'We didn't expect this': Texas Democrats stunned as blue wave topples GOP stronghold
AUSTIN, Texas — As the Democrats’ blue wave began to slam into Texas, Richard Torres, a Texan who has voted blue his entire life, kept peering at the results pouring...
By Fox News · Fox News
AUSTIN, Texas — As the Democrats’ blue wave began to slam into Texas, Richard Torres, a Texan who has voted blue his entire life, kept peering at the results pouring in on reporters’ screens all around him. And when it was announced Texas state Rep. James Talarico had toppled Ken Paxton, he sat down to take it in. Torres was the former chair of the Williamson County Democratic Party, where Talarico grew up and attended high school in Round Rock, Texas. He never thought that Texas Republicans would be swept away by the oncoming blue wave. TEXAS' RED WALL FACING ITS BIGGEST THREAT IN DECADES AS REPUBLICANS SCRAMBLE TO DEFEND IT "We started seeing some changes, but not what we expected tonight," Torres told Fox News Digital. "We didn't expect this tonight." When asked why a deep-red stronghold like the Lone Star State had become so rapidly blue, Torres said that it started at the top with President Donald Trump and should serve as a message to GOP candidates and officials across the state. "I think it sends a message that they're on the wrong track, and they've been for a while, but they won't accept the problems we have with the president," Torres said. "They're totally supporting him. I don't know why." "But they don't see the problems that we're having in this country with all the things that have happened with the war going on and things of this type," he continued. "And they just seem to support him on it. This is a referendum against Trump." STATE OF PLAY: BLUE WAVE SWEEPS DEMOCRATS INTO POWER, WITH KEY RACES STILL HANGING IN BALANCE Talarico and several other Democratic candidates, including Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa, shattered the GOP’s grip on Texas, serving Republicans in Congress a stiff blow as their majorities in both chambers rapidly evaporated Tuesday night. And the incoming lawmaker didn’t just squeak by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton . He beat the Trump-backed candidate, who was not the fir…