Here's what we learned from the bruising Texas primaries

Texas’ March 2026 primaries were extraordinarily contentious and costly, and many of the biggest battles are going into overtime, teeing up another 12 weeks of bruising attacks and high-dollar spending ahead of the May 26 runoff.

The state’s two blockbuster Senate primaries dominated the airwaves. After a record-setting advertising blitz, GOP incumbent Sen. John Cornyn is facing a runoff with Attorney General Ken Paxton, while Austin state Rep. James Talarico defeated U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett for the Democratic nomination.

Further down the ballot, chaos reigned, as big money shifted several races in the final weeks; President Donald Trump and Gov. Greg Abbott lined up behind opposing candidates, with mixed results; and several longtime incumbents were unseated or forced into career-threatening runoffs.

The lack of decisive outcomes Tuesday night, for individual races and for dueling wings of the Texas GOP, promises an equally intense runoff season — and a long, expensive eight months until the general.

Here are some top takeaways from an action-packed primary election night.

Money talks

The 2026 March primary will go down as the most expensive in Texas history, setting spending records for several different offices, from comptroller to attorney general, led by a colossal advertising blitz behind Cornyn that set the national high-water mark for a Senate primary.

As Tuesday night’s results showed, money moves the needle.

The GOP Senate brawl was the most expensive primary for the upper chamber in history, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact, which tallied nearly $100 million in ad buys, much of it in support of Cornyn. The fourth-term senator far outraised his opponents and benefited from tens of millions from groups aligned with Senate GOP leadership, who felt the longtime incumbent would be a stronger candidate in a general election than Paxton. More than $71 million was spent in ad buys to support his candidacy, more than any other incumbent in a primary race on record, according to AdImpact.

While Paxton, a favorite of the party’s grassroots, had expressed confidence that he might avoid a runoff, Cornyn not only forced him into an overtime round, but narrowly led the field. In a speech to supporters, Paxton acknowledged the impact of Cornyn’s spending.

“Here’s what we learned tonight: While the money may be on his side, the people are on our side, and in Texas, the people always win,” said Paxton, who benefited from less than $5 million in ad spending between his campaign and a supportive super PAC.

Big money, and big ad buys, also shaped the Democratic Senate primary. Talarico spent over $17 million on ads through his campaign alone, while a pro-Talarico super PAC dropped another $8 million, giving him a nearly five-to-one spending advantage over Crockett. Despite having a lower national profile at the start of the race, Talarico was in position to secure the nomination early Wednesday morning, though the Associated Press had yet to formally call the race in his favor.

Down the ballot, state Sen. Mayes Middleton overperformed expectations in the GOP attorney general race after giving close to $12 million of his oil and gas fortune to his own campaign.

The Galveston lawmaker entered the race at a significant name recognition disadvantage next to the frontrunner, U.S. Rep. Chip Roy of Austin, who has made a national name for himself as a conservative rabble-rouser in Congress. But Middleton’s money bought him a flood of mailers, television and radio ads and text messages, allowing him to get his “MAGA Mayes” messaging in front of voters in the final weeks of the campaign.

He came in first Tuesday night, with Roy in a distant second, teeing up what promises to be a costly runoff for the most important red-state attorney general office in the country.

In the comptroller race, former state senator and businessman Don Huffines won outright after loaning his campaign $10 million to buy mailers and air time. The race was expected to go to a runoff, but Huffines easily cleared the field of acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock and Railroad Commissioner Christi Craddick.

Cornyn lives to see another day

In the final days of the race, Paxton repeatedly suggested he could win the primary outright.

That didn’t happen. Cornyn finished narrowly ahead of Paxton, giving him a stronger than expected stature heading into a runoff against the attorney general.

Cornyn disproved a spate of recent polls that put him in second place. And he did surprisingly well in some key parts of the state, nearly beating Paxton in his longtime home base of Collin County.

“Election returns are showing that Senator Cornyn is overperforming recent polling and expectations, and Corrupt Ken Paxton is underperforming,” Cornyn’s campaign manager, Andy Hemming, said in a statement.

Even some Cornyn critics took note of the senator’s performance.

“I voted for Wesley Hunt in the primary and will vote for Ken Paxton in the runoff, but I’m honestly surprised by Cornyn's first place finish and the Paxton team has to be alarmed,” Rolando Garcia, a member of the State Republican Executive Committee, wrote on X. “Paxton is still slightly favored in a runoff, but it is clearly going to be more difficult than they thought.”

Cornyn’s better-than-expected showing could bolster his case for a Trump endorsement. The president stayed neutral in the primary but has suggested he could get involved in any runoff.

To be sure, Cornyn faces a tough challenge in the overtime round, which is expected to have an even lower turnout featuring voters who are more ideological and could be more drawn to Paxton. Addressing reporters Tuesday night in Austin, Cornyn made his case for why this runoff could be different, suggesting it could have a “robust” turnout due to the number of other primaries heading to runoffs.

Paxton had a simpler — and more confident message — about the runoff on Tuesday night.

“I’ve been in two statewide runoffs,” he told supporters, “and I never won by less than 30 points, and I don’t plan on starting now.”

Trump’s endorsement isn’t a silver bullet

Trump handed out his endorsement generously ahead of the primary, backing over 130 incumbents and candidates for the Texas Legislature, Congress and statewide office.

While most of his endorsed candidates won their primaries outright Tuesday night, a major one — Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller — was poised to lose reelection. And at least three Trump-endorsed candidates for Congress were headed to runoffs, one of them in a distant second place.

While not a wholesale rejection of Trump’s influence, the results showed that his endorsement cannot solve all a candidate’s problems. Miller has long aligned himself with Trump, but he has suffered years of scandal and gotten crosswise of Gov. Greg Abbott, who vocally backed Miller challenger Nate Sheets. Trump did not endorse Miller for reelection until Friday night, after the end of early voting.

Another Trump-backed candidate who did not win outright Tuesday night, U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales of San Antonio, also had unique political problems. The early voting period began with fresh revelations that he had an extramarital affair with a staffer who later died after setting herself on fire. Trump had appeared to back off his endorsement of Gonzales in the final days before the primary, but Gonzales continued to highlight it, including at the top of a primary day email to supporters.

“Thank you President Trump and all those #TX23 constituents that support our campaign,” Gonzales posted on X as it became clear he would move to a runoff. “Onward to a victorious May.”

In the primary for the 35th Congressional District, one of the five new districts Republicans redrew in the hopes of flipping, Trump’s preferred candidate, Carlos De La Cruz, finished second en route to a runoff against state Rep. John Lujan. De La Cruz is the brother of Rep. Monica De La Cruz, R-McAllen, but Lujan had Abbott’s endorsement and more experience running competitive races in the San Antonio area.

Incumbents got knocked on their heels

Several long-time elected officials may find themselves looking for a new job after Tuesday proved to be a tough night for incumbents.

An unusual mid-decade redraw of Texas’ congressional maps shook up several incumbents’ safe seats, forcing them into contentious primaries. On the Democratic side, Rep. Al Green, pushed out of his district by the new map, challenged Rep. Christian Menefee, who was elected to the newly drawn 18th Congressional District in a special election last month. Green, a party elder who has spent more than two decades representing Houston in Congress, was locked in a close battle with Menefee, a former Harris County attorney, in a race that remained too close to call with nearly all Harris County election day results yet to be reported.

It’s a similar story up north, where Dallas Democratic Rep. Julie Johnson was pushed out of her district and now finds herself facing a likely runoff against her predecessor in Congress, Colin Allred. Allred, who was leading the vote count but remained shy of the 50% threshold, unsuccessfully ran for Senate against incumbent Ted Cruz in 2024 and dropped out of this year’s Senate primary in December.

Across the aisle, U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a former Navy SEAL and fourth-term congressman from Houston, lost to state Rep. Steve Toth, R-Conroe. Crenshaw faced difficult headwinds — he was the only House Republican running for reelection in Texas without a Trump endorsement — but it didn’t help when his district was redrawn to include more of Toth’s territory in Montgomery County.

Voters also ousted Miller, the agriculture commissioner since 2015, in favor of the newcomer Sheets. And in the comptroller race, pseudo-incumbent Kelly Hancock, who was appointed by Abbott in June, came in a distant second to Huffines.

A legislative power broker struggles to reassert itself

In the policy battle over medical malpractice lawsuits, longtime Republican kingmakers at Texans for Lawsuit Reform suffered a resounding defeat in the Texas House, dwindling hopes of bouncing back from a disappointing legislative session.

In the shadow of the 2025 session, TLR President Lee Parsley called out Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows and several members by name for dooming the group’s priority legislation and suggested its well-funded political operation would go on the offensive in the primaries. As the dust settles from Tuesday, every candidate seeking reelection who was named in Parsley’s letter survived their intraparty challenge or went unopposed — the latest in a string of setbacks for the group that once had virtual carte blanche to reshape Texas’ civil justice system.

Declaring war, TLR PAC backed challenges to Reps. Marc LaHood of San Antonio, Mark Dorazio of San Antonio and Andy Hopper of Decatur. But the group eased off its financial support for those challengers, and all three incumbents — all of whom earned President Donald Trump and Gov. Greg Abbott’s endorsements — sailed to their nominations. The LaHood race, which began as TLR’s marquee challenge, was decided by a roughly 3-to-1 margin.

TLR’s candidates struggled in Tarrant County open races, too, even though they were also backed by Abbott. As of early Wednesday morning, businessman Fred Tate was losing to Keller Mayor Armin Mizani, and activist Jackie Schlegel had less than half the vote share of business owner Cheryl Bean. TLR spent at least $2.2 million backing Tate.

For both Mizani and Bean, their victories would be electoral redemption after losing their state House races in 2018 and 2024, respectively.

TLR candidate Sarah Sagredo-Hammond was also poised to lose in a battleground Rio Grande Valley seat, missing the runoff in a distant third. That district, being vacated by Rep. Bobby Guerra, D-Mission, marks one of Republicans’ best chances for a flip in the Texas House. Trump carried it by 1.6 points in 2024.

Where TLR did win, it supported incumbents backed by Trump and Abbott. Additionally, Abbott and TLR combined to back Jorge Borrego, who was poised to win in a battleground open race that Republicans barely held in 2024.

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