While the results of this week’s election were very dismal indeed, there were a few bright spots for Texas conservatives.
- Representative August Pfluger won re-election in the the redrawn 11th Congressional District, and will be my Congressman come January 3rd.
- In fact, Texas will have the same number of Republican u.S. Representatives as it did before the 2026 election: 24.
- Republicans maintain a majority in the Texas senate. I don’t say “control,” because because under the Texas constitution, Lieutenant Governor elect Vikki Godwin will theoretically run that chamber. But Democrats did flip the Texas House.
- Because Republicans maintained a majority in the Texas senate, it’s all but impossible for Democrats to be able to ram any sort of redistricting through before the 2030 census.
- On the Texas Supreme Court, while Democrats captured all four 2026 races there, republicans still hold a 5-4 majority in that nine member body.
- While turning Texas blue, voters also rejected tax hikes and school bonds.
While electing a bevy of Democrats to office up and down the ballot on Tuesday, Texas voters also rejected many of the tax increases and bonds proposed by their local governments, sending a signal to newly elected leaders about the parameters of the 2026 mandate.
“Even given what’s happened at the state level as far as the elections go, I think that these were good signs that people are upset about their property taxes, and they’re willing to reject these large bond propositions,” economist Vance Ginn told The Texan.
The Texas Election Code requires that local governments include the sentence, “THIS IS A TAX INCREASE” for a Voter-Approval Tax Rate Election (VATRE), and the Texas Education Code requires “THIS IS A PROPERTY TAX INCREASE” at the top of the ballot proposition for school bonds.
Some of the largest rejections were in the urban areas of the state, where Democratic officials swept elections.
In the Dallas-Fort Worth area, voters rejected a number of bond and tax increase propositions.
Dallas County’s proposed 2.4 cent tax rate increase was rejected by voters by a 3.7 percent margin. The City of Dallas’ bond Proposition A for $443 million for public safety facilities also failed by 13 points.
In the City of Wylie, which lies in both Dallas and Collin counties, voters rejected four out of five bond propositions totaling $90.5 million. They approved the largest bond at $25.5 million for historic downtown improvements.
Irving Independent School District (ISD) voters rejected all four propositions in a $952.4 million bond package by double-digit margins.
Voters rejected a Mesquite ISD proposition for a Voter-Approval Tax Rate Election (VATRE) by 15 points that it claimed would generate $16 million per year and fund teacher compensation.
Residents of the affluent University Park community, enveloped by the City of Dallas, approved a tax rate increase on their ballot. It was touted as funding needed for police officers, firefighters, public safety pensions, and residential parking enforcement.
In the Houston area, voters rejected every school bond proposition and VATRE on the November 3, 2026 ballot, according to unofficial Harris County results.
The largest rejection came in Cypress-Fairbanks ISD, Texas’s third-largest public school district. Voters turned down a VATRE and a $1.6 billion bond package split across four propositions. The VATRE, which would have raised the maintenance-and-operations rate by roughly 9 cents per $100 of a property’s appraised value and generated an estimated $100 million in new revenue, received only 32.5 percent support.
Propositions B through E for infrastructure and security, technology, athletic stadiums, and swimming pools were all defeated by between 63 percent and 73 percent.
Channelview ISD saw similar results. Its 7-cent VATRE for roughly $7.5 million in annual revenue failed by 71 percent. Four bond propositions totaling around $165 million for facilities, safety, technology, and a multipurpose indoor facility also lost.
Crosby ISD’s $208 million bond package for a new elementary school, a replacement middle school, and campus improvements failed as well. Proposition A received about 30 percent support and Proposition B about 31 percent.
VATREs in Spring, Huffman, and La Porte ISDs also failed. Spring sought a 2-cent increase for about $15.5 million in combined local and state funding—its second recent attempt. Huffman’s 3-cent measure, projected to raise $2 million without raising the overall tax rate due to compression, was rejected. La Porte’s 12-cent VATRE, aimed at raising $8.4 million to address a roughly $12 million deficit, also failed to pass.
Snipping over Tarrant and Collin county.
In Central Texas, VATREs failed in Bastrop, Del Valle, Georgetown, Leander, and Round Rock ISDs, and Bexar County area voters rejected school district tax increases in East Central, Northside, San Antonio, and South San Antonio ISDs.
Two public school districts that narrowly passed tax increases are Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City ISD near San Antonio and Seguin ISD.
Ginn suggested that newly elected Democratic officials, along with Republicans, should heed the warning sign given by the majority of voters who soundly rejected these tax increases and bond proposals.
“This is a huge blue wave, but not a mandate for Democrats,” Ginn said. “The election results also included a rejection of big government policies and progressive populism.”
“I hope that this is a wake-up call to say maybe we need to do something about government spending.”
And there it is, my attempt to be a little ray of sunshine after the blue tsunami…
