Talarico Wins Texas Senate Primary as GOP Faces Nasty Runoff |
The 2026 election season began with a bang yesterday as Texas held highly competitive U.S. Senate primaries. With epic turnout, Democrats narrowly nominated state legislator James Talarico over his opponent U.S. Representative Jasmine Crockett — two rising stars who gave their party fresh hope for turning the state blue. With epic spending by the embattled incumbent, Republicans sent Senator John Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to a late May runoff. So while Democrats have many months to smooth over hurt feelings from a relatively civil primary, Republicans could face a brutal battle for the nomination in a place where they haven’t lost a statewide election since 1994.
Polls had been divided on the Talarico-Crockett contest, though everyone agreed the Dallas congresswoman would do exceptionally well among her fellow Black voters and Talarico would do well enough among his fellow white voters (particularly among the white progressives in his home town of Austin). As it happens, Talarico handily won the Hispanic vote that was thought to be up for grabs, and that was the ball game. Crockett Country began and ended in East Texas and the urban core of voters in Dallas and Houston, and her highly motivated base wasn’t enough. Though the result was in doubt well into primary night thanks to slow counts in Dallas and Houston, CNN, AP, and Decision Desk HQ all called it for Talarico in the wee hours.
In the end, Crockett’s late start (she only announced in December) appears to have kept her from building a statewide get-out-the-vote operation. Talarico was able to achieve a funding advantage and even compete with Crockett’s social media fame thanks to a viral interview by Stephen Colbert that CBS clumsily tried to censor.
Meanwhile, Cornyn, after $70 million was spent on his behalf, ran essentially even with Paxton, and also-ran Wesley Hunt kept either from a majority. The sad thing for the four-term incumbent is that this may have represented an over-performance of expectations (Paxton had led most polls earlier in the cycle). It gives him hope for survival, but presents his national party funding base with two questions: exactly how much money are they willing to spend for him, and how much damage are they willing to do to the general election viability of Paxton? Cornyn’s ads have called him a home-wrecker and a font of corruption. Yet the MAGA zealot has a devoted base that is likely to show up for a low-turnout runoff being held right after a long Memorial Day weekend. Both candidates will hope for and also fear a Trump endorsement (he endorsed all three candidates before the primary) that could be decisive. And somehow, Republicans will try to begin pivoting to the fight against Talarico; they are already previewing attacks on him for his liberal Christian views that offend conservative evangelicals.
Whatever Republicans decide, make no mistake, this is likely to be a competitive race in November. Democratic turnout on March 3 exceeded Republican turnout, and nearly doubled what Democrats achieved in statewide primaries in both 2022 and 2024. It’s also very clear that Trump’s Hispanic gains in Texas in 2024 are wearing thin. If there is any significant national Democratic “wave,” it could finally make Texas a purple state, at least for the moment, even as the Lone Star State’s GOP veers ever further to the right.
Democrats need to heal some sensitivities raised by Crockett supporters who thought Talarico was benefiting from racist and sexist attitudes disguised as “electability” arguments. But Crockett pledged to campaign for the party ticket, and if things line up nationally, the Texas race could represent a real possibility for Democrats to flip control of the Senate and make Trump’s last two years in office a nightmare.
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