https://www.texastribune.org/2026/11/04/texas-democrats-blue-wave-no-spaces-short/
Gov. Greg Abbott, the most powerful and well-resourced governor in modern Texas history, was unseated by Gina Hinojosa.
Attorney General Ken Paxton, who in past elections cast off impeachment, indictment and infidelities, fell to James Talarico in his bid for the U.S. Senate.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the iron-fisted ruler of the Texas Senate, went down to a little known state representative.
Republicans lost the attorney general’s office, one of the most influential conservative legal positions in the country. The new congressional map Republicans drew yielded them no gains — in fact, they lost one seat overall.
…nothing could have prepared either side for what happened Tuesday night — a full flip of statewide political control on a scale unseen in this state since Reconstruction
I’m going to remind everyone and you should also remind your friends that we had that “Blue Wave” in 2018 too, elected Democrat Doug Jones in Alabama, everyone and their mother was “Generational change!”, “The South is going Blue”, etc.
One election cycle later, we have Tommy “Name three branches of government” Tuberville elected right back in and remains there to this day.
You aren’t going to keep these seats if you don’t actually try to keep your promises to the electorate and conflate this win as a endorsement of Democrats and Progressives instead of a repudiation of Republican policies and actions.
To be fair, that was a special election in 2017. Not part of the blue wave in 2018. It was the only race on the ballot there. And Doug Jones only barely won because the GOP put up a literal pedophile who had been removed from office multiple times to run against him, and that guy got virtually no party support until a week before the election when Trump endorsed him.
And I remember back then almost everyone saying that it would only be temporary and he’d likely lose the seat the next election as long as they ran someone halfway decent against him. Which is what happened. They ran the former head coach of Auburn lol.
That’s a little different than pretty much the entirety of Texas government swinging blue. Governor, Lt governor, Senator, they picked up seats in the House that were gerrymandered to give to republicans, the Texas state House… that’s a much bigger and fundamental shift than a single off year race against one of the worst GOP candidates in history.
Sure, I can agree there about the special election and not officially being part of the whole 2018 blue wave thing. I also remember saying it wouldn’t last because I already had my doubts because come on, it was Roy Moore. Still I do remember the media and tons of people inside and outside of social media saying all these things I stated above.
As for this is different, man I really don’t have outlook given how fickle we’ve seen the American electorate is. Sorry but I really see this nation as a nation of idiots, reactionary, and made up of adults that always took the marshmallow as a kid. I mean we are a nation that has a that on average reads at or below a sixth grade reading level, we’ve shown that we’re just as susceptible, worse even, to populist bullshit propaganda when we elected Trump and Republicans in non-consecutive terms.
But hey, I’m still hopeful that this will be a permanent change, I’d like to believe, but just color me skeptical.
There’s a real fundamental difference between the fluke election of 2018, where Republicans nominated an actual out-and-proud pedophile for Senate and he underperformed every other candidate on the ticket.
Democrats in Texas won across the board. Every statewide office flipped. Dems took the Texas House for the first time in decades. All Four state SC judges flipped. Dems hit a high water mark of 5.4M votes - more than in the Presidential election of 2024. Dems were winning in Bastrop. In Jefferson. All over the valley.
This wasn’t a bunch of moderate Republicans skipping on field on a ticket. This was a sea change built on the back of successively better Dem turnout going all the way back to the disaster of 2014 (1.4M Dem votes) to now.
More Democrats voted in Texas than in California (5.1M) this year.