A “blue wave” swept across the United States as the country tallied the votes of its 2026 midterm election, with key states including Ohio and South Carolina flipping from Republican to Democratic control. The results are set to shift the composition of the U.S. Senate when the new Congress convenes in January 2027. Among the most closely watched contests was the Senate race in Texas—the nation's second-most-populous state—where Democrat James Talarico ultimately triumphed over Republican Ken Paxton, the state's attorney general.

At 37 years old, Talarico is now the Lone Star State's first elected Democratic Senator in nearly four decades—the last Democrat Texans elected to the Senate was Lloyd Bentsen, who won re-election in 1988—and his unlikely path to Washington began in a public school classroom.

From the classroom to the Capitol

Talarico began his working career teaching sixth grade at Rhodes Middle School, located in a high-poverty area of San Antonio. It was there, as a 23-year-old educator, that he saw how state policies were hurting his students.

He witnessed the effects of massive budget cuts that stripped critical resources from children in an already underserved community. In 2011, the Texas Legislature cut $5.4 billion in public school funding following a budget shortfall. The loss of support for the state's poorest students—and the struggles of underpaid and overworked teachers—pushed him toward public office a few short years later.

“I served my students on the West Side and served their families and really saw the impacts of economic injustice up close and personal,” Talarico told Austin PBS last year. “That experience is what motivated me to then run for office, because I saw students slipping through the cracks, I saw teachers driving Ubers at night to make extra money, I saw teachers selling their own blood plasma to make ends meet. And I knew that was wrong.”

The average middle school teacher in Texas earns $63,400 annually, according to USAFacts, ranking the state in the bottom half of U.S. states when it comes to teacher pay.

Fortune reached out to James Talarico for Texas for comment.

The struggling student who inspired a political career

Talarico spent only two years in Texas' public school system before taking his ambitions to nonprofits and politics. Yet one student's story from his teaching days left a lasting mark—and became a recurring anecdote on the senatorial campaign trail.

The eighth-generation Texan often recounts the story of a struggling sixth-grader named Justin, who emboldened him to run for office. The boy had a tough upbringing, was abandoned by his mother, and had just been kicked out of a previous school for bringing a knife and threatening violence against a teacher.

Talarico made an effort to build a connection, and the 11-year-old was making progress—he even gifted his teacher a snowflake cup from Dollar Tree. Then Justin got into another altercation at school—his “third strike.” Talarico remembers him being carried out of the building without his feet ever touching the ground. It was the last time he ever saw Justin.

After doing some digging, Talarico discovered that the school district therapist appointed to Justin had been eliminated amid the state's budget cuts. Students exposed to tough upbringings, violence, and trauma had suddenly lost their lifelines of support. He described it as a “radicalizing” experience, and it set him on a path toward public service.

“I promised myself right then that if I ever got a little bit of power or a little bit of influence, that I would do everything I could with every fiber of my being to stop that from happening again,” Talarico said in a 2025 episode of The Joe Rogan Experience podcast.

From middle school teacher to Texas Senator

After his teaching stint, Talarico went on to become the Central Texas executive director of Reasoning Mind, an education nonprofit focused on math instruction and classroom technology.

In 2017, he launched his first-ever political campaign, running for the Texas House. The following year, at just 29, Talarico won both the special election and the regular election for the district, flipping the seat from Republican to Democratic control.

While in the legislature, he implemented school funding reform and introduced his Whole Student Agenda, addressing pupil mental health and a range of school-related issues.

Talarico has since held onto a seat after switching to District 50 in 2022, and last year he announced his Senate bid to challenge the Republican nominee in Texas.

Now, he is the Lone Star State's first Democratic Senator elected since 1988—the second seat he has flipped from Republican to Democratic control after his 2018 Texas House win—and stands to earn a U.S. Senator's average salary of $174,000, more than $110,000 above the average Texas middle school teacher's pay. Once sworn in, how he translates his education-focused record into federal policy will be among the early things to watch in his Senate tenure.

Despite becoming a high-profile political force, he still leads with the lessons from his middle-school teaching days.

“Justin and my students are the ones I think about when I'm at the Capitol,” Talarico continued during the podcast. “They are the criteria that I use to evaluate public policy, not if it's a Democratic bill or Republican bill, not if it's going to get me ex-lobbyist support.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com.