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The first votes of the 2026 midterm cycle will be cast on Tuesday, with a pair of high-stakes US Senate primaries in Texas that will test both parties’ appetite for political change in the Trump era.
Voters across the state will decide their nominees for a critical Senate seat, as well as for several key congressional contests reshaped by a mid-decade gerrymander sought by Donald Trump to preserve the GOP’s fragile House majority.
In the Senate race, Republicans are measuring the potency of Trump’s Make America Great Again movement against old-guard conservatism. Democrats, meanwhile, face a choice between two progressive “powerhouses” with different theories of how to fight – and how to win – in the Trump era.
The fiercely competitive races have left Democrats unusually hopeful about their chances in a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat statewide since 1994, while Republicans fret they could lose a seat once viewed as safely red.
Early voting has soared, particularly on the Democratic side, while political ad spending has surpassed $122m, according to data from AdImpact, making it the most expensive Senate primary on record.
The vast majority of the money is being spent to help four-term incumbent John Cornyn fend off a challenge from Ken Paxton, the state’s scandal-plagued attorney general and a conservative culture warrior.
Cornyn, 74, has emphasized his seniority and record, which he has defended as closely aligned with the president. By contrast, Paxton, 64, has presented himself as Maga’s vanguard in Texas, willing to battle both Democrats and Republicans.
On the Democratic side, state representative James Talarico has crisscrossed the deep-red counties that voted for Trump, preaching a “politics of love” that roots progressive policy in the teachings of his Christian faith. The 36-year-old former middle school teacher and current seminary student argues that the central divide in American politics is “not left v right” but “top v bottom” and says Democrats can rebuild trust in rural and suburban communities without abandoning their core values.
He faces Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, a firebrand progressive whose unsparing attacks on Trump and Republicans have earned her a starring role in the resistance movement to his second term. Crockett, 44, entered the race in December, just before the filing deadline, embracing a different political playbook. Casting herself as a “proven fighter” who “drives the president crazy”, Crockett contends that high turnout among young voters and voters of color – not ideological moderation – is the key to winning statewide.
The Democratic contest underlines a central debate that has animated the party since Trump’ s 2016 victory: whether they win by “doubling down” on their base and its fury with Trump’s presidency, or by courting independents and swing voters disenchanted with partisanship and the political status quo.
Tuesday’s election will hardly be the final word, but as polls open in the nation’s second-largest state, Democrats will be monitoring the political currents closely, as they target Republican-held seats in other states, from Alaska to Maine.
Whether Democrats seriously contest the Senate race may depend on the outcome of the Republican contest, which could be pushed to a runoff in late May. A third candidate, two-term Republican congressman Wesley Hunt is also seeking the nomination, and is expected to pull enough of the vote to prevent either Cornyn or Paxton from capturing the more than 50% needed to win outright.
Trump remains a significant wildcard in the Senate race, which has pitted his base against Washington Republicans who have warned the president that Paxton would be a uniquely vulnerable candidate after years of legal and ethical scandals, including impeachment by his own party though he was ultimately acquitted in the Senate.
Texas voters are casting ballots for a slate of other federal, state and local offices. As a result of redistricting, two sitting members of Congress are squaring off in the primary for congressional district 18, in what has become a referendum on generational change.
Representative Christian Menefee, 37, who is just weeks into his first term, is now facing off against Representative Al Green, 78, who has served for more than two decades. On the Republican side, Representative Dan Crenshaw is potentially vulnerable to a right-wing challenge from state representative Steve Toth in the second congressional district while Congressman Tony Gonzales is facing calls for his resignation from fellow Republicans after allegations of an affair with a former staffer who later killed herself. He has resisted calls to resign.
