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James Talarico won the state’s Democratic primary for Senate, while Senator John Cornyn faces a runoff against Ken Paxton, his right-wing challenger.
March 4, 2026Updated 7:30 a.m. ET
James Talarico, a 36-year-old state legislator who was a virtual unknown only months ago, won the Democratic nomination for Senate in Texas, according to The Associated Press, as his party’s voters put their faith in him to pursue an elusive decades-long goal of turning the state blue.
On the Republican side, national party leaders bought a May runoff election for Senator John Cornyn of Texas, for the price of at least $70 million.
The results in Texas — final for the Democrats, interim for the Republicans — set up a bruising election year in one of the nation’s biggest and most politically complex states.
Mr. Cornyn, 74, must navigate a costly 80-plus day sprint to deliver what he promised on Tuesday would be “judgment day” for Ken Paxton, the state attorney general and a right-wing rival he plainly disdains. He is seeking his fifth term.
Mr. Talarico finished ahead of Representative Jasmine Crockett, a liberal firebrand, who had yet to concede when The A.P. called the race after 2:30 a.m. Eastern. She had earlier pointed to voting problems in Dallas, her hometown, and said that people had been “disenfranchised.”
The primaries exposed the divisions in both parties — and Republicans are staring down another acrimonious stretch of a campaign that has already featured talk of infidelity, indictment and impeachment.
