After pulling off an upset special election win for the solid-red Tarrant County Senate District 9 in late January, Democrat Taylor Rehmet told his cheering supporters at the Nickel City bar in Fort Worth: “This win goes to everyday working people.” The local Machinists’ union president beat his right-wing Republican opponent Leigh Wambsganss by 15 percentage points in a district Trump had won by 17 just two years ago. Wambsganss had raised 10 times the amount Rehmet raised for his campaign.
Democrats have been looking for a path forward since facing devastating losses two years ago—including by redoubling their efforts to shore up support among working-class voters. Rehmet’s stunning victory has not just energized the Democratic Party heading into the 2026 midterms; it’s seen as proof of concept for an upstart slate of candidates who have come from the ranks of organized labor to run for office and, ideally, shake up the status quo of Democratic politics in Texas.
“People are tired of the same old politics,” Leonard Aguilar, the new president of the Texas AFL-CIO, told the Texas Observer in an interview in early February. The state labor federation announced its 2026 primary election endorsements in January. “The working people of Texas are looking for somebody that is actually going through what they are, who can understand what their kitchen table issues are and make sure they have somebody that fights on their behalf. That’s what Taylor and the other labor candidates are about.”
