The Night that Texas’s Seemingly Unchangeable Republican Identity Vanished
The New Yorker · Rachel Monroe ·
Rachel Monroe reflects on the Democrats’ wins in Texas in the 2026 midterm elections, and on the hopes for the state that the Party has held for more than a decade.
The ranger’s shoulders tensed; this was not the first time he’d been asked this question, it seemed. “We’re not supposed to talk about politics,” he said.
A bearded man in motorcycle gear was next in line. He radiated the kind of spiky, aggressive energy that I associate with the President’s most fervent supporters, and, as he stepped up to the counter, I braced for conflict. “It’s ridiculous that I’m paying four dollars a gallon for gas and he’s still putting his face all over everything,” the man said. “I’m not getting a pass if he’s on it.” The ranger allowed himself a small, brief smile. Oh, Texas, I thought. It’ll always surprise you.
Hope is treacherous for Democrats in Texas; live through a few elections and you learn to mistrust, even dread, it. My first big election in the state was the 2014 governor’s race, when Wendy Davis, in her pink sneakers, energized an army of Texas women fighting for reproductive rights. She lost to Greg Abbott, then the state’s attorney general, by twenty points. Four years later, my friends and family living elsewhere were confident that there was no way Texans would choose a toad like Ted Cruz for senator over the radiantly charismatic Beto O’Rourke. I read a million articles about the demographic destiny that would turn Texas blue, and allowed the tendrils of optimism to unfurl within me, even if by then I was jaded enough not to admit it out loud. I spent another Election Night with that queasy plummeting feeling that the world was a worse place than I had thought, and that I needed to revise my expectations downward again.
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