After President Donald Trump won a majority of Latinos in Texas in 2024, Democrats were despondent that the long-predicted blue wave in the Lone Star state would never come.
But after James Talarico and Gina Hinojosa scored smashing victories for Democrats, it's Republicans reacting with despair.
Latinos in the state dramatically shifted leftward, with polling and anecdotes shared on the campaign trail with the Daily Mail suggesting it was prompted by economic anxieties and the Trump administration's overzealous immigration enforcement.
Those working for Talarico's rival, Attorney General Ken Paxton, were in shock.
One adviser to a Paxton-aligned super PAC simply texted 'no,' when asked if they had anticipated the Latino vote running away.
The collapse was stark along the border. In Starr County, which is 97 percent Latino and which Trump flipped by 16 points in 2024, Talarico won by an astounding 56 points. He left Ken Paxton in the dust, 77 to 21 percent.
'It wipes out 10 years of work,' Austin-based GOP communications consultant Matt Mackowiak told the Daily Mail. 'It was clearly a reaction to overreach on ICE raids,' he said Wednesday.
'The only question is whether that loss of Hispanic support is temporary or not,' observed Mackowiak, who worked as a press secretary for Senators Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn, the outgoing GOP senator whom Talarico will replace.
Democratic Senate hopeful James Talarico (fourth from left) and gubernatorial hopeful Gina Hinojosa (fifth from left) stand onstage alongside Los Tigres Del Norte at a late October rally in Weslaco, Texas
Supporters hold up 'Latinas for Gina Hinojosa' signs at a rally sponsored by Voto Latino that took place on October 25 in Weslaco, Texas
Overall, Talarico beat Paxton 55 percent to 43 percent with 99 percent of the vote reporting. Latinos made up 24 percent of the electorate and 70 percent went for Talarico, while 29 percent selected Paxton, according to The New York Times.
In the 2024 election, Trump won 55 percent of Latino voters in Texas statewide.
The president also flipped traditionally Democratic Rio Grande Valley border counties like Starr County, which gave him 58 percent of the vote, while Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, had 42 percent.
Governor-elect Hinojosa, who is from the Valley, defeated Greg Abbott by 42 points there. She carried Starr by 49 points.
Voter registration in border counties rose 8 percent from 2022, the Texas Tribune found, the largest bump of any region in the state.
And Talarico won nine of the border counties Trump carried two years ago.
The Democrats also gained a House seat in the Rio Grande Valley, with voters choosing Tejano musician Bobby Pulido over incumbent Republican Monica De La Cruz.
GOP redistricting efforts backfired too, with Democratic Representatives Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez retaining their seats despite the Republicans drawing them more red.
On Fox News on Wednesday, Talarico credited his gains in the Latino community with showing up.
Texas Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Gina Hinojosa (left) and Senate hopeful James Talarico (right) appeared together at a final campaign outing at a barbecue joint in downtown Austin Monday night
Texas Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Gina Hinojosa talks to the press at the Voto Latino event on October 25 in Weslaco, Texas. Groups like Voto Latino worked
'I went down there a lot. I showed up, which is something a - a lot of national Democrats stopped doing,' Talarico replied. 'We took the Latino vote for granted.'
'We took South Texas and the Rio Grande Valley for granted. And I refused to make that same mistake,' he said.
Talarico said that Latinos were motivated by a mix of economic issues and immigration. They were upset with the Biden administration over border failures, he conceded, but added they were also alarmed by 'masked men in unmarked vehicles kidnapping people off our streets.'
Groups like Voto Latino also aided the Democrats on the ground, registering 412,000 Latino voters in Texas since the 2024 race.
'For two years, we were told the Rio Grande Valley had shifted to the right, but at Voto Latino, we never believed it, and we were not going to take a chance,' Voto Latino President and Co-Founder María Teresa Kumar told the Daily Mail in an email.
Ten days before the election, the group held a rally that featured both Talarico and Hinojosa.
They also brought the iconic Mexican band, Los Tigres del Norte, into the fold.
Kumar said their presence 'meant so much.'
'They have sung the story of our community for generations, and when they took the stage, people felt seen. They felt heard,' she explained.
With 95 percent of the vote counted, Talarico took Hidalgo County - which is 92 percent Latino and where Trump received 51 percent of the vote - with 73 percent to Paxton's 26 percent.
Hinojosa won 71 percent to Abbott's 29 percent.
'Neither party gets to cash in on our community, and the Valley made sure of it,' Kumar said.
