{"id":202309,"date":"2026-03-04T02:33:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T02:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/texas-votes-in-high-stakes-primaries-in-test-of-appetite-for-change-under-trump-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T02:33:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T02:33:08","slug":"texas-votes-in-high-stakes-primaries-in-test-of-appetite-for-change-under-trump-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/texas-votes-in-high-stakes-primaries-in-test-of-appetite-for-change-under-trump-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas votes in high-stakes primaries in test of appetite for change under Trump – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nominees for key Senate seat to be set while voters choose in congressional contests reshaped by GOP gerrymander
The first votes of the 2026 midterm cycle will be cast on Tuesday, with a pair of high-stakes US Senate primaries in Texas<\/a> that will test both parties\u2019 appetite for political change in the Trump era.
Voters across the state will decide their nominees for a critical Senate seat, as well as for several key congressional contests reshaped by a mid-decade gerrymander sought by Donald Trump<\/a> to preserve the GOP\u2019s fragile House majority.
In the Senate race, Republicans<\/a> are measuring the potency of Trump\u2019s Make America Great Again (Maga) movement against old-guard conservatism. Democrats, meanwhile, face a choice between two progressive \u201cpowerhouses\u201d with different theories of how to fight \u2013 and how to win \u2013 in the Trump era.
The fiercely competitive primary, and a messy Republican fight, has given Democrats a rare opening in a state that hasn\u2019t elected a Democrat statewide since 1994. Republicans, meanwhile, are fretting that they could lose a seat once viewed as safely red as the political climate turns sharply against the president. Last month, Democrat Taylor Rehmet captured a state senate<\/a> seat in a Fort Worth-area district that Trump had carried by more than 17 percentage points in 2024.
Early voting has surged, particularly on the Democratic side, while political ad spending has surpassed $122m<\/a>, according to data from AdImpact, making it the most expensive<\/a> Senate primary on record.
A majority of the money is being spent to help four-term incumbent John Cornyn fend off a challenge from Ken Paxton, the state\u2019s scandal-plagued attorney general and a conservative culture warrior.
Cornyn, 74, has emphasized his seniority and record, which he has defended as closely aligned with the president. By contrast, Paxton, 63, has presented himself as Maga\u2019s vanguard in Texas, willing to battle both Democrats<\/a> and Republicans.
On the Democratic side, state representative James Talarico has crisscrossed the deep-red counties that voted for Trump, preaching a \u201cpolitics of love\u201d that roots progressive policy in the teachings of his Christian faith. The 36-year-old former middle school teacher and current seminary student argues that the central divide in American politics is \u201cnot left v right\u201d but \u201ctop v bottom\u201d and says Democrats can rebuild trust in rural and suburban communities without abandoning their core values.
He faces Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, a firebrand progressive whose unsparing attacks on Trump and Republicans have earned her a starring role in the resistance movement to his second term. Crockett, 44, entered the race in December, just before the filing deadline, embracing a different political playbook. Casting herself as a \u201cproven fighter\u201d who \u201cdrives the president crazy\u201d, Crockett contends that high turnout among young voters and voters of color \u2013 not ideological moderation \u2013 is the key to winning statewide.
The Democratic contest underlines a central debate that has animated the party since Trump\u2019 s 2016 victory: whether they win by \u201cdoubling down\u201d on their base and its fury with Trump\u2019s presidency, or by courting independents and swing voters disenchanted with partisanship and the political status quo.
The Democratic electorate has divided sharply along racial lines, with Crockett drawing strong support among Black voters and Talarico performing better with white voters in the state. Latino voters were more evenly split between the two candidates, and will likely determine the outcome of the Democratic primary contest.
As polls open in the nation\u2019s second-largest state on Tuesday, Democrats will be monitoring the political currents closely, as they target Republican-held seats in other states, from Alaska to Maine.
Whether Democrats seriously contest the Senate race may depend on the outcome of the Republican contest, which could be pushed to a runoff in late May. A third candidate, two-term Republican congressman Wesley Hunt is also seeking the nomination, and is expected to pull enough of the vote to prevent either Cornyn or Paxton from capturing the more than 50% needed to win outright.
Trump remains a significant wildcard in the Senate race, which has pitted his base against Washington Republicans who have warned the president that Paxton would be a uniquely vulnerable candidate after years of legal and ethical scandals, including impeachment by his own party though he was ultimately acquitted in the Senate.
Texas voters are casting ballots for a slate of other federal, state and local offices. As a result of redistricting, two sitting members of Congress are squaring off in the primary for congressional district 18, in what has become a referendum on generational change.
Representative Christian Menefee, 37, who is just weeks into his first term, is now facing off against Representative Al Green, 78, who has served for more than two decades. On the Republican side, Representative Dan Crenshaw is potentially vulnerable to a rightwing challenge from state representative Steve Toth in the second congressional district while Congressman Tony Gonzales is facing calls for his resignation from fellow Republicans after allegations of an affair with a former staffer who later killed herself. He has resisted calls to resign.<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nominees for key Senate seat to be set while voters choose in congressional contests reshaped by GOP gerrymanderThe first votes of the 2026 midterm cycle will be cast on Tuesday, with a pair of high-stakes US Senate primaries in Texas that will test both parties\u2019 appetite for political change in the Trump era.Voters across the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":202310,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-202309","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-us","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}