Lone Star State voters serve up the opening salvo of the 2026 midterm elections, as Republicans and Democrats decide who they want to be their candidates for the U.S. Senate on Tuesday.
Longtime Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) is in the fight of his life against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, and both of them also face Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX) for the GOP primary for the nomination for U.S. Senate. The top two vote-getters, assuming none of them reach at least 50 percent of the vote, will advance to a runoff in May. Cornyn’s campaign and his outside allies have heavily outspent Paxton and Hunt, but Paxton has consistently polled atop the field from the very beginning. Establishment Republicans in Washington fear Paxton is a weaker general election candidate, and worry he may end up opening Texas up to going blue for the first time in generations. But Paxton’s team insists he can and will win in November if given the nomination, arguing he has survived impeachment pushes and multiple statewide elections to his current post.
On the Democrat side, it’s shaped up to be a battle between former President Barack Obama’s pick, white pastor James Talarico, and former Vice President Kamala Harris’s pick, the black congresswoman Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX). A stunt by Talarico and his allies in recent weeks falsely claiming that Federal Communication Commission (FCC) chairman Brendan Carr barred late night host Stephen Colbert from airing an interview with him on television–Colbert did air the interview online, but Carr never barred the interview from airing on television–has given late hope and momentum to Talarico. Crockett had consistently maintained a moderate lead in polling until the very end, and there are questions about whether her home base of Dallas has had turnout issues on election day, so the big question here is whether Crockett has enough gas in the tank to make it through to the nomination or if Talarico stole her thunder at the 11th hour. No matter what the outcome, this proxy war between Obama and Harris–and more broadly between those Democrats like Crockett who openly embrace the radical left and those other Democrats like Talarico who mislead voters by falsely portraying themselves as more moderate–is likely only in the opening innings nationwide for the years to come. As much as this race is about who Democrats will pick as their Senate candidate in 2026, it’s even more so, perhaps, about the opening bid in the fight over the direction of their rudderless party heading into 2028, as they will soon begin the process of selecting a presidential candidate to try to reclaim the White House in the next presidential election.
Down-ticket, several GOP congressmen like Reps. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) and Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) face competitive primaries and may lose their races.
Outside of Texas, North Carolinians are also selecting their standard-bearers in U.S. Senate primaries on Tuesday, but it’s almost certain that Republicans will nominate former Republican National Committee (RNC) chairman Michael Whatley and Democrats will nominate former Gov. Roy Cooper. There could be some interesting down-ticket races in North Carolina too. In addition, voters in Arkansas–where there are no real contested federal primaries this cycle–will make their selections. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), the Senate GOP conference chairman, is running for reelection there.
The polls in North Carolina close at 7:30 p.m. ET, in most of Texas at 8 p.m. ET–the rest of Texas, the westernmost two counties, close their polls at 9:00 p.m. ET–and in Arkansas at 8:30 p.m. ET. Follow along here on Breitbart News for live results, news, and analysis as the votes are counted in the first primaries of the 2026 midterm elections.
UPDATE 9:32 p.m. ET:
This is not official yet, but Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report says that Cornyn and Paxton will advance to a runoff in May.
The final results are still trickling in slowly but surely, and how each candidate finishes and in what order–and how much support they have in total–is all still unknown. But this would suggest that Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX) did not have the juice to pull this one off.
UPDATE 9:28 p.m. ET:
Rep. Al Green (D-TX) is in serious trouble in his own primary after he was drawn into the same district as a fellow Democrat, Rep. Christian Menefee (D-TX). Green going down to a freshman member in a member-member primary would be a huge deal, as he’s been around for a long time in the House. He’s also one of the loudest voices in favor of impeaching Trump, so this would be a setback for that effort on the Democrat side if he were to go down:
UPDATE 9:23 p.m. ET:
Cooper won on the Democrat side in North Carolina, too, setting up a showdown in November with Whatley:
UPDATE 9:23 p.m. ET:
As expected, both Whatley and Cotton won the GOP nominations respectively in North Carolina and Arkansas:
UPDATE 9:18 p.m. ET:
In the GOP primary in Texas, Paxton is inching ever so closer to Cornyn. With just 40 percent reporting, Cornyn’s lead is down to less than 3 percent–Cornyn is at 42.8 percent to Paxton’s 40.2 percent–and down to just about 25,000 votes.
UPDATE 9:05 p.m. ET:
If Talarico does end up winning, Crockett’s attacks on the integrity of the outcome–she is blaming “cheating” already–are unlikely to help him unite Democrats after a bruising primary:
UPDATE 9:00 p.m. ET:
Down-ticket in Texas, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) appears to be in very serious trouble and may be cruising toward a loss in his primary. This would be earth-shattering in Washington:
UPDATE 8:57 p.m. ET:
With 35 percent reporting in the Democrat primary in Texas, Talarico has taken the lead 52.1 percent to Crocket’s 46.8 percent. It’s looking really tough for Crockett to come back from this.
UPDATE 8:35 p.m. ET:
The Democrat primary is tightening big time, with Talarico catching up but still trailing Crockett by a few percent. Nonetheless, he is considered the “heavy favorite” at this point with the margins he is getting in key places, per Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report:
UPDATE 8:32 p.m. ET:
Some races in Texas are starting to see some calls–these are unsurprising:
UPDATE 8:28 p.m. ET:
That same New York Times report on the spending in Texas also revealed that Cornyn and his outside allies outspent Paxton by even more–$69 million for Cornyn to just about $4 million for Paxton. These numbers are astounding in both races.
UPDATE 8:25 p.m. ET:
If Talarico does pull off the 11th hour finish, it will likely be because of megadonors who surged in to back him at the end with tens of millions more dollars than Crockett spent on her campaign. Per the New York Times, “in the photo-finish Democratic primary contest, supporters of State Representative James Talarico have helped him heavily outspend Representative Jasmine Crockett and her allies by about $24.5 million to $5 million on ads..”
UPDATE 8:18 p.m. ET:
The early returns in Texas suggest that the expectations of both Crockett and Talarico going into the race were right:
UPDATE 8:16 p.m. ET:
With 9 percent reporting on the Democrat side in Texas, Crockett leads Talarico 53.9 to 45.3 percent–by about 22,000 votes–with a long way to go.
UPDATE 8:14 p.m. ET:
With 11 percent reporting on the GOP side in Texas, Cornyn leads Paxton by about 22,000 votes–46.1 to 37.5 percent–with a long way still to go.
UPDATE 8:10 p.m. ET:
The first results are coming in from Texas, and it’s very early but Crockett has a huge lead over Talarico and Cornyn has a huge lead over Paxton–both of these are sort of surprising. However, only 9 percent of precincts are reporting so far so it’s early and this will likely change.
UPDATE 8:07 p.m. ET:
Crockett, along with Colin Allred, is crying foul about reported widespread issues in the Dallas area:
UPDATE 8:04 p.m. ET:
Polls have closed in North Carolina and Texas. Results are expected imminently.
