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San Antonio’s campaign trail accelerated into the final days before Tuesday’s Texas U.S. Senate primary, with candidates from both parties making last-minute appeals to voters in a contest positioned as the first big test of the 2026 midterm election cycle.
For Cornyn, the incumbent Republican senator from Texas, the central question heading into the vote is whether he can avoid a rare setback: he is trying to steer clear of becoming the first Republican senator from Texas to lose a primary. He faces a three-way challenge in his own party that includes Paxton, the state’s attorney general, and U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt, both of whom have turned their campaigns into direct pressure on Cornyn’s standing with GOP primary voters.
According to campaign aides, Cornyn’s schedule Sunday included a church appearance in San Antonio with little notice, where he held private meetings and also raised money. Cornyn’s pitch to voters Saturday, delivered at a seafood restaurant in The Woodlands, included a warning against slackness, telling voters: “Complacency is a killer. It kills relationships. It kills careers.”
On the Democratic side, attention in Texas has centered on the party’s two main candidates seeking to win a Senate seat for the first time since 1988, including U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett. Crockett, who has taken on a confrontational profile against President Donald Trump, emphasized her federal experience and told voters during a church stop Sunday: “So yes, I will clash with folk when it’s time to do so but I actually govern as well.”
Crockett also tied her campaign to Black women’s political backing, saying the group is “the core of her support, in Texas and nationally.” She is backed by prominent Black women in politics, including former Vice President Kamala Harris, who endorsed her on Friday, and Sens. Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland and Ayanna Presley of Massachusetts, who campaigned for her in the state this weekend.
State Rep. James Talarico, a candidate who has positioned himself as having crossover appeal, spent part of Sunday meeting voters as he walked through San Antonio’s Historic Market District before headlining a rally downtown. Talarico told The Associated Press that the event drew significant support from people who do not identify as Democrats, saying: “Thousands of people showing up to rally with us. I can’t tell you how many people are coming up to me and telling me they are not a Democrat. ‘I’m just so proud of the movement we are building.’”
The massive level of spending and the closeness of internal party dynamics have helped drive the intensity of the final stretch. The race is set against the backdrop of concerns from Senate Republican leaders in Washington that Democrats could capitalize if Republicans nominate Paxton, whose support among MAGA voters has come alongside years of legal problems.
Group spending and advertising time have already broken records for this stage of a Senate primary. Heading into Tuesday’s vote, the cost of advertising and reserved advertising time topped $110 million—more than $67 million of it spent by Cornyn’s campaign and allied groups, much of it attacking Paxton and, more recently, trying to keep Hunt from advancing. A separate advertising-tracking analysis cited in the report said Talarico’s campaign had spent $13 million on television advertising just this year, the most by any single entity in the crowded field of groups spending on either side.
President Donald Trump’s late Texas stop Friday also pulled the top Republican U.S. Senate candidates into the spotlight. Using the Port of Corpus Christi as a backdrop for a speech about energy production, Trump said he was “pretty much” decided on an endorsement but did not name who he would support, saying, “We have a great attorney general, Ken Paxton. Where’s Ken? Hi, Ken,” and then adding, “And we have a great senator, John Cornyn. Hi, John.” Trump also said, “It’s going to be an interesting one, right? They’re both great people.”
Paxton, for his part, has portrayed his campaign as a fight for voters rather than a move toward Washington. At a campaign event in Fort Worth, he told supporters, “I’m not going up to Washington, D.C., to join the swamp club. I will go up there and fight for you.”
The Tuesday primary will set up next steps based on results. If no candidate reaches at least 50% of the vote, the primary will move to a runoff between the top two vote recipients on May 26.