Voters clelebrate at James Talarico’s watch party in Austin as election results roll-in. Credit: Michael Karlis

A day after its historic election defeat, the Texas GOP is already playing the blame game.

As Lone Star State Republicans formed a circular firing squad, data and election results suggest that aggressive immigration enforcement was among the most significant issues that drove Texans to vote the party out of power.

During his concession speech Tuesday night, outgoing Texas Republican Comptroller Don Huffines blamed Gov. Greg Abbott — who appointed him — and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick for his loss and GOP losses across the board.

Abbott and Patrick lost to Democratic challengers State Reps. Gina Hinojosa and Vikki Goodwin, respectively.

“People are tired of the Republicans being in office,” Huffines said. “They couldn’t campaign on a policy issue. They campaigned on lowering our property taxes. But guess what? All they did was remind everybody that you didn’t do that 10 years ago. They didn’t do it 12 years ago, because they don’t care about you. They never cared about you. They laugh and make fun of you.”

Meanwhile, Patrick, in a statement, laid the blame on President Donald Trump.

Despite an average approval rating below 40%, Trump campaigned alongside Texas Republicans, including U.S. Senate hopeful Ken Paxton, whom Democrat James Talarico beat like a drum. Indeed, the president visited Texas four times ahead of the midterms to stump for GOP candidates.

“Whether it was about affordability, gas prices, data centers, 765-kV lines, or any other issue important to them, I respect how the people voted. It was a fair election, and I accept the majority will of the voters,” Patrick said in a statement.

Trump, on the other hand, blamed Fox News for the bloodbath.

In a Truth Social post shortly before midnight, the president declared that Fox “bears responsibility for these losses by constantly and consistently putting on the Dumocrat opposition, and worse.”

Trump even called in to Fox News, where he criticized the conservative-leaning cable news outlet’s polling.

“Tonight, actually, the results are pretty close to what Fox polls showed,” Fox News anchor Bret Baier fired back in response.

Voting data suggests there’s plenty of blame to go around, implicating both Trump’s policies and the state officials who helped carry them out, University of Texas at San Antonio political scientist Jon Taylor said.

“I think this illustrates that the Trump brand is now toxic and any Republican that was linked to it was going to be collateral damage,” Taylor said.

An October poll conducted by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in the Rio Grande Valley found that 53% of respondents thought the presence of state and local immigration enforcement makes life harder without making their communities safer. Another 63% said Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had gone too far.

“Voters along the border and throughout the state sent a resounding message to Texas leaders: We have had enough, get ICE out of our communities,” ACLU immigration policy strategist Osvaldo Grimaldo said in a statement following Tuesday’s election.

“We’re not surprised by these election night results after our poll of El Paso and Rio Grande Valley showed residents felt that anti-immigration policies had gone too far. Latino voters have been impacted by this state’s harmful immigration policies and hope for the day that Texas creates a welcoming environment for our immigrant communities — now more than ever, that day is near.”

More than two dozen Texas counties that voted Republican in the 2024 presidential election backed Democrats this cycle. Many of the most dramatic shifts occurred in South Texas, including in Starr, Zapata and Webb counties, according to the Houston Chronicle.

Texas politics is a mess. We make it a readable mess.

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Michael Karlis is a multimedia journalist at the San Antonio Current, whose coverage in print and on social media focuses on local and state politics. He is a graduate of American University in Washington,...