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‘Earthquake of biblical proportions’ as Democrat flips deep-red Texas State Senate seat
(www.commondreams.org)
this post was submitted on 01 Feb 2026
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Rematch??
This was a special election to fill a spot. The prior person (Kelly Hancock) quit to become state comptroller. These two will be running in the fall, though I wonder if the groups (including some with ties to white nationalism) that spent $2.5m on her will do so again in the fall. He raised $380k, mostly small donors.
Fun fact - Texas senate doesn’t meet this year, so he might not have a ton to do before the next election, but he’ll run as an incumbent, will be getting ready for next year’s session, and it’s also a nice pants-shitting moment for the Tarrant county Republican Party which is already in the midst of a party purity jihad.
(Seriously, they’re suing and being sued by other republicans about being removed from republican primaries, as well as suing to have democrats removed from Democrat primaries)
The hell? The Texas senate only meets for 140 days in odd years? How do they get anything done?
Texas likes small government so much our state legislature is a part time job.
It’s even crazier than that. If I remember right, every single law is a change to the Texas constitution.
There is also a saying that we would be better off if it were held for two days every 140 years. And there have been some bills that have died (DMCA, IIRC) because they couldn’t get through committee in time, so the “have to be passed this year” had to wait 2 more years.
But they can and will call “special session” for the sorriest of reasons.
It's not that all laws have to be constitutional amendments, but our constitution is so long and detailed and a lot of things were written into it to make them hard to change later, so way more laws have to be constitutional amendments than would be in other states.
No, changes to the state constitution have to pass a 2/3 vote in the state house and senate and then become a ballot measure for the public to vote on. We have a ridiculous number of incredibly specific things in it, though, so we tend to have like a dozen amendments to vote on every time. But we also have a regular statutory code that is altered by regular bills passing the legislature and gubernatorial signature.
they do it to avoid questioning from thier constituents in case things goes bad, like the texas freeze or the power grid failing and to prevent Dems from getting things done.
They don’t, that’s the point
New soap opera -- As Texas Turns
if texas runs out of food, they can go hunt some FERAL pigs that have run amock in the state.
Ha! It has to actually turn. We’ll see what fall looks like.
haha, republicans sure are karens, they do love to sue. in any case thier own voter suppression methods is probably hurting THE GOP more than the dems(which incudes gerrymandering other ways of excluding dems from running fairly)_, since they dont have real power in the state to begin with(the dems).
Yeah, the regular election cycle is apparently coming up in a few months.
It's just a game for some people.
It is a game for people who can spend over $2M on a campaign like this and probably do it again a few months later.
Leigh was bankrolled by two PACs, one of which is owned by a couple of billionaires.
As TryingSomethingNew said above he might jusy get lucky, because without the Texas Senate sitting before Nov the GOP will have little cannon fodder to blast him with.
One would almost wish there were more upcoming elections like this.
What is even the point of holding a special election for a position that doesn't actually have anything to do before the actual election?
The law says there needs to be an election so an election was held.
That doesn't actually answer my question, it just kicks the can down to: why was there a law requiring there to be an election when there also exists a law about there not being any reason for an election to be held?
Because the writers of the first law did not care about whether it made any difference.
Can't make a Tomlette without breaking a few Gregs.