In the first great contest of the 2026 midterm cycle, Texas voters broke records in the primary races to select their November nominees. In an at times ugly contest that highlighted the ideological battles roiling the two parties, Democrats selected Texas State Representative James Talarico over House Rep. Jasmine Crockett.
Republicans, on the other hand, are headed for a runoff election on May 26 between incumbent Senator John Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (sorry Wesley Hunt, we hardly knew you.) Voters should expect nearly three more months of hack-n-slash political brawling to help them decide which model of Republican they think has the best chance of holding onto the Senate seat — or at least for President Donald Trump to decide which one he wants to endorse.
“We’re about to take back Texas,” the Talarico campaign said in a statement released after the race was called by major news networks. In a late night speech ahead of the call, Talarico told supporters in Austin that the tentative results were “proof that there is something happening in Texas tonight tonight” and that “the people of our state gave this country a little bit of hope, and a little bit of hope is a dangerous thing.”
In her concession, released via a social media statement on Wednesday morning, Rep. Crockett said that she had called her opponent to congratulate him, and urged her supporters to rally behind his candidacy. “Texas is primed to turn blue and we must remain united because this is bigger than any one person,” she said. “This is about the future of all 30 million Texans and getting America back on track. With the primary behind us, Democrats must rally around our nominees and win.”
Despite widespread confusion — and at least one court battle — at Dallas area polling places, a record number of voters turned out in what was the most expensive primary in American history. Candidates spent a combined total of over $120 million, and are expected to add to the pile in the months leading up to November. As the two parties gear up for a midterm cycle that already has Republicans and the president on edge, Texas will provide the nation some of their first insights into how the electorate is feeling a year into Trump’s administration, the stakes couldn’t be higher.
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Democrats have not won a national seat in Texas in over 30 years, and many in the party have considered the state unwinnable. But given Texas’s rapidly expanding populations (that will likely garner it another handful of House seats in the 2030 census), it’s not a state the party can afford to abandon if they hope to win a governing majority anytime in the future.
While there are reasons for Democrats to be optimistic about their future in the state — Democrat Taylor Rehmet won a 14-point upset in deep-red Tarrant County in February — winning a U.S. Senate seat is another story, and Talarico’s road to the nomination wasn’t easy.
The Democratic primary was roiled in December when — on the literal last day to file for candidacy — House Rep. Jasmine Crockett entered the race. The Dallas-area congresswoman, known for adept rhetorical sparring with Republican members of Congress, was one of Democrats’ top fundraisers in the House, a national figure in her own right, and (as her campaign launch video made clear) a very public foil to president Trump. Republicans like that, and intentionally goaded the congresswoman into running with the hopes of securing a more favorable opponent for their own candidate. In Crockett’s telling, Texas could be won simply by turning out the existing base of Democratic voters in the state, with the help of of prominent national endorsements — including closing-week robocalls by former Vice President Kamala Harris — and passionate (oftentimes extremely combative) social media followers at her back. It doesn’t seem to have worked, and Crockett’s loss will see her leave the House at the end of her term.
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Talarico, a former school teacher and Presbyterian seminarian serving his fourth term in the Texas House of Representatives, made waves in Democratic politics through a unique combination of progressive values grounded in religious doctrine. Talarico curated a campaign that courted the votes of Texas independents, moderates, and even disaffected Republicans. He packaged his left-leaning politics as the common sense approach to combating wealth inequality while holding the disconnected Washington, D.C., elite to account. It was the type of campaign that has seen long shot candidates like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani propelled into office, and in a contest of contrasting personalities, styles, and the eternal question of “electability,” voters gave the edge to Talarico.
The Republican primary was a major test of the power MAGA politics still hold against an increasingly wary base. The election took place as the Trump administration attempts to justify its war against Iran, only to be met with aggressive infighting from large swaths of the party and conservative electorate.
Cornyn has battled rejection from the MAGA movement despite being a reliably Republican vote in the Senate, and having won nearly all his elections by double digits. Following Trump’s failed attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election, Cornyn was mildly critical of the president, and suggested he was washed ahead of the 2024 election. That big whoops — along with some errant support for extremely modest gun control measures and a friendship with former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — earned Cornyn a RINO (Republican In Name Only) distinction from much of Trump’s base. Despite massive spending by Cornyn to attempt to convince voters that he was, in fact, as MAGA as the rest of them, his once steadfast support among the GOP base slipped into a barely-there hold on his seat that left him wide open for a challenger.
Enter Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. A man who was impeached by his own party, publicly divorced by his wife (former Majority Leader of the Texas Senate Angela Paxton) following accusations of infidelity, accused of professional misconduct and financial fraud, and was the subject of whistleblower complaints of abuse of office. Then again, if there’s any man in America who’s a little too much like the president, it might be Paxton. His scandals seem to have barely made a dent with the Texas electorate.
In a statement acknowledging the reality of a runoff, Cornyn said that he would not “allow a flawed, self centered and shameless candidate like Ken Paxton risk everything we’ve worked so hard to build over these many years.”
“Judgement Day is coming for Ken Paxton,” Cornyn’s campaign wrote on social media.
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Paxton, meanwhile, alleged that Cornyn attempted to “steal the election with another $100 million going into this Senate race,” but, “here’s what we proved tonight: While the money may be on their side, the people are on our side.”
It will be a few more weeks before Republicans lock in their ticket, and Democrats are gambling that a 36-year-old former public school teacher will be the candidate that can finally clear the electoral hurdle that has foiled the party for almost as long as he has been alive.
