Which Texas counties flipped from Republican to Democratic in recent elections?

1. The headline flip: a North Texas senate seat in Tarrant County turns blue

A special election on Jan. 31, 2026, produced a striking reversal when Taylor Rehmet, a Democrat and labor union leader, won State Senate District 9 in the Fort Worth area with roughly 57% of the vote, defeating Republican Leigh Wambsganss and flipping a district Republicans had held for decades and that President Trump won by about 17 points in 2024 ^{[4] [2] [1]}. The win is being reported as a flip of a reliably Republican legislative seat within Tarrant County rather than as a generic countywide partisan turnover, and multiple national and local outlets framed it as a warning sign for Republicans ahead of the 2026 midterms ^{[5] [6]}.

2. What the reporting actually documents: district versus county shifts

Most outlets describe Rehmet’s victory as a flip of a state Senate district located in Tarrant County — not as evidence that the entire county voted Democratic in all races — and note it is the first time in decades that a Democrat will represent much of northern Tarrant County in the state Senate ^{[3] [4]}. Coverage from AP, The New York Times, Reuters and local Texas outlets all emphasize the district‑level nature of the upset and the extraordinary magnitude of the swing relative to 2024 results ^{[1] [2] [5] [7]}.

3. Republican and Democratic narratives about the flip

Republican leaders framed the result as an anomaly driven by low‑turnout, off‑cycle special election dynamics and urged a stronger turnout push for November, while Democrats cast the win as proof of growing voter frustration with Republican leadership and a sign of momentum across several special elections this cycle ^{[1] [8] [9]}. Analysts quoted in the press saw a mix of causes: candidate positioning that may have alienated moderates, national political context, and local organizing — all featured across coverage by CNN, KUT/Houston Public Media and The Guardian ^{[3] [6] [10]}.

4. Border‑county counterexample: Starr County moved the other way

Reporting included in the set underscores that political geography in Texas is not uniformly trending Democratic; Starr County, a historically Democratic, heavily Hispanic border county, flipped toward Republicans in 2024 — a reminder that partisan movement in Texas includes both R→D and D→R shifts depending on place and election ^{[11] [12]}. PBS and KXAN documented Starr’s rightward movement and framed it as part of a larger, complex set of shifts across the Rio Grande Valley and border counties ^{[11] [12]}.

5. Broader patterns and limits of the supplied reporting

One KXAN analysis notes that since 2016 the majority of Texas counties have trended Republican while a minority (38 counties, per that piece) have moved toward Democrats — but that is an average directional trend, not a current list of concrete county flips in the latest elections ^[12]. The supplied sources do not offer a verified, statewide roll call of all counties that flipped from Republican to Democratic in the most recent general or special elections; therefore firm conclusions beyond the Tarrant County district flip cannot be asserted from these materials alone ^[12].

6. Bottom line: what can be stated confidently

From the sources provided, the clearest, well‑documented recent Republican‑to‑Democratic flip is the state Senate District 9 result in Tarrant County where Democrat Taylor Rehmet captured a seat long held by Republicans in a district Trump had won handily in 2024 ^{[4] [2] [1]}. Other county‑level shifts exist — notably Starr County’s movement toward Republicans — but the dataset at hand does not contain a comprehensive list of counties that flipped R→D statewide in the latest cycle, so any broader inventory would require additional election returns and county‑level analyses beyond the supplied reporting ^{[11] [12]}.