In the deep south, in the most conservative Texas, where Trumpism seemed like reinforced concrete, something has cracked. by-elections in January and a flurry of negative polls They are sending a message to Republicans on Capitol Hill: the Donald Trump's consensus is no longer shieldedAnd the Lone Star State, a symbol of his electoral strength, becomes the site of the double shock.
Alarm bell for Republicans
A seemingly minor election, that for replace a state senator for just eleven months in the Fort Worth area, it turns into a national alarm bell. The Democrat Taylor Rehmet wins the seat, clearly defeating Republican Leigh Wambsganss, supported by the party, by Governor Greg Abbott and by Trump himself, who personally intervened in the campaign.
The important fact is not only the final result, a clear 57% against 42%, but the context. That college had Trump won the presidential election by a margin of 17 points. In the space of just over a year, the fluctuation exceeds thirty percentage pointsA reversal that no one, at least officially, wanted to foresee, despite the massive financial effort put in by the Republicans.
A series of defeats that creates a system
Texas is not an isolated incidentIn the 2025 local elections, Democrats have snatched the conservatives eight seats without losing one, with double-digit gains compared to the presidential vote in states such as Pennsylvania, Georgia and Iowa. In this context, Rehmet's victory takes on an even more weighty significance: it is the wider defeat recently inflicted on an avowedly Trumpian area.
In HoustonMeanwhile, Democrats are consolidating another seat in the House, further reducing an already slim Republican majority. Formally, the party is downplaying the situation, pointing out that byelections aren't always a reliable indicator. But frequency of defeats and their geographical distribution make the argument increasingly fragile.
Trump: Polls plummet, discontent grows
At the polls they join the numbers from the opinion pollsThe latest investigation of the Pew Research Center photographs a president in difficulty. Theapproval drops to 37%, while disapproval rises to 61%. Only a little over a quarter of those interviewed say they appreciate most of the government's actions, compared to an absolute majority who respond "little or none."
I judgments get worse also on leadership, physical and mental conditions and respect for democratic values. Even more delicate, for Republican strategists, is the decline among Hispanic voters: from the 46% obtained in the presidential elections to the current 38%. A decline linked to the economy, inflation and above all the management of immigration, with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations (Ice) increasingly perceived as indiscriminate.
Texas as a political warning
Le anomalous conditions of the Texas vote – winter elections, on Saturday, outside the usual norms – offer the Republicans a handle to scale the resultBut between protests against the Italian Trade Agency (ICE), signs of civic mobilization, and worsening poll data, the overall picture tells a coherent story.
For Trump and his party, Texas is not yet lost, but it is no longer an unassailable stronghold. And this is precisely the point that worries Washington. If even the red heart of America begins to falter, the November midterm elections they stop being a formality and become an open game, with an outcome that is anything but a foregone conclusion.
