Texas Isn’t Blue - It's Just Bruised

Republicans are bruised. They will win again.

By Chad Wilbanks
 
Election defeats are painful, and this past one was particularly brutal for Republicans. But defeats can also be clarifying. And the message voters sent Republicans in 2026 was not particularly complicated.
 
I’ve been around Republican politics for a long time, from local campaigns to presidential campaigns, from serving as executive director of the Republican Party of Texas to working at the RNC. I’ve seen good cycles, bad cycles, landslides and losses. 
 
So first, a reminder: incumbent parties almost always lose seats in midterm elections, sometimes by wide margins.
 
This past election wasn’t some unprecedented political earthquake. It was a rebuke of President Trump.
 
But we should also learn the right lessons.
 
Populist economics don’t work. Voters ultimately vote their pocketbooks.
 
In 2024, Republicans were elected in large part to save Americans from higher gas and food prices. They delivered on lower gas prices until the Iran War. Trump promised lower prices, but ultimately didn’t deliver. 
 
Voters punished Republicans.
 
No one cares about economic talking points when their checking account tells them something different. Trump promised affordability, but didn’t deliver.
 
Voters punished Republicans.
 
Government picking winners and losers is still government picking winners and losers. The federal government taking stakes in private companies is still government intervention in the private market.
 
Then came the global war on trade. The tariffs-on, tariffs-off whipsaw. Fights with close neighbors and longtime foreign allies increasingly looked unproductive.
 
Many Americans live within the margins. They live paycheck to paycheck. They are overwhelmed by daily life and simply want some peace of mind. Trump didn’t deliver.
 
Voters punished Republicans.
 
Trump started a war with Iran. He didn’t finish it. The initial strikes against Iran in 2025 were decisive, limited and appeared to accomplish the objective quickly. But the next phase became something different.
We negotiated. Iran refused. We struck. We stopped. We struck again. We paused. Then we struck again. Then we stopped again.
 
Meanwhile, gas and diesel prices shot through the roof. That crushed working-class and middle-class families, and hurt farmers and ranchers.
 
Trump promised no new wars, but he didn’t deliver.
 
Voters punished Republicans.
 
There also needs to be an honest conversation about candidate quality. It matters and Republicans should stop pretending otherwise.
 
Nominate or endorse bad candidates and you’re going to get bad results. Ken Paxton in Texas. Darlene Graham in South Carolina. Trump did that, just as he did in Georgia in 2020.
 
Republicans should practice free-market politics and let Republican voters nominate whom they want. Presidents and national political figures should be extremely cautious about putting their thumb on the scale in Republican primaries.
 
No kings, please.
 
And where was the sharp, memorable Republican message?
 
There wasn’t one. And without one, defeat becomes much more likely.
 
Democrats didn’t need much of a message. They had President Trump’s firehose of messaging every day. It wore voters out, muddied whatever statewide or local Republican message existed and overwhelmed everything else.
 
Voters punished Republicans.
 
Trump and the Republican Party through Project Red TX created a new working-class and middle-class coalition, with the added energy of entrepreneurial and socially conservative Latino voters.  But then his “secure the border” message became confused with something broader and more threatening. The harsh statements and imagery surrounding “deport them all” and “arrest them all” turned away suburban and urban voters and frightened Latino voters who began wondering whether they might be next, even if they had been living in America legally for 20 or 30 years.
 
The tone was harsh. The visuals were brutal.
 
Voters punished Republicans.
 
As a result, the Blue Dog finally caught the car in Texas, and on election night Senator-elect James Talarico and Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa smartly crafted statements that didn’t say Democrats had won. Instead, they said, “Texas won.”
 
Republicans are bruised. They will win again.
 
They need to rebuild their foundation as a free-market economic party fighting for working-class and middle-class Americans and disavow populist economics and return to our core principles: limited government, free markets, personal responsibility, fiscal discipline and peace through strength.
 
Those principles worked before. They can work again.
 
You cannot prosper with raging government spending, beggar-thy-neighbor tariffs, never-ending wars, a devalued dollar and wild statements that send markets up and down.
 
And if anyone thinks fighting “woke” is more important than fighting for affordability, then they are politically and intellectually stuck in last year’s playbook.
 
Last year’s playbook never works. Ever.
 
Chad Wilbanks is a Republican Strategist and former Executive Director of the Republican Party of Texas.