A Texas Republican suggested on Monday that a snow storm was to blame for the Democratic Party’s shocking special election victories in the Lone Star state over the weekend.
Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) suggested on Monday that a winter storm was the reason Democrats won a North Texas seat in the state Senate that is typically held by Republicans. A deadly winter storm slammed parts of the southern U.S. last week, leaving thousands of people in Texas without power days before the special election.
“First of all, the success of a rain dance has a lot to do with timing. And what happened is, there was a huge snowstorm, ice storm, really, that hit North Texas and Central Texas,” Sessions said on CNN.
According to The Associated Press, voting was extended by two days due to the inclement weather.
Democrat Taylor Rehmet flipped a Republican state Senate district in Texas on Saturday, delivering a major blow to President Donald Trump who endorsed his opponent just days prior. Democrat Christian Menefee also won a Texas U.S. House seat during the special election on Sunday, which is a huge victory for Democrats as the GOP’s House majority continues to shrink.
Rehmet’s win in a reliable GOP district sent shock waves through the Republican Party. Despite the weather, Sessions said on Monday that Republicans should not have lost the seat in North Texas.
“Special elections are special. And what happened is there was, as I understand it, one Democrat and two Republicans that were running against each other, and it was a battle between the two Republicans. And a group of people simply decided they were not going to come participate,” Sessions said.
“And still, this Democrat received more than 50% of the vote. So it is listening to the music and waking up and finding out we need to be better. We need to understand what we’re doing. But this was a miscalculation by the people on the ground, and I don’t know any of them, but what I will say is you should not lose any election in North Texas like this,” he said.
Trump immediately tried to distance himself from the election despite throwing his support behind the GOP candidate last week.
“I’m not involved in that. That’s a local Texas race,” Trump told reporters Sunday at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
Trump and Vice President JD Vance have pushed states to redraw their political maps to Republicans’ advantage headed into those contests, which will determine partisan control in Washington. Some Democratic states — most notably California — have pushed back with their own redistricting efforts.
The Texas Senate seat was open because the four-term GOP incumbent, Kelly Hancock, resigned to take a statewide office. Hancock easily won election each time he ran for the office, and Republicans have held the seat for decades.
The district is redder than its home, Tarrant County. Trump won the county by 5 points in 2024, but Democratic President Joe Biden carried it in 2020 by about 1,800 votes out of more than 834,000 cast.
But Rehmet had support from national organizations, including the DNC and VoteVets, a veterans group that said it spent $500,000 on ads. Rehmet, who served in the Air Force and works as a machinist, focused on lowering costs, supporting public education and protecting jobs.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.