Political pundits from the left and the right were startled by the upset that Texas Democrat labor leader Taylor Rehmet achieved in a special election runoff on Jan. 31, turning a longtime Republican stronghold blue, at least temporarily.
The runoff was for the North Texas Senate seat in District 9, covering parts of Fort Worth and Tarrant County, which President Donald Trump won by 17% in 2024. Rehmet took a 14% win over his GOP opponent, Leigh Wambsganss. Rehmet will hold the seat until the two meet again for an even tougher match-up in November's general elections.
For Malik Williams, a Democratic candidate running for Texas House District 83, which covers part of Lubbock and ten other west Texas counties, the result was inspiring.
"It made me hopeful. It put a smile on my face," Williams said. "And it wasn't just the victory that made me hopeful, it was the numbers."
Williams is facing incumbent Republican representative and Texas House speaker Dustin Burrows in November, an opponent with more than $4 million in campaign finances, according to January reports, in a district that has voted for Republicans nonstop since 1985. But for Williams, Rehmet's upset indicates that the crucial numbers in upcoming Texas elections could be more than just the dollars.
Wambsganss raised around $2.6 million against Rehmet's ~$570,000, so Rehmet set a goal of meeting voters on the street and knocking on around 40,000 doors, and the blockwalking seems to have paid off for now. Voter turnout is typically lower in a runoff compared to a general election, and Tarrant County's turnout was also affected by the recent winter storm that shut down much of Texas and the southeastern United States.
Still, within the gap between more than 61,000 voters who supported Burrows in his last contested general election in 2020 and around 185,000 eligible voters in District 83, Williams believes there's room for the district to shift by taking a similar approach to get voters engaged.
"People showed up, and they won. They won on the issues that matter to the people: affordability, making sure we have a democracy to get to the next generation, [and] making sure the next generation actually has their essential needs met," Williams said. "That's how you win elections: talking to the people."
Williams, a family law attorney with LegalAid, said he's made an effort with his campaign to focus less on traditional advertising and more on meeting voters face to face, and what he's heard is that many basic needs are not being met, primarily on issues like affordability and education.
A 2025 survey by the Texas Association of School Business Officials reported that about 42% of responding school districts ended fiscal year 2024 in a deficit. Months later, Lubbock ISD closed and consolidated three local schools. Despite some funding from the Texas legislature last year, Lubbock ISD still ended last year with a $7.6 million deficit, so the anxiety of continuing consolidations in Lubbock remains ever-present.
Williams said he believes more can be done to ease that tension for the West Texans who place a strong value on public schools for both education and employment, particularly in rural areas like the majority of counties in District 83.
"Texas is the second-best economy in the nation and the eighth-best economy in the world," Williams said. "That means we should be able to afford, or at least try to ensure for our people that they have expanded health care, guaranteed child care, high-quality public education, and, at the very minimum, affordable housing, which they do not have right now."
Kyle Rable announced his intent to run as a Democrat for US Congressional District 19 in May 2025, six months before Republican incumbent Jodey Arrington announced he would not run again. District 19 stretches from the New Mexico border south of Amarillo, covering Plainview and Lubbock, off the caprock to Abilene and Wichita Falls in the east.
Democrats in Texas CD 19 face an even tougher fight than Rehmet, where Trump won by more than 50% and Arrington won by more than 70% in 2024. Rable has been driving across the district, but he said what he's hearing is often the same.
"It's the same issues, it's affordability. These people are struggling," Rable said. "It's the same in Taylor County, the same in Jones. It's the same in Howard. It's the same in Hale. It's the same in Lubbock."
To get his name on the ballot, Rable collected over 1,200 signatures on a petition, often by blockwalking, similar to Rehmet's efforts in Tarrant County.
"I think his win proved something that I've been beating the horse on out here and in Lubbock and all of CD 19, is that the Republicans can outspend us, they can do whatever they want, but we can outwork them if we just put our nose to the grindstone. And that's what he did," Rable said.
As a veteran, aircraft mechanic, and union leader, many supporters called Rehmet's victory "a win for working people." Rable, also a veteran, shares union membership – and endorsement – with Rehmet among the AFL-CIO, and he believes those relationships go beyond the political party for many Texans.
"He won on pure hard work and dedication to the cause. And that cause is labor, really," Rable said. "I mean, the Democratic Party is what he ran with, but his cause was for the working class."
Despite Texas' long-held status as one of the more affordable states, recent census bureau data indicates that wages have not kept up with the rising cost of living, which hits the low and middle-class Texans hardest.
Rable said he has communicated with teamsters from the Tyson Foods beef plant in Amarillo who were working to finalize better pay and benefits from the corporation, until the announcement that more than 1,700 workers would be laid off in January. Tyson Foods, one of the largest employers in the Amarillo area, attributed the layoffs to historic declines in cattle numbers.
On the cattle-raising side, the number of buyers consolidated under the brands of four corporations that control 85% of beef production has limited the competition, decreasing the actual money that can be made from raising beef cattle in the U.S., especially for smaller, independent ranchers. In November, President Trump called for a DOJ investigation into these meatpacking companies for collusion and price-fixing.
When you consider the farm and ranch struggles with the recent influx of large data centers from Amarillo to Abilene, pushing up housing costs and driving fears of taking water and land from a district that has produced some of the largest agriculture and livestock sales numbers in the country for cotton and cattle, Rable said it's easy to see where many of the concerns of working-class West Texans are coming from.
"People want to see that change," Rable said. "And it doesn't matter if it comes from the left or the right, it's a top versus down issue. And I think people are starting to see that."
Rable said he hopes to ensure the application of antimonopoly laws that are already in place, as well as improve regulations on imports and data center construction.
Before he could do anything, however, Rable would have to get elected. In a district that hasn't elected a Democrat in more than 40 years, Rable's not taking Rehmet's upset as a sign that anything in Texas is a given; in fact, quite the opposite. Rable said he's been out blockwalking two days a week, and that rate will only increase getting closer to election day.
"It's not going to be spending ads on TV because nobody watches cable news anymore. It's not going to be doing huge events where you spend hundreds of thousands of dollars; instead, [it's] going to be going to knock on their doors and being in the neighborhoods, going to the community meetings; that's exactly what I'm doing, and I know that's exactly what Malik is doing as well," he explained.
While this year's general election ballot will present Democratic candidates competing in every state and federal race for the first time in Texas history, the actual effect of the door-knocking methods of Rable and Williams, as well as Rehmet, will not be truly tested until Nov. 3.
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