Democrat Taylor Rehmet won a special election for the Texas state Senate on Saturday, flipping a reliably Republican district that President Donald Trump won by 17 points in 2024.

Rehmet, a labor union leader and veteran, easily defeated Republican Leigh Wambsganss, a conservative activist, in the Fort Worth-area district. With almost all votes counted, Rehmet had a comfortable lead of more than 14 percentage points.

“This win goes to everyday working people,” Rehmet told supporters.

His victory added to Democrats’ record of overperforming in special elections so far this cycle. Democrats said it was further evidence that voters under the second Trump administration are motivated to reject GOP candidates and their policies.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin called it “a warning sign to Republicans across the country.”

The seat was open because the four-term GOP incumbent, Kelly Hancock, resigned to take a statewide office. Hancock easily won election each time he ran for the office, and Republicans have held the seat for decades.

The district is redder than its home, Tarrant County. Trump won the county by 5 points in 2024, but Democratic President Joe Biden carried it in 2020 by about 1,800 votes out of more than 834,000 cast.

Trump posted about the race on his social media platform earlier Saturday, urging voters to get out to support Wambsganss. He called her a successful entrepreneur and “an incredible supporter” of his Make America Great Again movement.

But Rehmet had support from national organizations, including the DNC and VoteVets, a veterans group that said it spent $500,000 on ads. Rehmet, who served in the Air Force and works as a machinist, focused on lowering costs, supporting public education and protecting jobs.

Democrats have been encouraged by their performance in elections since Trump took office. In November, the party dominated the first major Election Day since his return to the White House, notably winning governor races in Virginia and New Jersey.

Democratic candidates also have won special elections in Kentucky and Iowa. And while Republican Matt Van Epps won a Tennessee special election for a U.S. House seat, the relatively slim margin of victory gave Democrats hope for this fall’s midterms.

Rehmet’s victory allows him to serve only until early January, and he must win the November general election to keep the seat for a full four-year term. The Texas Legislature is not set to reconvene until 2027, and the GOP still will have a comfortable majority.

MINNEAPOLIS — A federal judge says she won’t halt the immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota and the Twin Cities as a lawsuit over it proceeds.

Judge Katherine M. Menendez on Saturday denied a preliminary injunction sought in a lawsuit filed this month by state Attorney General Keith Ellison and the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul.

It argued that the Department of Homeland Security is violating constitutional protections. The lawsuit sought a quick order to halt the enforcement action or limit its scope. Lawyers with the U.S. Department of Justice have called the lawsuit “legally frivolous.”

The ruling on the injunction focused on the argument by Minnesota officials that the federal government is violating the Constitution’s 10th Amendment, which limits the federal government’s powers to infringe on the sovereignty of states. In her ruling, the judge relied heavily on whether that argument was likely to ultimately succeed in court.

The federal government argued that the surge, dubbed Operation Metro Surge, is necessary in its effort to take criminal immigrants off the streets and because federal efforts have been hindered by state and local “sanctuary laws and policies.” State and local officials argued that the surge is retaliation after the federal government’s initial attempts to withhold federal funding to try to force immigration cooperation failed.

“Because there is evidence supporting both sides’ arguments as to motivation and the relative merits of each side’s competing positions are unclear, the Court is reluctant to find that the likelihood-of-success factor weighs sufficiently in favor of granting a preliminary injunction.”

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi took to social media Saturday to laud the ruling, calling it “another HUGE” legal win for the Justice Department on X.

Federal officers have fatally shot two people on the streets of Minneapolis: Renee Good on Jan. 7 and Alex Pretti on Jan. 24.

Local businesses across the US forwent income for the day to protest the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown and the fatal shooting of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis.

In what was billed a “National Shutdown,” organizers called for a 24-hour general strike, asking students to skip school, business owners to close up shop, and consumers to refrain from spending for the day.

Some small and medium-sized businesses from coast to coast posted on their social media stating that they’d be closed on Friday as part of the demonstrations. Others said that they’d remain open to support their workers, but showed support for the protests.

Touchstone Climbing, a popular California-based climbing gym with about 20 locations, posted on social media that its gyms were closed and that hourly employees scheduled to work on Friday would be paid.

Medium, an online publishing company, told employees that they were free to take Friday off to participate in the protests.

Photos show crowds of demonstrators holding signs that said “ICE Out” and gathering in Los Angeles, Washington, DC, New York City, Boston, and Minneapolis, among other cities.

The protests come amid growing tensions in communities where the Trump administration has deployed federal agents. Many of the high-profile enforcement efforts have been concentrated in blue or so-called sanctuary cities.

In Minneapolis, two US residents, Good and Pretti, were fatally shot after a confrontation with federal agents that occurred within a span of a few weeks.

Hundreds of local businesses in Minnesota participated in an economic blackout last week, shuttering their stores for a day following the shootings. The Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation, which is tied to AFL-CIO, the largest labor union in the US, endorsed the general strike.

The Department of Justice announced on Friday that it opened a civil rights investigation into the shooting of Pretti, a 37-year-old registered nurse who was killed by a Border Patrol agent.