had shown the race essentially tied or within a few points, with some surveys giving Talarico a narrow edge and others showing Paxton short of 50%. The closeness reflected Paxton's unusually weak standing as a general-election candidate: he carried long-running securities-fraud charges and a 2023 state impeachment trial into the race, issues Democrats spent heavily to highlight. Talarico, an Austin state representative, built his campaign around flipping the seat away from three decades of Republican control.

The result gave Democrats their first Texas U.S. Senate win since 1988, ending a streak in which Republicans had carried every statewide race in the state since the mid-1990s. No community consensus was recorded for this specific question before it resolved, so there is no market call to evaluate against the outcome.