Denton County Backs Republican Brandon Gill for House, Democrat James Talarico for Senate

Republican Rep. Brandon Gill carried his part of Denton County as he won reelection Tuesday, while the county as a whole backed Democrat James Talarico over Republican Ken Paxton in the U.S. Senate race. Gill took 51.2 percent of the vote to Democrat Steven Shook’s 47.6 percent in the Denton County portion of Texas’ 26th Congressional District, a lead of 3.6 percentage points, or 10,612 votes. Talarico won the countywide vote by 8.4 points, according to unofficial returns published by the Dallas Standard. Paxton, the Texas attorney general, finished more than 33,000 votes behind Talarico in Denton County. Talarico received 53.3 percent to Paxton’s 44.9 percent in a county that President Donald Trump carried by about 13 points in 2024. The House and Senate totals cover different parts of the county. All 253 Denton County precincts reported votes in the Senate race, while 188 reported votes in Gill’s race. The rest were in Texas’s 4th and 13th congressional districts. Gill won the full district by about ten points, with the Texas secretary of state reporting 182,648 votes for Gill and 147,944 for Shook. Gill ran up much larger margins in Cooke and Wise counties, winning by more than 50 points in each, according to Decision Desk HQ. Talarico became the first Democrat to win a U.S. Senate general election in Texas since 1988, according to the Associated Press (AP). The state’s Wednesday tally put him at about 55 percent to Paxton’s 43 percent. Talarico won the Democratic nomination in March after defeating U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett.