In Texas’ opening volley of midterm elections, the state’s Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate seat was set when State Rep. James Talarico beat Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett in a contest that turned into one of the party’s most expensive and tightly fought races. Talarico’s win comes as Democrats look for opportunities to make a major upset in a state that has not elected a Democrat to statewide office in more than three decades.
Crockett, who is also a Dallas-area figure, had previously told supporters that she expected to return to court over voting problems in Dallas, according to the AP report. After polls opened and then shifted for some voters because of primary rules and precinct assignments, voters reported they were turned away and directed to different voting precincts, prompting county officials to extend voting times in Dallas County and Williamson County beyond the usual deadline.
Talarico and Crockett both framed the primary as a contest over who could fare best against the eventual Republican nominee. Talarico, a seminarian who frequently references the Bible in his political messaging, said after the race was called that Democrats were trying “to fundamentally change our politics,” and he told supporters in Austin, “And it’s working.” Crockett, meanwhile, built her campaign around sharply targeted attacks on Republicans and on efforts to turn out Black voters in the Dallas and Houston areas.
The Republican half of the same Senate nomination contest set up a May runoff between Sen. John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton, after neither reached the 50% vote threshold in the three-way primary. A third contender, Rep. Wesley Hunt, finished a distant third and conceded, with the result that Cornyn and Paxton will face each other again for the nomination. The AP report described the matchup as likely to become increasingly nasty in the lead-up to November, with the outcome expected to be influenced by whether President Donald Trump offers an endorsement.
In Austin after the initial round, Cornyn argued that a Paxton win would leave what he called “a dead weight at the top of the ticket for Republicans,” and he also said he would not allow Paxton to risk what he described as years of building the Republican Party. Paxton, addressing supporters in Dallas, told them he felt the momentum he had experienced during a recent trip to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, and he said, “Texas is not for sale.”
The two men’s relationships to Trump have become part of the campaign math. The AP report said Trump did not make an endorsement in the GOP primary, leaving both Cornyn and Paxton to press their cases for the president’s favor ahead of the runoff. The report also said Cornyn and allied groups spent at least $64 million on television advertising since July to support Cornyn’s standing, while noting that Paxton’s campaign acceleration became more visible in the last month.
The Democratic primary also drew attention to election administration. In Dallas County, after voting was extended and then subject to legal disputes over how ballots should be treated when voters were not in line by a specified time, the state Supreme Court ruled that ballots cast by people not in line by 7 p.m. should be separated from others. It was not immediately clear how the court’s decision would be carried out or how many eligible ballots remained to be counted in Dallas County, the AP report said, and Crockett told reporters she would seek legal action after voting concluded.
In Harris County, which includes Houston, a spokesperson said that as of 10 p.m. there were still voters at 20 centers. In the overall race, AP reported, Crockett and Talarico each positioned themselves as a better choice for Democrats in a state that backed Trump by almost 14 percentage points in 2024, arguing they could improve on what Democrats have been able to do in Texas statewide elections.
Beyond the Senate nominations, Texas’ other primaries included several fights shaped by new congressional district boundaries. The AP report said Republican lawmakers redrew districts, following pressure from Trump, setting up new general election battlegrounds across the state. It also listed outcomes including a GOP primary victory by Eric Flores over former Rep. Mayra Flores, and a GOP primary win by state Rep. Steve Toth over incumbent Rep. Dan Crenshaw, among other races, as Democrats and Republicans begin positioning for the general election contests ahead.
Talarico’s path to November now depends on what happens next on the Republican side, where Cornyn and Paxton will spend the coming months competing for the nomination. And the runoff’s tone is expected to be shaped by how Trump chooses to weigh in—something that could matter both for the eventual GOP nominee’s coalition and for how Republicans defend the seat when the general election begins.