Democrat James Talarico defeated Republican Ken Paxton and became the first Democrat to win a US Senate seat in Texas since 1988, in the most expensive US Senate race in history, with more than half a billion dollars spent and $158 million from Elon Musk to a pro-Paxton super PAC.

The 37-year-old Talarico is a state legislator, former middle school teacher and Presbyterian seminarian, while Paxton was the subject of a federal corruption investigation that brought no charges and an impeachment by the Texas House over accusations of abusing his office to help a political donor, and was later acquitted in the state Senate.