FORT WORTH, Texas—In a stunning victory for workers, union and non-union, and their allies, Taylor Rehmet, president of IAM Local 776B in Fort Worth and president of the Texas IAM State Council, rolled to a landslide win for an open State Senate seat there.
He tallied 57% of the vote in a special election in a senatorial district that Republican right-wing President Donald Trump won by 17 percentage points in 2024. The district has almost 1 million people. That’s more than a congressional district. It has elected only Republicans since 1979.
Rehmet pushed an unabashedly progressive and pro-labor platform, discussing issues that appeal to voters, such as the right to organize unions or directing school dollars to public schools, not private ones.
He’ll serve 11 months of an unexpired term. In November, he’ll face ultraconservative GOPer Leigh Wambsganss for a full 4-year term.
Rehmet’s win also shows progressive programs can beat mountains of money. The GOP spent millions of dollars to try to hold the seat. Trump made three robocalls for Rehmet’s foe. Rehmet spent less than $1 million.
Like other special election wins last year, Rehmet’s victory also showed voters, even in deep-red Texas, are increasingly upset and disgusted with Trump and his agenda. That agenda includes invasions of deep-blue cities run by progressive Democratic mayors. The invading agents are supposedly seeking “criminal aliens.”
They’re pepper-gassing, tear-gassing, flash-bombing, dragooning, and deporting people. And now in Minneapolis, they’ve killed two white citizens, too.
“The backbone of Texas isn’t the boardroom, it’s the workshop floor,” Rehmet said on his website. “The best way to raise wages, protect jobs, and ensure dignity on the job is through strong unions and worker power.”
He also promised to “lead efforts to repeal anti-union laws, expand collective bargaining, and bring good-paying, union jobs back to Texas communities.”
And Rehmet wants to reclassify gig workers to guarantee benefits. Federal law now allows gig firms to treat their workers as “contractors.” That denies them the right to unionize, jobless benefits, and workers’ comp, among other protections.
Rehmet “supports fully funding public schools and ending voucher schemes that drain them,” his platform adds. Besides the IAM, the Texas AFL-CIO, the Texas Federation of Teachers, the Laborers, and the Working Families Party also endorsed him.
“Every student deserves a real future, whether it’s college, the military, or a skilled trade,” adds Rehmet, a Machinist with McDonnell-Douglas in Fort Worth. He plans to “fight to reinvest in public education, expand high school vocational programs, and reverse the privatization of Texas schools by way of taxpayer dollars.”
He also plans to fight partisan gerrymandering. Texas is one of the most gerrymandered states in the U.S. The legislature’s redrawing of congressional district lines this year—at Trump’s demand—only worsened it.
“When lines are drawn behind closed doors to silence working families, that’s not democracy, it’s theft,” Rehmet says on the website. He supports increased transparency in the redistricting process, enforceable protections for minority voting blocs, and strengthening the Voting Rights Act. The Supreme Court weakened it and may do so again.
In another January 30 vote, Houston Democrat Christian Menefee won a special election to complete the late Democratic Rep. Sylvester Turner’s term in Congress. The former Harris County Attorney defeated Amanda Edwards in Texas’s 18th Congressional District. The two will face off again in the March 3 primary for a redrawn version of the district.
Texans will have another opportunity to vote for a progressive in the March 3 congressional primary. Zeshaun Hafeez, who focused on labor and workers’ rights in grad school in D.C. before returning to Texas to work, seeks the party nod against two other Democrats. Both are “moderates” who represented a congressional district: Current Rep. Julie Johnson and her predecessor, Colin Allred.
The new district is 78% majority-minority and 55% Latino, Hafeez told the Progressive Democrats of America. His two foes are also favorites of the notorious right-wing campaign finance committee AIPAC. Both of his foes are pro-Israel and anti-worker, Hafeez charged.
“My focus is on real solutions,” he said. On their websites, “Julie and Colin are basically anti-Trump,” and that’s all, he said.
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