Exclusive: Former Astronaut Terry Virts Reveals Plan to Turn Texas Blue

Colonel Terry Virts has been an Air Force pilot, a NASA astronaut, and even a International Space Station commander. But now he's embarking on what could be considered his most challenging mission to date—becoming the first Democrat in decades to break the Republican stranglehold over Texan politics.

It's been more than 30 years since Bob Bullock was re-elected as Texas Lieutenant General in 1994, the last time a Texan Democrat won a statewide election.

Since then a succession of Democrats have sought to revive their party's fortunes in the Lone Star State, the second most populous in the Union, but thus far all have been vanquished.

In January, Virts became the latest Democrat to challenge the Republican hegemony when he announced he is running for the Senate in 2026, targeting the seat currently occupied by the GOP's John Cornyn.

With the Texas Republican Party rocked by infighting, Democrats hope now is their time to achieve the decades-long dream of turning Texas purple and eroding the GOP's wafer-thin Senate majority.

NASA Career

Virts was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1967. After leaving high school he joined the U.S. Air Force, graduating from the Air Force Academy in 1989 to begin a career as an F-16 pilot.

In 2000, Virts was selected to join NASA as part of Astronaut Group 18, going on to pilot the STS-130 mission to the International Space Station in 2010, before returning to the ISS in December 2014 and serving as its commander for part of 2015.

Virts told Newsweek it was through NASA that his association with Texas began, moving to the state 25 years ago to be near the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

He said: "I've lived in Asia, Europe, Middle East. I've lived around the planet. I've lived off the planet. I've lived in Texas longer than anywhere on or off Earth. So this is my home."

Texas Floods

Virts said that the devastating Texas floods, which killed at least 120 people, including children at a summer camp, and has left another 170 reported missing, were one of the reasons he had decided to run for the Senate.

"When I was a kid, I went to church camp," he told Newsweek. "My kids growing up went going to summer church camp when they were kids...Hill Country of Texas is a beautiful place, so I mean, as a parent, I just can't imagine these poor girls... swept away."

The Democratic hopeful criticized President Donald Trump's administration for cutting what he called "life-saving science," including weather monitoring and forecasting.

"On the day that this tragedy happened, Trump stood there in the White House and signed this bill that cut 40 percent from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, including zeroing out research," Virts said.

"Trump literally wants to destroy our weather at the same time we have Texas kids being killed by floods and understaffed National Weather Service offices," he added later in the interview.

"This administration and the Republican Party is actively cutting life-saving science, and it's horrific. This is one of the reasons why I'm running for Senate right now."

Texas Republicans Divided

Virts' Senate bid takes place against the backdrop of deep divisions within the Republican Party of Texas.

In April, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is widely seen as being on the Republican right, announced a primary challenge against incumbent Republican Senator Cornyn, saying, "It's hard to think of the things that he's done good for Texas or the country."

Cornyn's team almost immediately hit back with a statement that said: "Ken Paxton is a fraud."

Paxton was impeached by the Republican control Texas House in 2023 on bribery charges, although he was subsequently narrowly acquitted by the state Senate. He has consistently denied any wrongdoing.

Referring to Texas Republican infighting Virts said: "Well as Napoleon said, never interrupt your opponent when he's doing something stupid and certainly the Republicans are doing plenty of that these days."

During the interview Virts branded Cornyn a "eunuch" and "just the most pathetic person in the Senate."

He added: "He just posted a picture of himself reading [Trump's] Art of the Deal. He's trying to grovel and beg Trump for his approval... They hate him. They despise John Cornyn because he doesn't stand for anything. He knows what's right, and he doesn't do it."

Turning to Paxton, Virts said: "And then on the other hand, you have Ken Paxton...if he wins the Senate race, he'll instantly become the worst human being in the Senate."

He added: "He's suing the federal government to get women's health records. I think most Texans don't want Ken Paxton in their bedroom or in the doctor's office with their wife or with their daughter or with their sister or whatever. So it's quite a race."

Cornyn campaign senior adviser, Matt Mackowiak, told Newsweek on Friday that the senator nearly always voted with Trump, who has significant support in the state.

"President Trump strongly won Texas by 13 percent in 2024, which shows how deep his support is here," he said. "Senator Cornyn has voted with President Trump 99.2 percent of the time as President and he is proud to have helped advance that agenda which Texans clearly align with."

Newsweek contacted Attorney General Paxton for comment on Friday via online inquiry form respectively.

Immigration

The one issue where Virts sharply criticized his own party's record was illegal immigration, an issue he attributed to Trump's 2024 presidential election victory.

Figures from U.S. Customs and Border Protection recorded an estimated 7.2 million suspected illegal migrant encounters with law enforcement during the Biden administration to January 2024.

Referring to voters Virts said: "They voted very clearly they don't like it. Democrats for the last several years have told the country, hey, illegal immigration is not a problem. The country told them, yes, it is."

Virtz said some Mexican-American communities he knows near the Mexican border had "voted for Donald Trump en masse."

"You would think Trump is calling them rapists and murderers. Trump is saying the most racist, heinous stuff about them, and yet they don't want illegal immigration," he said.

However Virtz defended legal immigration, commenting: "If you live in Texas, you're an immigrant. It doesn't matter where you're from."

NASA Cuts

Virts was sharply critical of Trump's most recent spending package, which cut funding for NASA and various scientific research projects, calling it a "disaster."

"The last I read, there's 19 probes that NASA has in the solar system operating functional on Mars, at Jupiter, beyond the solar system. They're costing pennies on the dollar to operate. The expense of these things is the rocket to launch it, to build the satellite. Once you spend all that money, you just pay some scientists and engineers to run the satellite," Virts said.

"They're going to cancel all of that stuff, which is insane. They're cancelling important undergraduate and graduate research at universities, tens of thousands. I just saw we had 90,000 research positions is getting cut down to 20,000. That destroys the American science institution for medicine, for space, for weather, for all kinds of science. This administration and the Republican Party hate science. They hate knowledge."

Turning to Trump's much publicized falling out with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, his former close ally, Virtz described it as, "It's like going back to King George."

Could U.S. Lose Second Space Race?

The U.S. is currently locked in a second space race with China, which has vowed to land three astronauts on the Moon by 2030. NASA's Artimus program is currently aiming to land American astronauts in 2027, though the date has already been pushed back.

Asked whether China could beat America back to the Moon, Verts warned, "Absolutely. Have you seen America's political system recently? They absolutely might."

"If China wins that race to the moon, if they send the next astronauts to the moon, the whole world is going to say, wow, America had a great century," he added.

"The 20th century was a great American century. The 21st century is the Chinese century."