The Texas Senate District 9 Special Run-Off Election held on January 31, 2026 was a bit of a shocker, with the Democratic candidate Taylor Rehmet defeating Republican Leigh Wambsganss 57.3% to 42.7% (unofficial results as of this writing) or a 14.5 point margin. In 2024, Donald Trump defeated Kamala Harris 58.0% to 40.6% or a 17.4 point margin (official results). Together, these results represent a 31.9 point shift in the margin towards the Democratic candidate in little over a year. (Removing 2024 minor party candidates yields a 32.3 point margin shift.)
What explains this shift?
Below, I plot precinct results available from the results sites I linked to above. I plot Harris’ 2024 vote share of the total vote on the x-axis and Rehmet’s 2026 vote on the y-axis. I color the dots by the ration of the 2026 total vote to the 2024 total vote.
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