Former MLB Star Mark Teixeira Defeats Ex-NIH Scientist To Win House Seat

Former baseball star Mark Teixeira has won Texas’s 21st Congressional District for the Republicans, defeating Democrat Kristin Hook, a biological scientist and former National Institutes of Health policy worker. The result gives Teixeira the seat currently held by Republican Chip Roy, who did not seek re-election, and reflects a closer contest than the district’s recent Republican victories.

Teixeira received 55 per cent of the vote to Hook’s 45 per cent, according to the Associated Press. Hook lost the 2024 race by 26 points; Donald Trump carried the redrawn district by 22 points that year. Teixeira won the Republican primary with more than 61 per cent in March; he played 14 major league seasons and won a World Series with the New York Yankees in 2009.