Tuesday’s primaries across Texas and North Carolina marked the first major step toward the 2026 general elections, with several races tightening into runoffs and others tilting to unexpected outcomes. The night’s biggest storyline centered on Texas’ U.S. Senate nomination races, where the Republican contest for the right to face a Democratic nominee was not decided in the first round and the Democratic nomination went to a candidate whose support was concentrated across multiple regions.
In Texas’ Republican Senate primary, neither Sen. John Cornyn nor state Attorney General Ken Paxton cleared the 50% threshold needed to avoid a May runoff, keeping the nomination unsettled. As of 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, Cornyn led Paxton by about 26,000 votes out of roughly 2.1 million counted, leaving voters to decide the top of the ticket in the next election stage.
The vote totals did not produce a simple divide between establishment and insurgent politics, according to the night’s results. Cornyn led Paxton in the state’s largest counties, including those covering the metro areas of Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio, Austin and Houston, while Paxton remained competitive in parts of those metropolitan regions, including trailing by about 1,700 votes in Harris County and about 4,000 in Bexar County.
Paxton also made gains in fast-growing suburban counties around major cities, building a 21,000-vote advantage in Montgomery County that was described as enough to offset combined losses in Harris, Travis and Bexar counties. The biggest separation between the two Republican candidates came in counties portrayed as less friendly to President Donald Trump, where Cornyn had a 6,000-vote buffer, while Paxton received more total votes in counties where Trump won at least 70% in the 2024 presidential election.
On the Democratic side of the Texas Senate race, state Rep. James Talarico won outright in Tuesday’s primary. The AP’s breakdown said the outcome was powered by large leads in Talarico’s home base areas around Austin and in smaller, more rural counties in central Texas, with nearly 70% of the vote in those areas as nearly all ballots were counted. The report also described Talarico carrying sizable margins in the state’s southern and western regions with large Hispanic populations, including about 60% across border regions where Trump made inroads in 2024, nearly 70% in Hidalgo County and more than 60% in El Paso County.
Talarico’s campaign carried through multiple regions even as other Democratic contenders were stronger in different pockets. For Jasmine Crockett, the report said most of her support came from urban centers around Houston and from her home base of Dallas, though she carried those areas by more modest margins than Talarico did in the state’s southern, central and western regions. Crockett posted bigger margins in East Texas, including counties with some of the state’s highest shares of Black population, but East Texas accounted for less than 8% of the total primary vote.
Beyond the Senate races, Tuesday’s primaries also reflected the impact of newly drawn congressional maps in both Texas and North Carolina, with the AP describing increased spending in multiple House contests. Texas’ 15th and 34th districts—border districts redrawn to favor Republicans—were among the most expensive House races, with incumbents facing limited primary opposition yet still drawing large spending totals to select the eventual November challengers. North Carolina’s 1st District followed a similar pattern, with five Republicans challenging vulnerable Democratic incumbent Rep. Don Davis and the eventual winner, Laurie Buckhout, generating more than $1 million in ad spending alone, according to ad-tracking firm AdImpact.
Other House races showed a comparable mix of high outlays and tight nomination outcomes, including North Carolina’s 4th District and Texas’ 2nd and 23rd districts, where incumbents fought to retain the seat. In Texas, Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw became the first House incumbent of 2026 to lose reelection, despite his campaign benefiting from more than $2.3 million in ads attacking his opponent, state Rep. Steve Toth. The AP also said Brandon Herrera spent almost $1.4 million on ads attacking Rep. Tony Gonzales, whose reelection campaign was damaged by a recent scandal, and that Herrera and Gonzales are headed to a runoff while other incumbents’ futures remained in question.