Sean Spicer wanted to bet me Trump would win in 2024. He’s now sounding the alarm for the GOP in 2026.

Is it time for Democrats to mess with Texas?

My longtime readers will remember Sean Spicer wanted to bet me $2,000 that Donald Trump would win in 2024.

We were speaking together at the University of Arizona shortly before the election. Trump’s former White House press secretary was very confident about what he thought was coming. I don’t bet, but he was right. Trump won decisively, sweeping battlegrounds and expanding his coalition in ways few predicted.

This week Spicer sounds rattled when he talks about Republican chances this fall. And for good reason.

After a weekend election that saw Democrats upset the Republican candidate in Texas’ conservative Tarrant County — a district Trump carried by 17 points just 15 months ago — Spicer got a gut check from Republican officials across Texas.

Their response was a universal alarm. One told him directly, “This is 8.5 on the Richter scale.”

On The Huddle Sean’s morning show he warned: “If you don’t get the message, enjoy Speaker Hakeem Jeffries.” Personally, I think I would enjoy a balance of power. Zooming out a bit, though, I think we should all clock that’s a stark contrast Sean paints from when we were together a little more than a year ago.

Back then, Sean was confident, willing to take big bets. Today? The bet’s off. And for Texas, a state I’ve been deeply skeptical about as a Democrat, that’s telling.

What’s The Matter with Texas?

In Texas Senate District 9, the conservative Tarrant County suburbs around Fort Worth, Union Leader and Air Force Veteran, Democrat Taylor Rehmet won a special election Saturday by 14 points. Trump carried the district by 17 points in November 2024. That’s a 31-point swing.

That’s a stunning number. Here are a few others:

• Republicans outspent Rehmet six-to-one: $2.5 million to $400,000.

• Trump posted three times urging GOP turnout. (A lot of oxygen for a single state Senate race.)

• Rehmet still won Election Day voting 58-42%. He won some of the district’s darkest-red areas.

• Rehmet outperformed Kamala Harris by more than 50 points with Hispanic voters in Fort Worth.

• One last point that’s not a number, but I really enjoyed: When asked on CNN if Donald Trump mattered to the election results he replied that Trump wasn’t a voter in his district. He stuck to facts and the issues that mattered to his voters.

Special elections generally see a much smaller turnout and rarely forecast outcomes.

A trend is emerging, though: In Iowa, Democrats went 3-for-3 in special elections throughout 2025, breaking the GOP supermajority. In November, Democrats swept every statewide race: governors in Virginia and New Jersey, the New York City mayor, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. They gained 25 state legislative seats without losing a single one. And with that new leaders are emerging.

The Latino Swing-Back

One of the biggest swing demographics of 2024 was Latino voters.

In that race, Trump took 55% of Texas Latino voters, a 28-point swing from 2020. Border counties that hadn’t voted Republican in over a century flipped red.

A year later was a different story. In Virginia and New Jersey, Democrats won Latinos by 2-to-1 margins. In New Jersey’s Passaic County, nearly half Latino, Trump won by 3 points in 2024. Democrat Mikie Sherrill won it by 15.

Then came the Texas special election. Exit polls showed Rehmet captured 9 out of 10 Latino voters, according to Fort Worth Star-Telegram columnist Bud Kennedy.

Rehmet’s massive overperformance undoubtedly is due to a variety of factors, including very local issues like schools and employers. But it’s also evidence that despite the desire to close the border, ICE action is widely unpopular.

There’s the stories of ICE detaining US citizens, those who have been on the pathway to legal citizenship. I was deeply troubled this weekend to see the news of a measles outbreak in a detention facility where children are detained. It’s not just Latinos I’m seeing show up in different ways. I’m seeing young people, some in my family in Kansas who have never been vocal in politics, speak out against what’s going on.

And then there’s the economy: Costs of healthcare going up, and prices for everything from goods to housing aren’t going down. (The cost of eggs is decidedly down, the risk for bird flu though likely up.)

Either way, the flip in recent polling with Latino voters is a troubling sign for Republicans: More than 70 percent are saying they disapprove of Trump and of his voters, 13 percent say they won’t vote for him again.

Messing with Texas

I don’t chase false hope in Texas. It’s a graveyard for Democrats’ overhype machine. A huge investment for almost no real gains.

In 2022, I called Beto O’Rourke the biggest loser of the election. He ran a well-funded and very well-hyped Senate race. He also had a DWI he reportedly tried to flee, perceived favors for his father-in-law in his past. I readied the prediction before the election, he would be a big loser. I was right. He lost by 11 points.

But this feels different. Beto’s not on the ballot. And a Republican primary might hand Democrats a gift.

There’s a US Senate Seat that could be up for grabs in Texas.

Ken Paxton, the embattled and scandal-plagued Texas Attorney General, is polling neck-and-neck with four-term incumbent Senator John Cornyn in the Republican Senate primary.

Paxton was impeached by the Republican-controlled Texas House in 2023 for bribery, abuse of office, and having an extramarital affair with a woman his donor employed. His wife who had been a political ally eventually turned on him. Though acquitted by the Texas Senate, he didn’t dispute the facts. And yet, he’s running for higher office.

Paxton is slightly leading Republican polls right now. But he’s tied 46-46 with both leading Democratic candidates in general election matchups. If current Senator John Cornyn wins the primary, he would lead Democrats (right now) by 3-5 points.

The race is crowded on the Republican side, but voting in March will likely set up a head to head match for May, and right now Cornyn and Paxton would be the bets.

On the Democratic side, there’s State Rep. James Talarico, a 36-year-old Presbyterian seminarian who flipped a Trump district, has earned praise from former President Obama and surprisingly Joe Rogan, doesn’t take corporate PAC money, and calls Christian nationalism “a cancer on our religion,” while speaking of his faith quite often. Or Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a nationally recognized combative progressive Trump says he “loathes.”

We’ll see who wins, but if it’s Paxton versus Talarico? Texas could be very interesting. And not just in the Senate race. There are some other outside the box candidates, including Latin Grammy winner Bobby Pulido who announced he would run for Congress in Texas in a recently gerrymandered district.

Lonestar Preview

The Texas primary is March 3, just a month away. Most people aren’t paying attention. Runoffs, which will certainly happen to decide between the top two contenders, are May 26. We’ll know soon-ish whether Republicans nominate Ken Paxton to run for Senate, handing Democrats an opening in a state they haven’t won statewide since 1994.

Sean Spicer was right about 2024. Perhaps that’s why I decided to look a little closer at his warning for Republicans and what it means for Democrats, even if I’ve been skeptical of chasing Texas before.

I didn’t bet Spicer in 2024. But all bets are off on Texas now.

For a state I’ve been skeptical about for years, that alone tells me something’s shifting.