Texas primary runoff reshapes US Senate and House races
Texas primary elections held Tuesday clarified which candidates will compete for seats in the US Senate and House of Representatives in the upcoming November midterm elections, News.Az reports, citing Anadolu.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton secured the Republican nomination for the US Senate, decisively defeating four-term incumbent Senator John Cornyn by 63.9% to 36.1%.
The race drew national attention after US President Donald Trump backed a challenger in an effort to unseat an incumbent he viewed as insufficiently loyal to him and to the Republican Party.
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Trump had endorsed Paxton the previous week, and Paxton’s victory in Tuesday’s runoff means Cornyn becomes the first Republican senator from Texas to lose his party’s nomination for reelection.
Cornyn had previously stated in 2023, while Trump was campaigning for a second term in the White House, that Trump’s time “has passed him by.” He was also an early critic of Trump’s proposal to build a border wall along the US–Mexico border, though he now supports the project.
Despite his defeat, Cornyn said he would back Paxton in the general election.
“Tonight we’ve come up short,” Cornyn said. “I’ve always supported the Republican ticket, and I intend to do so again.”
Paxton is now set to face Democratic state Representative James Talarico in November.
In the Republican runoff for Texas’s 9th Congressional District, Alex Mealer more than doubled her opponent’s support, defeating Briscoe Cain 68.7% to 31.3%.
In Texas’s 35th Congressional District Republican primary runoff, Carlos De La Cruz defeated state Representative John Lujan 57.7% to 42.3%.
De La Cruz will go on to face Democratic nominee Johnny Garcia in the November election after Garcia won his runoff 60.5% to 39.5% against Maureen Galindo.
A notable development occurred on the Democratic side in the US House District 18 race, where two incumbent members of Congress were placed against each other following redistricting that merged large portions of their districts. Representative Christian Dashaun Menefee defeated Representative Al Green by 68.4% to 31.6%.
In the Democratic runoff for US House District 33, former US Representative Colin Allred defeated incumbent US Representative Julie Johnson 54.7% to 45.3%.
In the race for Texas Attorney General—an office being vacated by Paxton as he runs for the US Senate—state Senator Mayes Middleton won the Republican nomination by defeating US Representative Chip Roy 55.4% to 44.6%.
Middleton will face state Senator Nathan Johnson in the general election. Johnson secured the Democratic nomination after defeating former Galveston Mayor Joe Jaworski 59.6% to 40.4% in their runoff contest.
By Nijat Babayev
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