Democrat James Talarico has been declared the winner of the Texas U.S. Senate race, breaking more than three decades of Republican control of the seat, according to the Associated Press and other major news outlets.
Story Snapshot
- The Associated Press, NBC News, CBS News and Houston Public Media all reported or projected Talarico’s win over Republican Ken Paxton.
- One NBC News results page showed Talarico leading with about 59% of the vote to Paxton’s 39%, though another results page listed different totals.
- News organizations called the race the first statewide Democratic win in Texas in more than 30 years.
- Texas law still requires a formal state canvass and possible recount process before the win becomes official.
National Networks Call Texas for Talarico
State Representative James Talarico defeated Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for the U.S. Senate seat, according to reporting from the Associated Press on November 3 and 4, 2026. NBC News, CBS News, and NPR-affiliated Houston Public Media separately reported or projected the same outcome within the same two-day window, naming Talarico as the winner over the sitting attorney general in a closely watched statewide race.
The Washington Post also reported the result on November 4, confirming that Talarico beat Paxton for the Senate seat. Multiple outlets reaching the same conclusion, each naming the same two candidates, the same office, and the same election date, gives the public a consistent picture of what happened on election night, even before any state agency has issued a final report.
Vote Totals Show Wide Margin, With Some Gaps
One NBC News results page listed Talarico with 4,139,805 votes, or 59.2%, against Paxton’s 2,744,236 votes, or 39.2%, out of nearly 7 million ballots counted. A separate results page listed different numbers, showing Talarico with roughly 53.8% of the vote. The gap likely reflects different points in the vote-counting process rather than two competing outcomes, since every source agrees on who won.
Election nights often produce shifting vote counts as counties finish tallying mail ballots, provisional ballots, and late-arriving overseas ballots. Texas counties digitally certify their local canvass reports through a state system once that work is done, which is a separate and later step from the running vote totals news outlets publish as results come in.
Breaking Three Decades of GOP Control
The Associated Press described the result as the first statewide Democratic victory in Texas in more than 30 years, a streak that stretched back to the late 1980s. NBC News framed the outcome similarly, calling it the end of Republican control over the seat. For a state that has anchored national Republican strategy for a generation, a single Senate loss carries outsized symbolic weight in Washington.
Talarico, a sitting state lawmaker, ran against Paxton, a two-term attorney general who built a national profile through lawsuits against the Biden administration and later faced his own legal controversies. The matchup drew heavy national attention and spending, making the result one of the most closely tracked contests of the 2026 midterms.
What Happens Next: Certification and Possible Recount
Texas law treats a media projection and an official state result as two different things. County election officials must digitally certify their local canvass through the Secretary of State’s reporting system before any statewide race becomes legally final. Candidates also have a limited window, as short as a few business days after an election, to request a recount.
Filing a recount request does not stop the canvass from moving forward, but it does delay the formal certificate of election for the office in question. The research reviewed here does not include a canvass abstract, certification order, or recount filing from Texas election authorities, so the legal finish line for this race has not yet been documented in the available record.
For now, the result stands on consistent reporting from major news organizations rather than a state-certified count. That distinction matters less for knowing who likely won and more for pinpointing the exact date Texas law will treat the outcome as final, a detail that typically follows weeks after election night in a race of this size.
Sources:
youtube.com, washingtonpost.com, texastribune.org, cbsnews.com, sos.texas.gov
