The race for a US Senate seat in Texas may prove crucial in determining which party controls Congress next year – a significant prize in its own right – but for both parties it represents so much more than that.
For the Democrats, their losing streak in statewide elections now stretches back more than three decades. In the second most populous state in America, liberals have been in the wilderness for a generation.
But polls suggest their candidate, 37-year-old James Talarico, may be on the verge of breaking through and turning a Texas Senate seat blue for the first time since 1988.
That would be a dream scenario for Democrats – and a potential nightmare for Republicans.
“If the Democrats do pull it off, I think it’s going to cause a lot of soul searching and a lot of psychological damage to the Republican Party in Texas and nationwide,” said Brendan Steinhauser, a Texas-based Republican campaign strategist.
These dramatic stakes help explain how this Senate race has rocketed to become the most expensive in US history, with total spending reaching more than half a billion dollars.
For Talarico, it has been a remarkable rise for a candidate who in 2025 was a relatively unknown state-level Democrat.
At the Fiesta Center in Lubbock, Texas, on Tuesday night, the line to see the softly spoken former teacher, who studied to be a Christian minister before entering politics, stretched around the building and down the wide parking lot to a busy road.
In this dusty western plains town of about 250,000, which voted overwhelmingly for President Donald Trump two years ago, a visit from a major Democratic candidate on the eve of an election was unusual.
“It’s just so amazing to watch,” said Aaron Gonzalez, the Democratic Party chair for Hockley County, which borders Lubbock. “This time is different.”
