Texas Primaries Deliver Shockwaves as 2026 Midterm Season Officially Begins
The first major primary night of the 2026 midterm cycle delivered dramatic results across Texas on Tuesday, reshaping races in both parties and offering the earliest signals of voter sentiment heading into what promises to be a turbulent election year.
The headline result came in Texas' 2nd Congressional District, where Representative Dan Crenshaw — a four-term incumbent, former Navy SEAL, and one of the Republican Party's most recognizable faces — was unseated by state Representative Steve Toth in a decisive defeat. Crenshaw, who had cruised through previous primaries with double-digit margins and raised $1.3 million more than his challenger, became the first sitting member of Congress to fall in a 2026 primary.
Toth, one of the most conservative members of the Texas Legislature, framed the race as a referendum on loyalty to President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. Crenshaw was notably the only Texas Republican House incumbent running without Trump's endorsement — a liability that proved fatal despite his conservative credentials on issues from border security to opposing gender-affirming care. His past support for Ukraine aid and his vote to certify the 2020 election results became central lines of attack.
"Congressional District 2 voters want a representative in D.C. who will stand firm in his convictions, fight for his constituents, and follow through on his promises," Toth said in a statement after declaring victory.
In the marquee contest of the evening, the Republican primary for the U.S. Senate seat held by four-term incumbent John Cornyn failed to produce a winner, sending the race to a May 26 runoff. Cornyn led with roughly 42 percent of the vote, followed closely by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton at 41 percent, with Representative Wesley Hunt collecting about 14 percent. Under Texas law, a candidate must secure a majority to avoid a runoff.
The result extends what has become a deeply personal and expensive intraparty war. Cornyn, a senior Senate Republican and former majority whip, has positioned himself as the experienced hand. Paxton, who was impeached by the Texas House in 2023 before being acquitted by the state Senate, has cast himself as the populist outsider battling entrenched power.
"While the money may be on his side, the people are on our side," Paxton told raucous supporters at a Dallas hotel Tuesday night, portraying himself as the underdog against Cornyn's well-funded operation.
On the Democratic side, state Representative James Talarico won the party's Senate nomination with approximately 53 percent of the vote, defeating Representative Jasmine Crockett. The race was marred by voting confusion in Dallas County — Crockett's home base — after Election Day rule changes left some voters uncertain about where to cast ballots. A judge initially ordered polls to stay open two extra hours, but the Texas Supreme Court blocked the extension and directed that late-arriving ballots be separated.
Crockett declined to concede Tuesday night, telling supporters that "people have been disenfranchised" and raising questions about how election officials would determine which voters were in line by the 7 p.m. cutoff.
Talarico, a seminarian and progressive state lawmaker from Austin, now faces the winner of the Cornyn-Paxton runoff in November in a state where no Democrat has won statewide office in more than three decades. But record-breaking early turnout in the Democratic primary — combined with national polling showing Democrats building their widest midterm advantage in a decade — has given the party reasons for cautious optimism.
Beyond the Senate races, Tuesday's primaries underscored the pressures facing incumbents across the political spectrum. In North Carolina, former Democratic Governor Roy Cooper and former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley won their respective Senate primaries in a race that could determine control of the upper chamber. In Texas' 18th District, redistricting forced two sitting Democratic members — Representatives Al Green and Christian Menefee — into a head-to-head contest that remained too close to call early Wednesday.
With primaries in dozens of states still ahead, Tuesday's results offered a clear early message: voters in both parties are restless, incumbency is no guarantee of safety, and the battle for Congress in November will be fought on fiercely contested ground.