Democrat James Talarico holds a commanding lead in Texas' U.S. Senate race. NBC News projects that he will defeat Republican Ken Paxton and flip a seat in a state where Republicans have dominated statewide races for three decades.
The count
As of NBC News' 11:04 p.m. ET update (8:04 p.m. PT), with an estimated 66.1% of the expected vote in, Talarico had 59.4%, Paxton had 39.0% and Libertarian Ted Brown had 1.6%, out of 6,888,216 votes counted, according to NBC News' results page, which uses data from the Associated Press.
In an earlier report posted at 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, the Victoria Advocate said Talarico had 3,240,527 votes (59.7%) to Paxton's 2,107,878 (38.8%), citing Texas Tribune results based on AP data, with about 52% of the vote counted. At that point the AP had not projected a winner.
The projection
NBC News projects that Talarico, a state lawmaker and seminarian, has defeated Paxton, the Trump-backed state attorney general. NBC called it a Democratic Senate victory in Texas for the first time since 1988. When this story was published, we hadn't confirmed a projection from the AP or another second major outlet.
Background
Paxton won the Republican nomination after President Donald Trump endorsed him over Sen. John Cornyn. The state House impeached Paxton in 2023, and the state Senate acquitted him. Talarico campaigned on a "top versus bottom instead of left versus right" message, NBC reported.
Results are unofficial and incomplete.