Car horns echoed down Commerce Street in downtown San Antonio late Tuesday, but this time there was no Spurs playoff win behind the noise. Voters drove through downtown honking to celebrate the results of Texas's 2026 midterm election, turning a ritual usually reserved for basketball championships into a political celebration.
According to KSAT, San Antonio residents saw Tuesday's election results as a reason to drive down Commerce Street and honk their horns, a custom the station says is usually practiced after a San Antonio Spurs playoff win. KSAT described the scene as a political event residents had not experienced in decades, though that framing reflects the station's own characterization of the night rather than any independently verified count of cars or participants.
Talarico Flips the Senate Seat
The celebration followed a night of major statewide results. Democrat James Talarico defeated Republican Ken Paxton in the race for the U.S. Senate, as reported by Houston Public Media. The Associated Press called the race for Talarico at approximately 10:04 p.m., with him leading at 59.4% of the vote, and Paxton, the Texas Attorney General, conceded roughly sixteen minutes later at around 10:20 p.m.
The outlet framed the result as ending a three-decade Republican monopoly on statewide offices in Texas. The Texas Secretary of State's election results page confirms the contest took place on Tuesday, November 3, 2026, though it does not independently verify the reported outcome.
Abbott Concedes the Governor's Race
Down the ballot, KSAT reported that Greg Abbott conceded his race for governor, with Democrat Gina Hinojosa becoming the first Latina governor of Texas. The combination of results on both the Senate and governor's races appears to have driven San Antonio voters into their cars for an impromptu celebration downtown.
A Tradition Born on the Basketball Court
San Antonio's honking custom has deep roots that have nothing to do with politics. The Spurs' own account of the tradition traces it to 1999, when fans leaving the Alamodome during the team's championship run converged with other San Antonians downtown and began honking in celebration, a ritual that has repeated after Spurs playoff wins ever since.
Axios has reported that the custom actually dates to the Spurs' June 25, 1999 NBA championship win, noting that fans remember the honking erupting almost instantly on Commerce Street that night. The Spurs describe an earlier moment from that same playoff run, when the team beat the Rockets to reach the Western Conference Finals and cars and trucks packed with fans filled the street, honking horns for three hours.
The team's own history page identifies Commerce and Market Streets downtown, along with Southwest Military Street on the South Side, as the two main areas where the tradition plays out. Axios has also reported that the celebrations have grown rowdier in recent years, prompting debate over dangerous behavior, and that three arrests for reckless driving and DWI were made on Military Drive during celebrations between Game 2 and Game 5 of a recent playoff run, though no arrests were reported on Commerce Street during those games.
Whether Tuesday night's political honking matches the scale of past Spurs celebrations remains unclear, since no independent count of vehicles or participants downtown has been reported. What is clear is that for one night, San Antonio drivers borrowed a basketball tradition to mark a very different kind of scoreboard.
