Photo: John Ramspott / Wikimedia Commons
In Lone Starr politics, Saturday, January 31 will be remembered for the shocking outcome of a special election for a Texas State Senate seat in the Ft. Worth suburbs. Donald Trump won that district by 17 percent in the 2024 presidential election, but on January 31, Democrat Taylor Rehmet enjoyed a 14 percent victory over Trump-endorsed Republican Leigh Wambsganss.
Quite a few political voices are describing Rehmet as a backlash against MAGA overreach during Trump's second presidency. But Salon's Amanda Marcotte, in an article published on February 6, argues that MAGA "book bans" played an especially large role in the election's outcome.
"In the aftermath," Marcotte explains, "most commentators have pointed to what is looking very much like a national turn away from Republicans and toward Democrats after a year of Trump's failures and scandals. That's certainly a big part of the story, but it's still probably not enough to explain such a shocking result in a district that has been deeply red for decades. To fill out the picture, it's important to look at that most local of issues: education."
Marcotte continues, "There are strong signs that Rehmet won in no small part because suburban Fort Worth has long been on the frontline in the culture war over book banning. Wambsganss built her political career advocating for strict censorship in schools and libraries, and her loss signals that, even in this very conservative district, people are getting sick of the far-right telling them what they cannot read."
Marcotte herself has first-hand experience with Texas. Although she now lives in Philadelphia and spent much of her writing career in New York City, the liberal Gen-X journalist was born in El Paso and grew up in a small town in West Texas. And she points out that a "culture-war" group like Moms for Liberty is not universally loved by conservative voters.
Moms for Liberty, Marcotte notes, did a lot to alienate librarians and teachers — even on the right.
"Rehmet, a union leader and first-time candidate, credited his win to issues like 'lowering costs, health care and focusing on working people,'" the Salon journalist observes. "But he also notably told ABC News that 'people are tired of campaigns of outrage.' Wambsganss was every inch the wild-eyed book-banning culture warrior he's obliquely referring to. When the Republican spoke at the 2023 Moms for Liberty summit in Philadelphia, which Patriot Mobile sponsored, she declared, 'Our children belong to the Lord, not the government.' Wambsganss added that their school board takeover efforts are 'a spiritual war'… Far from running away from so-called 'culture war' issues, as overpaid political consultants often prescribe, Rehmet's victory suggests that anger over MAGA excesses can be harnessed to help Democrats win — including in improbable places."