“This is amazing,” exclaimed Tiffany Dunsmore, 44, the owner of Austin Scavenger Hunt, as the city skyline gleamed in the distance on a balmy night. “I cannot believe Texas went blue!”

For 32 long years, turning Texas blue had been an elusive prize for Democrats in the US’s second biggest state. There were false dawns and broken dreams. But on Tuesday the party’s agony finally came to an end.

James Talarico was elected the youngest member of the US Senate, and Gina Hinojosa the state’s first Latina governor. The pair delivered the party’s first statewide win since 1994 and the jewel in the crown of Donald Trump’s midterm humiliation.

View image in fullscreenTexas Senator-elect James Talarico and Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa, both Democrats, cheer with drinks while urrounded by supporters at Whataburger in Austin on election night. Photograph: James Talarico/X/Reuters

The plaza of the Long Center for the Performing Arts in Austin buzzed like a political festival, packed with taco trucks, craft stalls selling handmade ceramics and vendors stitching bandanas on demand. Expectations had mounted as a giant TV screens showed Democrats storming Republican strongholds across the nation.

Then came a great roar of jubilation when, at 10pm local time, it was confirmed that Democrats had claimed the ultimate prize: the Lone Star State. Supporters wearing Talarico T-shirts punched the air and hugged one another. Nearby cars honked their horns. The weight of three decades had finally been lifted.

The last Democratic senator elected in Texas was Lloyd Bentsen in 1988, the year before Talarico was born, while the state’s last Democratic governor was Ann Richards, elected in 1990. Talarico’s breakthrough, defeating the scandal-plagued, Trump-endorsed Republican, Ken Paxton, helped power Democrats to retake control of the US Senate. Hinojosa, meanwhile, beat the incumbent governor, Greg Abbott, a titan of Texas politics who was running for a record-fourth term.