2026 Elections: Talarico wins Texas' US Senate seat

Again, as I just mentioned, James Talarico officially flipping the U.S. Senate seat there, formerly held by Senator John Cornyn, the Republican. Ken Paxton was not able to get it done as Talarico now heads to Washington, D.C. Let's go to Isaiah Carey with the Talarico camp. Guys, it was wild out here. Only a few minutes ago when they were showing the results on the big screen, people are excited about this win here at the James Talarico Watch Party at the Long Center in Austin. As you can see, people are waiting for a moment like this where they haven't seen a Democrat in this seat since 1988. The last one was Lloyd Benson. Now they have James Talarico headed to Washington, D.C., representing Austin. We have some people. Let's get over here. Come here and talk to some of these people. What do you think about this victory? Right now, my thought is I'm so proud of Texans. Texans worked hard together. This moment represents more than one man, one woman making it to their goal. It's about unity in our state. I'm proud of the purple state of Texas, and I'm so excited that I'm lost for words. And when they announced his name tonight, what was that like hearing that in a red state that has been historically red? Since 88 when it comes to the US Senate seat. So as somebody who knew Jimmy Talarico in undergrad, seeing my friend get to this point, seeing somebody who I know is authentic in the way he believes this. I'll never forget this moment. My life changed. And you knew him in school. I got to meet him. I got to hang out with him. We were in University Democrats together and he was a leader then. And he spoke with the same authenticity, the same service-based leadership then as he does now. And so you're happy for him and yourself tonight? Oh, heck yeah, I'm happy for myself, yee-haw. There you go. All right. Thank you so much. And of course, once again, the celebration will go on here all night. We heard that he would be coming out late this evening, and of course, we'll wait to hear from him when he is live. But now let's go to Karis Belger, who's at Ken Paxton's watch party in Dallas. Karis? Isaiah, the mood has shifted ever so slightly. They're still trying to play the hype music right now, but a bunch of people came into the room not too long ago, and they seemed a little subdued, certainly more subdued than they were about an hour ago. And I also want to mention, we just received information from Ken Paxton's camp that we should anticipate him speaking within the next 15 minutes, so we're... Certainly standing by for that, this was a very tightly closed race, closely watched race. And there was a lot of talk about affordability and what it would mean for voters and a lot of people saying that they were unsure completely of who they would put their support on, support behind. At least that's what I heard from voters for weeks even, but we are starting to see a shift And things as we continue to see those results come in. So we have not heard anything official from the Paxson camp, aside from the fact that we anticipate hearing from him very, very shortly. So, of course, we're going to stay here. We're going to continue to keep you updated. And once the candidate comes out, we will, of course, bring you that speech live. Up there's Belger in Dallas. Back to you.