Every Friday morning, I join the Cardle & Woolley Show on Talk1370 Radio in Austin to announce the week’s Winners & Losers. Coming off a tsunami election in Texas and across the country, the smoke is just beginning to clear, but as of today, here’s who made the list:

WINNER: American Democracy

Despite the fact that Gallup reported earlier this year that more than half of Americans “distrust the honesty of our elections,” and hundreds of “No Kings Protests” have been held across the country, on Tuesday night millions of Texas voters (and voters all over America) affirmed our democracy, stood up and were counted.

A majority did not vote for the same people I voted for, but they are still Texans and you gotta love them. My colleague Eric Oldfather wrote yesterday that he was too young to remember a time when Texas conservatives were not in charge of all three branches of state government, and the same may be true for many other Texas voters.

But many of us have seen this movie before. I worked for a Republican gubernatorial candidate in New Jersey in 2005 who was the first victim of the giant blue wave backlash against George W. Bush in 2006, when Democrats won control over the U.S. House and the Senate. Most people blamed the Iraq war and the economy for that wave — sound familiar?

Waves happen. America’s political parties have been rising, falling and rising again since Thomas Jefferson defeated John Adams for the presidency in 1801. Those two guys, who had worked together for years to build our democracy, got so mad at each other over that election that they did not speak for 11 years. Again, sound familiar?

But in just this one thing, we cannot follow those two founding fathers. Waves happen and Texas just experienced a big one, but there is simply no time to waste being angry. The future of Texas is on the line. This is not our first wave here at TPPF. We are the people who worked for 32 years to pass school choice, and we will continue to do what we have always done: put forth policies built on freedom, hard-work and independence — policies that have made Texas the largest job creator in the country and have given us a $2.6 trillion economy, making Texas the best place in America to live and raise a family. These Texas miracles and many other Texas miracles did not happen by accident — they happened because Texans remained committed to the conservative principles that have made our state a beacon of hope for America and the world. They happened because serious Texans were not thrown off course by a wave.

LOSERS: Pollsters and the New Electorate

No Texas pollster predicted the complete and total Democrat victory in Texas on Tuesday night. I even heard from Democrats that their pollsters didn’t see the scope of the wave coming. Less than an hour before the polls closed, prediction markets like Kalshi were pointing to a loss by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, but they affirmed that Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and the rest of the statewide GOP ticket would be re-elected by wide margins. Yet 18 of their prediction losses on election night were in Texas.

This election cycle saw pollsters employ many different kinds of strategies — new generations of modeling and measurements of social presence and messaging. But in the end, none of it was very accurate. Old style polling has become the eight-track tape of electioneering and the data guys and women need to figure out something else.

What the majority electorate told us on Tuesday night is that voters are no longer tethered to either party or particular leaders. We used to say that most people define themselves as either Democrat or Republican before they get out of high school, which makes them easy to count, but that is clearly no longer true. The same voters — suburban and rural, minority and younger — who put President Donald Trump in office in 2024 voted to throw out the Republican majority on Tuesday, and, for the most part, pollsters didn’t see the wave coming.

WINNER: President Trump the Deal Maker

Bet you didn’t think you’d see the president on the list today, but here’s the thing. On Wednesday morning, it was clear that Trump has two options for the next couple of years — issue rubber stamp vetoes or talk with the Democrats to see if he can make some deals that accomplish his goals. Trump said he doesn’t want to just sit and veto everything for the next two years and he also said he thought he and the Democrats could come up with something on several issues. He named immigration reform as one. Deals are absolutely not the same thing as compromising principles — the president made it clear he won’t do that. But Trump is a deal making guy and if he believes he can move the country forward on some issues that matter in the next two years, then he is a winner.

LOSER: California Congressman Thinks Election Was About DEI

California Congressman Ro Khanna’s big reaction to the Blue Wave on Tuesday was to scream from his X account that DEI is back! Khanna tried to insist that the election of three African American governors, the first Muslim U.S. senator, the first openly gay U.S. senator and Texas’ newly elected Latina governor prove DEI is working. In fact, it proves just the opposite. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, none of those candidates were elected because of their race, ethnicity or gender preference. They won on their merit. Voters clearly believed they were the best people for the job, or at least better than the people they were running against.

WINNER: Texans Say No to More Local Spending

Even Texas counties that landslided blue on Election Night voted down almost $6 billion in new property taxes and bond debt. The city of Dallas voted down a $423 million bond and the state’s largest school district — Cy-Fair in Cypress — said no to a 9-cent property tax increase. Texas Democrats have promised to eliminate the spending restraints on local cities and counties, which means higher property taxes and more bond debt. So either voters weren’t reading the fine print in the Democrat platform or Democrats don’t understand who elected them. It will be interesting to watch. According to the Texas Scorecard, 75% of all bonds and property tax increases failed — even Plano voted against a half-billion dollar funding package for the Dallas Stars.

Predictably, school board leaders blamed their losses on the timing — saying it is difficult to pass ballot measures in November because so many more people are voting. More than one school district official promised to put their bond measure on the ballot again in May when fewer people are paying attention. So let this be your first alert for the next election. Make a plan now to keep paying attention.

WINNERS: Four More States Ban Boys Playing in Girls’ Sports

Arizona and Nebraska voted on Tuesday to ban boys who think they are girls from playing in girls sports. Importantly, so did the bright blue states of Washington and Colorado. Again, blue wave or no blue wave, that brings the number of states that have banned so-called transgenders from playing in opposite sex sports to 31. LGBTQ+ leaders called it a major disappointment — but it is another reminder to progressives that they should be careful how they interpret the recent election results. A lot of things changed on Tuesday night, but I am willing to bet that the country didn’t suddenly decide that there is no difference between men and women, or that there are more than two genders.

WINNER: California Says No to Billionaire Tax

Los Angeles may have elected a Democratic Socialist as their next mayor, but you have to give Californians credit for voting down the proposed tax on billionaires. The “Tax on the Ultra Rich” ballot proposition would have required the state’s 200 billionaires to pay 5% more in taxes on everything — not just their income, but all their wealth. California has almost 40 million people, but the SEIU — which includes the state health care workers union — put forth the tax on the “ultra rich” to get the money to pay for their health care plans. California’s top earners already pay 40-50% of their income in taxes to California, a figure that has caused many wealth creators, including transplanted Texan Elon Musk, to flee the state. Voting down the billionaire tax makes it clear that a majority of Californians understand that.

WINNERS: Texas College Football

Three Texas state schools made it to the first round of the CFP Playoff Rankings which were released on Tuesday. The Longhorns of Texas are ranked No. 7, Texas Tech is ranked No. 15 and the University of Houston is ranked No. 18. Texas plays Missouri tomorrow and I will be among the thousands of people in Lubbock who will be rooting for the Red Raiders against West Virginia on Saturday. The University of Houston is playing Cincinnati.

Have a great weekend!

Listen to Winners & Losers on Talk 1370, the Cardle & Woolley show, every Friday morning at 8:30 AM. Here’s the listen live link.

If you were forwarded this email, you can sign up to receive it every week at www.texaspolicy.com/9thandCongress

 

Sherry Sylvester is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation and the former Senior Advisor to Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick.