After a historic election defeat in one of the most expensive elections in US election history, the state of Texas has turned blue. Along with this come potential implications for Elon Musk and his companies.
๐ The Core Development
The US midterm election was yesterday, and ended up in a stunning result, with Democrats taking control of both houses of Congress by wide margins, and flipping seats that had been considered safe around the nation.
Perhaps most notably, many of these seats were in Texas โ a republican stronghold which saw a clean sweep, with the Democrats winning every statewide contest. Republicans maintained some state legislative power and won the State Senate, but as of this writing Democrats are currently ahead in the count for the State House.
๐ Background & Sector Context
The highest profile contest was for Texas Senate, where James Talarico won by a 55-43 margin. This race set the record for the most expensive Senate race in the nationโs history, with over half a billion dollars spent on this one seat alone.
About half of the total money spent on the race came courtesy of republican PACs, a method by which companies and the ultra-wealthy can launder money into bribes to buy elections. And most of the PAC money in the race came from one man, Elon Musk, who spent $212 million to support the enormously unpopular and scandal-ridden outgoing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton
๐ Industry & Real-World Impact
Thatโs nearly half of the $474 million dollars that Musk put into this election cycle, suggesting that he saw this race of particular importance. And yet, his candidate lost miserably.
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๐ฎ Strategic Outlook & What Lies Ahead
But the rout did not stop with Paxton. Paxtonโs old job as AG is now going to be filled by Democrat Nathan Johnson. And Greg Abbott, the outgoing Governor, was defeated by Gina Hinojosa. Even the less high-profile races for court seats were swept by Democrats โ three seats on the 15th Court of Appeals and four seats on the Texas Supreme Court.
And those results, even beyond the big-spending Senate race, could all matter quite a lot to Elon Musk.
