Waco-area Republican candidates emerged from this week’s midterm elections like storm survivors.
Nearly all won their races, but McLennan County looked something of a “red sandbar” against a blue tidal wave of Democratic victories, as one Bridge reader put it.
Surf was lapping at the edges.
Across multiple races, Waco-area voters delivered the narrowest wins for Republicans in decades, emboldening local Democrats to dream of running more candidates and more competitive campaigns in the future.
The erosion of local GOP support was starkest at the top of the ticket where the usual blowout margins for McLennan County shrank to teens and single digits.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott won the county by 14 points, compared with 33 points in 2022. This year’s gubernatorial race saw 11,391 more Democrats and 939 fewer Republicans than in 2022.
U.S. Senate candidate Ken Paxton, whose statewide loss to James Talarico made national headlines, won by fewer than nine points here. Other U.S. Senate races over the past decade have favored Republicans by at least 23 points.
McLennan County Democrats ran no countywide candidates this year and notched just one major win Tuesday as Jeremy Davis unseated Precinct 2 County Commissioner Donis “DL” Wilson.
But party leaders saw momentum in the margins, and a path to challenging Republicans in 2028.
“We won the county commissioner seat and that’s what we wanted to achieve,” Democratic Chair Mark Hays said.
He said that while the party fell short in its other races, “it was by a considerably smaller margin that we fell short, so we felt like everywhere there was a great deal of progress made.”
Davis said his success should inspire Democrats to compete in more races.
“Of course, we don’t have too much official data yet, but I think young people made a huge difference,” he said. “We had a really motivated base of people excited to usher in a new generation of leadership.”
Surveying the statewide fallout, local Republican leadership alternated between soul searching and relief.
“Locally we had a good night,” said Chris DeCluitt, McLennan County Republican chair.
Congressman Pete Sessions and Texas Rep. Pat Curry, both Waco Republicans, won reelection, though they will return to their posts as members of a minority party.
Republican legislator David Cook of Mansfield took the vacant District 22 seat in the Texas Senate, which remains Republican but must contend with a Democratic House, governor and lieutenant governor.
DeCluitt said the Democratic sweep was surprising in a state long known as a bastion of conservative Republicans.
“The one thing that kind of shocked me is the wiping out of all the statewides, including the Supreme Court and the Court of Criminal Appeals,” DeCluitt said.
He took solace in Curry’s 22-point victory over civic leader Ashley Bean Thornton, though it was less resounding than his 31-point margin of victory against Erin Shank in 2024.
DeCluitt attended Sessions’ watch party and said some Waco-connected races were close enough to make for anxious viewing.
“The second tranche of votes came out, and (Sessions) was down about a point and a half,” he recalled. “There was, I wouldn’t say a panic, but there was a lot of concern among the people present.”
Sessions won reelection by seven points, compared to 35 in 2024.
It’s unclear whether Tuesday’s results point to a durable change or anomaly in Texas’ political landscape.
From data centers to the Iran war, from Paxton’s unpopularity to President Donald Trump’s, the factors at play are as numerous as the attempts to analyze the election’s long-term significance.
“That’s the big question coming out of this election: Is this a perfect combination of ingredients that led to a blue wave?” said Patrick Flavin, a Baylor University political scientist.
Flavin said the sweeping nature of Democratic victories “suggests a national wave of discontent with current conditions and not necessarily a Democratic realignment.”
At the same time, the election snapped a decades-long trend of party calcification, in which voters refuse to cross party lines.
“That was the narrative working against any sort of blue tsunami, that there weren’t enough Republicans that were going to change their vote,” Flavin said Wednesday. “Last night was a data point against that theory.”
“Both parties, but certainly Republicans who have had the loyalty of those voters, need to pay attention to their concerns.” In the Waco area, discontent among rural Republicans has bubbled up for months, especially among residents near proposed data centers in Ross and Riesel. Activists discussed their political evolution on Facebook groups this week.
“Abbott, you had the chance for regulation, we asked you to call a special session for months on end. You only have yourself to blame,” wrote Shauna Pfenninger, a lead organizer against the proposed Infrakey data center in Ross. Despite apprehension with Democratic policies, another commenter affirmed Pfenninger’s sense that Texas’ Republican leadership abandoned its base.
“(I’m) Republican too, but they failed us so I’m ready for change,” she replied. Come January, Texas will have a Democratic governor, Gina Hinojosa, whose party will hold a narrow lead in the statehouse.
Cook, Waco’s new state senator, did not appear to factor in that possibility on the campaign trail. Cook declined comment for this story.
His pitch to Waco leaned heavily on his sway with the Republican party elite, including Gov. Abbott’s office. He promised to wield that influence to deliver resources to the district.
Cook’s effectiveness in Austin will now depend just much on his ability to broker deals with the opposition and find common ground.
“For Representative Curry, and now Senator-elect Cook, they’re going to have to recalibrate in terms of how they approach things,” Flavin said. “It can no longer be Republicans running roughshod over Democrats because that’s not the political reality anymore.”
Curry may be at home as a dealmaker as one of the more moderate Republicans in the Texas House. He struck a reflective, even conciliatory tone after declaring victory Tuesday. “I’m not happy with how far things have come down for the Republican party,” Curry said. “Hopefully this is an awakening and people need to realize who all we represent. We don’t just represent one side or another.”
Curry highlighted water security and mental health funding for Waco as two priorities going forward into the legislative session.
Meanwhile, Cook reaffirmed his commitment to “defend conservative principles” in a victory statement Wednesday. His main campaign priorities — restricting local government spending, eliminating school property taxes, aggressive immigration enforcement — will face an uphill battle at the capitol.
DeCluitt said he’s hopeful that on specific issues, such as water security, Waco’s representatives in Austin can work with Democrats to deliver for local residents.
Republicans will be best served by seeking consensus, he added.
“I think that some of the more stringent policies that have been taken by Republicans in recent years could come back and bite them,” he said.
