Texas primary: Election deniers favored in GOP’s Senate, AG races

Texans are returning to the polls Tuesday to vote in several key statewide and congressional primary runoffs that will have major implications for voting rights and elections both in the state and nationally.

The tight contest between four-term incumbent Sen. John Cornyn and Trump-backed outgoing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for the GOP’s U.S. Senate nomination will be the most closely watched of the night.

But Texas voters will also choose the Republican and Democratic nominees who could eventually succeed Paxton as attorney general later this year. Also on the ballot are the first Democratic nominees for congressional districts that were aggressively redrawn by state Republicans last year.

The runoffs feature several candidates with histories of election denial — including Paxton, who in 2020 led an unsuccessful multi-state effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election by suing key battleground states over their voting laws.

With many of those candidates expected to win their contests, the races emphasize President Donald Trump’s vast influence over the Republican Party and electoral maps in the most populous red state.

SAVE America Act takes center stage in Senate race

After weeks of speculation, Trump formally endorsed Paxton in the contest last week, delivering a searing blow to Cornyn and angering Senate Republicans who view the attorney general’s numerous scandals as political liabilities.

The president made the endorsement while appearing to have one thing on his mind: the SAVE America Act, the GOP’s sweeping anti-voting bill that would impose draconian restrictions on the right to vote that would disenfranchise millions of eligible voters. 

As part of his effort to restrict voting and wrest control of elections away from states, Trump has aggressively pushed the bill. After passing the House, the bill effectively died in the Senate because of the chamber’s 60-vote threshold to end a filibuster.

Trump has since called for Senate Republicans to scrap the filibuster to pass the SAVE America Act — a move Cornyn initially opposed despite supporting the act. 

On the other hand, Paxton directly tied his Senate bid to the SAVE America Act’s passage by proposing to drop out if Senate Republicans modified or scrapped the chamber’s filibuster.

Days after Paxton’s performative offer, Cornyn abruptly reversed himself on the filibuster, writing instead that passing the SAVE America Act was more important than preserving the procedural rule that he defended for years.

Senate Republicans did not take up Paxton’s offer, but he almost certainly earned points with Trump with the gambit.

Tonight’s winner will face Democratic Texas state Rep. James Talarico in the November general election.

The race to replace Paxton

To pursue his Senate bid, Paxton announced he would not seek a fourth term as Texas attorney general. Texas state Sen. Mayes Middleton and U.S. Rep. Chip Roy are now locked in a bitter contest for the Republican nomination to potentially succeed Paxton.

Though Roy, a hardline conservative who sponsored the SAVE America Act in the House, would seem like an obvious candidate for Trump to support, the president has not made an endorsement in the race.

While aligned with Trump on SAVE, Roy opposed efforts by Paxton and other Republicans to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, in which former President Joe Biden defeated Trump.

Middleton, a staunch election denier, has repeatedly attacked Roy over his breaks with Trump and, in particular, his support for certifying the 2020 election, saying it disqualified him from overseeing the integrity of Texas elections as attorney general.

No matter who wins, the outcome will likely have national implications. Though the state attorney general represents Texas in civil lawsuits and enforces state law, under Paxton’s tenure, the office has become deeply involved in conservative legal efforts, including restricting the vote and challenging elections.

Democrats are holding their own runoff nomination race for attorney general between Texas state Sen. Nathan Johnson and Joe Jaworski, the former mayor of Galveston.

Dems compete under GOP gerrymander

Democrats are holding midterm primaries in congressional districts that were redrawn according to Texas Republicans’ aggressive mid-decade redistricting plan, which aims to add five Republicans to the state’s delegation.

The list of affected districts includes Texas’s 18th, where the newly elected Rep. Christian Menefee is vying for the Democratic nomination against veteran Rep. Al Green, who was drawn out of his long-held Houston-based 9th Congressional District.

It also includes the Dallas-area 33rd District, where former Rep. Colin Allred (D) and Rep. Julie Johnson (D) are competing.

The Texas GOP was the first to answer Trump’s call for GOP-led states to rig their congressional maps to favor Republicans to maintain the party’s slim majority in the House. 

Texas’s redraw sparked a national wave of redistricting across both Democratic- and Republican-led states. 

The Supreme Court’s recent rollback of the Voting Rights Act through a ruling on Louisiana’s congressional map has also triggered an onrush of Republican redistricting efforts across the South ahead of the 2026 elections.