Senator John Cornyn faces the fight of his career on Tuesday as he battles Ken Paxton in a Texas Republican runoff that has become the marquee race of the day. Cornyn, the state's senior senator, is the underdog after Trump threw his weight behind Paxton, the scandal-plagued state attorney general, in what could reshape the Senate map heading into November.
Paxton finished just behind Cornyn in March's primary despite record spending from pro-Cornyn forces and before Trump's endorsement landed. The Trump bump matters. In Louisiana, a Trump-backed challenger failed to even make the runoff against Senator Bill Cassidy earlier this month, but Trump has decimated opponents in House races, toppling Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky last week.
Yet Senate Republicans are openly anxious. Cornyn and his colleagues have argued that Paxton, weighed down by his scandal history, hands the seat to Democrat James Talarico in November. That concern carries real weight: Texas Republicans haven't lost a statewide race in three decades, but Talarico has captured something unusual in Texas politics. The Austin state legislator, who wraps progressive causes in religious language, has galvanized small donors. He raised $27 million in the first quarter, nearly four times Paxton's entire haul.
The general election calculation haunts Republicans. If Talarico wins the seat, the party could be forced to spend heavily in Texas in November, forcing resources away from other battlegrounds. Cornyn's hastily rolled out "#stillwithCornyn" hashtag signals how much ground he's lost.
Democratic blood sport in Houston
Tuesday will mark the first time a sitting Democratic House member loses a primary this cycle. Two of them will face off in a Houston-area district, testing whether voters hunger for generational change.
Representative Al Green, an 11-term incumbent at 78, is fighting Representative Christian Menefee, 38, for a single seat. Menefee only just won his current seat in a special election earlier this year. His rival, Green, lost his old district to Republican redistricting and is seeking a new home in the 18th.
Crypto money has flooded the race. A wave of spending has backed Menefee and pounded Green, who has criticized the industry and sits on the powerful House Financial Services Committee. The money may matter in a contest shaped heavily by generational divides.
In the 35th District, Democrat Johnny Garcia looks like the obvious choice on paper. A Bexar County sheriff's deputy, he has backing from the national House Democrats, from Talarico, and from the Blue Dog Coalition of moderate Democrats. His opponent, Maureen Galindo, is a sex therapist and activist who suggested turning an immigration detention center into "a prison for American Zionists," a comment party leaders called "straight out of the Nazi playbook."
But Galindo finished first in March. And she has benefited from nearly $900,000 spent by a secretive super PAC with no disclosed donors and loose Republican ties. Democrats believe Garcia can still win the runoff and compete in November, though Republicans drew the district to elect a Republican.
Complicating the race is the presence of Colin Allred, who held this Houston seat before running for Senate in 2024, losing to Ted Cruz. Now he wants his House seat back. That sets him against his successor, Julie Johnson, in another head-to-head matchup with racial and ideological undertones. Allred backed Black candidate Jasmine Crockett in the Senate race; Johnson endorsed white candidate Talarico before Crockett entered. Talarico won by six points.
The tension deepened when audio surfaced of Johnson dismissing another Black delegation member, Representative Marc Veasey, as ineffective in a safe Democratic seat.
Attorney general battle
Republicans will also decide who replaces Paxton as state attorney general, a post he weaponized to build a national profile. Conservative state Senator Mayes Middleton faces Representative Chip Roy, a Capitol Hill hard-liner with a Ted Cruz pedigree.
Roy has occasionally split with Trump, notably after January 6. Middleton has pumped $3 million of his own money into the race; Roy has been backed by $2.75 million from Amarillo businessman Alex Fairly.
Democrats will also hold a runoff between state Senator Nathan Johnson and former Galveston Mayor Joe Jaworski. Republicans are heavy favorites for the general election.
Author Sarah Mitchell: "Cornyn's willingness to go all-in against Trump in his own state is a gutsy calculation that could either save the Republican majority or hand Democrats a seat they had no business winning."
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