Senate District 9 Special Election Run-off Defies Usual Partisan Labels. Early voting starts January 21st and Election Day is January 31st.
Proud to Serve
The January 31st Special Election Run-off in Tarrant County-based Senate District 9 may be the first significant partisan contest in Texas in 2026, but it’s a mistake to view it as a simple D vs R contest. In different but clear ways neither Democrat, Taylor Rehmet, nor Republican, Leigh Wambsganss, are typical examples of national Democrats or Republicans.
Taylor Rehmet brings a more populist than partisan approach to the contest. His background as an Air Force veteran, a machinist, and local Labor leader reflects a hard-nosed and practical focus on working-class families. Rehmet’s comments and campaign materials go to nuts-and-bolts issues like higher wages, public schools, lower insurance, and affordable homes. Straight-talk Texan. No woke spoken. You can read more on his website here.
Leigh Wambsganss is a Paid-to-Hate MAGA Professional
Leigh Wambsganss is unlike many Republican candidates we typically see in Texas. She’s not a local elected official nor activist with Texas roots or a grassroots following. She’s not an entrepreneur, a conservative businessperson, nor an activist mom.
Wambsganss took a different path.
She was born in Virginia, grew up in Oklahoma, and became a rightwing political professional in Colorado. She moved to Texas and brought with her an extreme Christian nationalist point of view that fit well with the most divisive and mean-spirited elements of the MAGA movement. Rather than become a Republican party activist, she hired on as a MAGA campaign professional.
Wambsganss works on the payroll of Patriot Mobile which is not a Republican Party entity but an extreme right wing cellular service company. They funnel money to an off-the-edge affiliated PAC called Patriot Mobile Action, which Wambsganss also represents.
Under her direction, the PAC elected far-right Christian conservatives to take over local school boards to impose book bans and other extremist policies. Her work earned the praise of and support of national MAGA provocateur, Steve Bannon.
She also has developed close ties with certified hate group, True Texas Project, which under its previous name, Defend Texas Liberty, infamously met with NAZI sympathizer Nick Fuentes. Her group also sponsored an event with Jack Posobiec, a MAGA extremist connected to white supremacist organizations.
Senate District 9 favors Republican candidates by more than a 12 point margin, but it includes many people who don’t strongly identify with either party but often default to Republicans.
It appears that the atypical profiles of both Taylor Rehmet and Leigh Wambsganss mattered in the first round of the Special Election. Rehmet overperformed considerably, gaining nearly 48 percent of the vote, just less than 3,000 votes from winning without a run-off. Clearly, his mainstream profile brought support beyond regular Democrats. Wambsganss’s extreme MAGA profile clearly benefitted her too. She ran second with 36 percent support well ahead of local mayor and more traditional business-oriented Republican, John Huffman.
So, the question for the run-off is not so much can a Democrat win in a Republican leaning District 9. Rather, can homegrown, nuts-and-bolts, mainstream Taylor Rehmet broaden support enough to overcome out-of-state, paid-to-hate, MAGA professional Leigh Wambsganss?
