At 04:01 CET, James Talarico led Ken Paxton in the Texas Senate race by 1,116,019 votes, 59.3 to 39.2 percent with 53.5 percent of the expected vote counted, according to NBC News, based on AP data. No winner has been called. Texas has not elected a Democrat to the US Senate since Lloyd Bentsen in 1988, and Donald Trump won the state by 13.7 points two years ago. It is also the first US state to put public money into Bitcoin for a state reserve, so far through an ETF, so the result reaches well beyond the Senate majority.
Texas Senate race: the key facts
Status (04:01 CET): Talarico 3,303,076 votes (59.3 percent), Paxton 2,187,057 (39.2 percent).Governor: Gina Hinojosa leads Greg Abbott 56.7 to 42.0 percent with 56 percent counted.2024: Trump won Texas 6,393,597 to 4,835,250, Ted Cruz won his Senate seat 53.1 to 44.6 percent.Bitcoin reserve: $10 million set aside by lawmakers, about $5 million reportedly bought through BlackRock's IBIT, a Bitcoin ETF, in November 2025.Prediction market: Talarico 99.5 percent, Paxton 0.6 percent on Polymarket (04:01 CET).Texas election results: read the early numbers with care
Early in-person voting ran 60 to 39 for Talarico, and the Election Day ballots reported so far ran 66 to 32. Most of Texas closed its polls at 02:00 CET, and El Paso and Hudspeth counties, on Mountain Time, followed at 03:00 CET. County reporting moves unevenly, so a large lead at this stage can still shrink.
Source: AP via NBC News, own estimate
Texas 2024 vs 2026: where the state moved
The suburbs tell the story so far. Tarrant County, around Fort Worth, went from R+5.1 in the 2024 presidential race to D+21.0 in the Senate race. Collin County, north of Dallas, went from R+11.1 to D+13.3. Harris County, home to Houston, stood at D+5.5 two years ago and is now at D+34.1. These figures compare a partial count with a full presidential count, so the final swing can still change in either direction. Even a much smaller swing would be historic: Republicans have held every statewide office in Texas for decades.
| Harris | D+5.5 | D+34.1 | 75 % |
| Dallas | D+22.2 | D+47.8 | 75 % |
| Tarrant | R+5.1 | D+21.0 | 76 % |
| Bexar | D+9.7 | D+37.6 | 77 % |
| Collin | R+11.1 | D+13.3 | 78 % |
| Denton | R+13.2 | D+8.8 | 71 % |
| Williamson | R+2.4 | D+23.2 | 78 % |
| Montgomery | R+45.5 | R+21.1 | 68 % |
Source: AP via NBC News, 2024 election dataTexas Bitcoin reserve: what the result means for crypto
Governor Greg Abbott signed the Texas Strategic Bitcoin Reserve law in 2025. It lets the state comptroller buy, hold and sell Bitcoin for the reserve, and lawmakers set aside $10 million for it. In November 2025 the state reportedly bought about $5 million of BlackRock's IBIT as a first step, and in 2026 the comptroller's office began preparing the move to directly held coins. The reserve runs through the state comptroller, an office also on this ballot, so that race and the legislature matter more for it than the Senate seat.
Crypto money was on Paxton's side before the runoff. Fellowship PAC, led by Tether's head of government affairs, reported $1.75 million for him in April, reportedly pulled those ads days later and had reported about $500,000 by the May runoff. The advocacy group Stand With Crypto rates both Talarico and Paxton as strongly supporting crypto, and lists Talarico's call for clear, fair crypto rules and his 2025 vote for the Texas Bitcoin reserve. With the CLARITY Act stuck at 49 of the 60 votes it needs, every new senator counts in the next attempt, which we follow in our CLARITY Act explainer.
Why Texas matters for the Senate majority
Republicans went into the night with 53 seats, so Democrats need a net gain of four for the majority, and Texas is one of the seats that could deliver it. All calls and the full Senate table are in our midterm results live ticker. Two more state stories from tonight: why Florida's governor race got so close and crypto's $50 million bet against Sherrod Brown in Ohio.
What Polymarket says about Texas
Traders put Talarico at 99.5 percent at 04:01 CET, on a market with $19.9 million in volume. That shows what the market expects and is no forecast from us; prediction markets moved quickly tonight and can overreact to early counts. If you hold coins through a week like this, compare regulated crypto exchanges and crypto brokers first. This article is not investment advice.
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