Democrat Taylor Rehmet, left, and Republican Leigh Wambsganss will meet again in the November general election.
Handout photos
FORT WORTH
A Lockheed Martin union leader’s Democratic Texas Senate victory Saturday in a MAGA-mad North Texas Republican district means nothing. And it means everything.
Fort Worth Democrat Taylor Rehmet probably won’t ever cast a vote in Austin. The Senate doesn’t meet again until Jan. 12, 2027, after Rehmet and Southlake Republican Leigh Wambsganss have a more intense November rematch, this time with a U.S. Senate race and Gov. Greg Abbott bringing in GOP votes and money.
But no matter the election outcome Saturday, Texas Democrats won.
They shocked the entire national Republican Party and forced state Republicans to rally feverishly in the final days — with pleas by President Donald Trump and odious video host Steve Bannon — over a Texas Senate district where Trump won by 17 points in 2024.
Mind you, this is in a part of Tarrant County where no Democrat has won a state Senate seat since 1978.
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If Republicans can blow a safe district this badly, then Democrats can win almost anywhere in Texas.
But Republicans’ problems in the Fort Worth and north Tarrant County Senate seat did not begin and end with the daily White House cliffhanger.
Wambsganss, a faith-and-values religious activist, has her own problems that continue to make her a risky Republican nominee. She has a showcase profile, but also a history of dividing Republican voters and picking unnecessary intraparty fights.
A different Republican, Fort Worth pastor and state Rep. Nate Schatzline, originally announced he would run for the seat. When he was pushed aside — supposedly by Senate kingmaker Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick — the party traded a candidate with unified Republican support in north Fort Worth for a candidate who had already alienated north Fort Worth voters.
The primary issue in much of north Tarrant County was Wambsganss’ role in organizing a takeover of the Keller school district board and that board’s attempt to divide off the smaller, richer city of Keller into its own district separate from much larger, middle-class suburban north Fort Worth.
Wambsganss and her Patriot Mobile Action PAC have spent as much as $100,000 in school board elections to stack boards with faith-and-values church conservative trustees. They ran off superintendents and put a stop to affirmative action for women and minorities.
But in local elections last May, those candidates and others backed by the ever-more-fringey organizers of the Tarrant County Republican Party went 0-for-12.
So, you could say Saturday’s election made Trump and MAGA 0-1 in Texas.
Or made the Tarrant County Republican Party 0-13.
Democrats have won local elections lately, but only won three countywide elections recently in Tarrant County. All subtly involved a similar angle to Saturday’s election: jobs at Lockheed Martin, often the No. 1 issue in local elections.
Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke defeated Sen. Ted Cruz in Tarrant County in 2018 because O’Rourke, then a member of Congress and the House Armed Services Committee, was considered more Lockheed-friendly than Cruz, who had criticized the cost for the F-35.
Democrat Joe Biden defeated Trump in Tarrant County in 2020 because Trump was opposed to America as a strong security force for the world.
Democrat Colin Allred defeated Cruz in Tarrant County in 2024 for much the same reason, even with Trump taking a 5-point victory in the county.
So Rehmet brought the perfect résumé for a District 9 Democrat: a Lockheed Martin machinist and union leader running against a Republican who had lost suburban public school voters, particularly in staunch-red Republican north Fort Worth.
When election time came, those voters stayed home.
For now, so will Wambsganss.
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This story was originally published January 31, 2026 at 11:21 PM.
Bud Kennedy is a Fort Worth Star-Telegram opinion columnist. In a 54-year Texas newspaper career, he has covered two Super Bowls, a presidential inauguration, seven national political conventions and 19 Texas Legislature sessions..
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