The Brief

Senator John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton will face a May 26 Republican runoff for the Texas Senate seat after finishing at 42% and 41% respectively in the most expensive Senate primary in U.S. history, with over $122 million in advertising. State Representative James Talarico won the Democratic nomination outright with 53%, defeating Representative Jasmine Crockett and positioning Democrats for their most competitive statewide race in Texas in over three decades.

The Report

The 2026 midterm cycle opened on March 3 with Texas primaries that produced a bruising Republican runoff and a decisive Democratic result in the state’s marquee Senate contest.

Senator John Cornyn, seeking a fifth term, led the Republican field with approximately 42% of the vote but fell well short of the majority needed to avoid a runoff. Attorney General Ken Paxton finished one point behind at 41%, while Representative Wesley Hunt placed a distant third with 13%. The two front-runners will meet again on May 26 in what promises to be another costly and divisive contest.

The spending has already been historic. Ad-tracking firm AdImpact recorded over $122 million in advertising spending and reservations across both primaries — the highest figure ever for a Senate primary cycle. Cornyn and his allied groups accounted for $78.5 million of that total. Paxton and his supporters spent $4.4 million, a fraction of his opponent’s war chest that made his near-parity finish all the more notable.

On the Democratic side, 36-year-old state Representative James Talarico defeated two-term congresswoman Jasmine Crockett with 53% to her 46%. Talarico, an eighth-generation Texan, former middle school teacher, and recent graduate of Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, has pitched himself as a candidate capable of winning moderates and disenchanted Republicans. “Tonight, the people of our state gave this country a little bit of hope,” he told supporters. “And a little bit of hope is a dangerous thing.” Talarico and allied groups spent $25.3 million to Crockett’s $5.3 million.

President Trump remained neutral through the primary but posted on Truth Social that he would endorse “soon” and would ask the non-endorsed candidate to “DROP OUT OF THE RACE.” He subsequently told reporters that Paxton would be “a dead weight at the top of the ticket” in November, though a formal endorsement has not materialised. Republican strategists note that the runoff electorate — smaller, more ideologically committed — may favour Paxton, whose impeachment acquittal and combative posture have solidified his standing with the party’s base.

Elsewhere on the ballot, state Representative Steve Toth defeated four-term incumbent Dan Crenshaw by 15 points in the 2nd Congressional District, making Crenshaw the first House member to lose renomination this cycle. Voting in Dallas and Williamson counties was disrupted after a switch from countywide vote centres to precinct-specific sites — a change driven by Republican-backed rules following mid-decade redistricting — left hundreds of voters at wrong locations and prompted a court order extending Democratic polling hours.

Early general election polling shows Talarico with narrow leads over both Cornyn and Paxton. Democrats have not won a statewide race in Texas since 1994.

The Angle

The Republican primary produced two numbers worth holding next to each other: $78.5 million spent by Cornyn’s side, and a one-point margin over a candidate who spent a twentieth of that. Money moved the needle in the Democratic race — Talarico outspent Crockett nearly five to one and won accordingly. In the Republican contest it barely moved it at all. What Paxton has that Cornyn’s ad budget cannot purchase is a base that does not require persuasion, only activation. The runoff electorate will be smaller and angrier, which is another way of saying it will be more his.

Trump’s delay is instructive. His Truth Social post — endorsement imminent, loser must withdraw — is the language of someone who wants the problem resolved without bearing the cost of resolving it. Endorsing Cornyn alienates the base that just delivered Paxton 41% on a shoestring. Endorsing Paxton risks handing Democrats their first Texas Senate seat in three decades. The silence is not indecision. It is the sound of a political figure encountering a situation where the usual instrument — the endorsement as loyalty test — cuts in both directions. The tool was designed for primaries with a clear tribal favourite. This primary has two tribes wearing the same jersey.

Meanwhile, the Democratic nominee is a seminary graduate running in the most churchgoing large state in the country, against a party that will spend the next three months tearing itself apart before it can turn to face him. Whether Talarico can actually win Texas is an open question. That the Republican primary has been engineered, at great expense, to make his path wider than it should be is not.