US midterm elections: 'Maybe the best colour for Texas is purple'

We're going to check in then on the sentiment in the Lone Star State. For that, we'll cross to our correspondent standing by in Austin, Texas, Andres Espinal. Hi there, Andres. So, I mean, is it too early to define Texas as a blue state after those major wins from Talerico and Hinojosa? And what are the implications then for these victories for the state's political future? Well, for sure, it is the end of a monopoly controlled by Republicans of almost 40 years, and it is the breakthrough that Democrats have been waiting for for decades. You were mentioning there, of course, the victories of James Talerico in the Senate and Gina Hinojosa in the governorship, but the Democrats have had other very important victories that are less talked about. For example, Texas Lieutenant Governor is going to be Vicky Woodwin. Democrat. Texas Attorney General that used to be Ken Paxton now it's going to be Nathan Johnson, a Democrat. Texas Railroad Commissioner is going to be Joan Rosenthal, a Democrat. At this hour is not clear yet but apparently there's a possibility that Democrats actually take control of the state's House of Representatives. So now is Texas a blue state? The answer is probably not. We can talk for sure about Republican fatigue, especially in the governor's case. Greg Abbott was running for a fourth term in office. And now it's going to be the turn of Gina Hinojosa, as you were saying there. She will need to demonstrate, of course, that she can actually govern effectively. They hadn't won this seat since 1994, and she will be the first Latina to lead the state, which is historic by itself. But, of course, the big challenge for her is going to be make sure that she can actually govern and pass her agenda. Because if she wants to run on her agenda for public education, against data centers, I'm not sure if there's... Against the school voucher program of Greg Abbott, she's going to need legislative approval. And on the national level, we can expect, of course, Republicans to try to make a huge comeback here in Texas because they will not go quietly into the night, of course. But the thing is that they will have to play defense in a state that used to be very safe for them. And that has big implications for the political future of the state, especially. thinking about the 2028 presidential election because let's remember that Texas offers 40 electoral votes on being the second state only after California so if there is even a hint That a Democrat could win here on a presidential level, that's going to change the board completely and we can expect to see Democrats pouring in way more investment that they hadn't done in the past, way more money coming into the state, and this is going to become the main battleground in the political future of the United States. Now is Texas blue? As I said earlier, probably not, but to quote James Tarrico, maybe the best color for Texas is purple. Now, these results, Andres, are all the more staggering, if not surprising, because Republicans have, of course, launched that mid-decade redistricting effort, that nationwide gerrymandering war. It looks like it clearly didn't yield their expected results. That is correct. We, of course, we don't have the full picture yet. AP has called 31 out of the 38 congressional district races. At the moment, the Democrats control 13 and Republicans control 18. Now, let's remember that Texas has 38 electoral districts. Before last night, Republicans controlled 25 out of those. 38, which means that Democrats already have the same 13 that they had before. So, and the objective that was established by Donald Trump was to gain five seats out of Texas, especially in the south, and there were very specific districts that were targeted in this effort. We're talking about Texas 9 in the area of Houston, Texas 32 in the area of Dallas, and the main ones being Texas 28, 34, and 35 in the south, in the Rio Grande Valley. There was also a huge gerrymandering effort in Texas 15, trying to make it more Republican. All these districts were redrawn, gerrymandered, so that Trump would have won them by double-digit margins in the 2024 election. Now, let's talk about the results, shall we? Thank you. Texas 28, Henry Cuellar, Democrat, beats Tano Tijerina. Texas 34, Vicente Gonzalez, Democrat, beats Eric Flores. Texas 35. Johnny Garcia beats Carlos de la Cruz, and in Texas 15, the Tex-Mex music star Bobby Pulido beats the Republican Monica de la Cruz. And the Democrats are also leading at the moment in Texas 9 with Leticia Gutierrez, even if that race has not been called at the moment. But all you have to do is look at the map. Look at the map of Texas. It is completely blue from El Paso to Laredo. All the border is completely blue. So we don't have the exact numbers yet of how exactly the... The Hispanic voted in this election, but let's remember that those districts in the south of the state have heavily Hispanic populations, 70, 80% of Hispanics and Latinos. So the question for Republicans, was all this effort and all this controversy worth it? The answer seems to be no, and apparently this gerrymandering effort in Texas is going to turn into a dummy mandering for them. Andres, still waiting to see some numbers, but either way, indeed, sounds like it's one of the biggest victories for Democrats in yesterday's midterms. Thank you very much.