Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) will be in the fight of his political life Tuesday, as he looks to defy the odds and defeat Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who clinched an endorsement from President Trump, in the Senate GOP runoff.
The last-minute support tees up another test of Trump’s influence in a Republican primary. The president has already successfully picked off several detractors, including Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.).
While the Senate race is the Lone Star State’s marquee runoff, other widely watched races have come down to a final pair of candidates who did not win half of the vote outright in March. One of those is the heated Democratic primary between Reps. Al Green and Christian Menefee for a Houston-area House seat that’s turned into a proxy battle over generational change.
Meanwhile, former Rep. Colin Allred (D-Texas) is challenging his successor, Rep. Julie Johnson (D-Texas), for a Dallas-based House seat.
Here are the races to watch in Texas’s primary runoffs:
Senate Republican primary
Voters must decide whether to rally behind the Trump-backed Paxton for Cornyn’s Senate seat in the Lone Star State or buck the president and put the senior senator one step closer to a fifth term.
Cornyn, who’s sought to align himself with Trump while overcoming pushback for his past criticism of the president, placed first in the initial March 3 GOP primary for his seat at 42 percent support.
Paxton, who’s argued he’s the more authentic Trump-aligned candidate and has questioned Cornyn’s conservative bona fides, placed at a close second at nearly 41 percent support. Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Texas) served as a spoiler candidate, forcing Cornyn and Paxton into the Tuesday runoff.
After months of teasing a potential endorsement, Trump on Tuesday made a last-minute endorsement for the embattled state attorney general, causing a seismic shift in the primary.
The senior senator is pushing forward, as he and his allies argue that Paxton’s controversies, including a Texas House impeachment trial on corruption charges that he was later acquitted of in the state Senate, have made some Republicans concerned he could be a liability in the general election against Democratic candidate James Talarico.
But Cornyn’s reelection bid appears uncertain. In recent weeks alone, Trump has been able to oust several Republicans who have split with him on different priorities.
18th Congressional District Democratic primary
Texas is front and center in the conversation around generational change this cycle, with the contest pitting Menefee, a 38-year-old, first-term lawmaker, against Green, a 78-year-old incumbent who’s drawn national attention over his public rebukes of the president.
The congressmen were forced into an uncomfortable member-on-member primary for the Houston-area 18th Congressional District after Texas Republicans redrew their congressional lines at the urging of Trump and national Republicans to gain a handful of pickup opportunities in the House.
Menefee was unable to fend off Green entirely in the March primary, placing first at 46 percent support to Green’s 44 percent.
Menefee suggested the race is not about age but “effectiveness” in a recent interview with KHOU 11 and has said he’s heard from community members who say they “want the torch to be passed.” Green, however, has argued he has the seniority and experience needed for the job.
The senior lawmaker has also criticized the involvement of the crypto industry, which has supported Menefee in the race.
A poll from the University of Houston’s Hobby School of Public Affairs this month showed Menefee at 50 percent support and Green at 43 percent, with a separate 7 percent of respondents undecided. Whoever wins the Democratic primary will be considered the favorite to win in November.
33rd Congressional District’s Democratic primary
Johnson and Allred are facing off in an awkward head-to-head contest, after Allred dropped his Senate bid and decided to run again for a newly drawn House seat in the Dallas area, launching a primary challenge against the lawmaker who succeeded him in Congress.
Allred won 44 percent of the vote, with Johnson in second place at 33 percent in March. The former congressman has gone after his successor over her Palantir stock trades. Palantir is a major federal contractor for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which has become a flash point in the midterms, particularly after ICE was involved in two separate fatal shootings of U.S. citizens.
“If you say you’re going to stand up to this administration, you can’t also be profiting from it,” Allred told CBS News Texas in an interview earlier this month.
Johnson, meanwhile, has alleged that Allred has falsely characterized her stock trades, telling CBS News Texas in a separate interview aired earlier in May that “everyone knows I’ve had independent money managers. I immediately sold the Palantir stock when I became aware that we had it, and I made $90 on it.”
She suggested Allred had made those inaccurate statements “because he doesn’t have a record to run on,” and she noted he has taken shots over several votes he took over immigration while in Congress. Allred told CBS News Texas that those votes took place while former President Biden was in office, at which time ICE was “a very different” agency.
Given the district is reliably blue, whoever wins the Democratic primary will be the favorite to win in November.
Texas attorney general Republican primary
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) and state Sen. Mayes Middleton (R) are squaring off Tuesday to succeed Paxton as the state’s top prosecutor.
Middleton and Roy advanced to the runoff in a field that included two other Republicans, including Paxton’s preferred pick, former Justice Department official Aaron Reitz.
There’s little daylight between Middleton and Roy, who are both considered very conservative Republicans. Roy has leaned into his background, noting he’s served as a federal prosecutor and as first assistant attorney general in Texas under Paxton. Meanwhile, Middleton has argued that his wealth means he “can’t be bought or rented” and noted that he has championed conservative causes throughout his time as a state lawmaker.
Trump has notably not weighed in on the primary. Roy has drawn the president’s ire in the past for bucking him on some of his policy priorities, and he was among a slim few to initially back Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis during his 2024 Republican presidential primary bid, before the governor dropped out.
Middleton has questioned Roy’s conservative bona fides over his breaks with Trump on certain issues.
“Chip Roy is someone that’s spent a decade — a career — fighting President Trump, opposing him again and again in every election,” the GOP state senator told CBS Austin in an interview Thursday.
Roy, meanwhile, has said that sometimes his job involves disagreeing with whoever’s in office, even when they’re from the same party.
“You need somebody who’s demonstrated strength and independence,” Roy told The Texas Tribune in an interview in February. “We’ve got to defend the state of Texas, defend our borders, defend our streets, keep it safe and defend ourselves against the federal government interfering with us, no matter who’s there.”
Texas’s 9th Congressional District GOP primary
Alex Mealer, a former oil and gas finance executive and combat veteran, is running against state Rep. Briscoe Cain after a crowded GOP primary that included seven other candidates forced the pair into a runoff for the newly drawn 9th Congressional District.
The Houston-area House seat is one of five that Republicans reshaped in their mid-decade redistricting efforts to eliminate five Democratic seats; the 9th Congressional District previously belonged to Green.
Several notable players have weighed in on the race: Trump, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) and House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) are backing Mealer, while Gov. Greg Abbott (R), former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and Reps. Lance Gooden (R-Texas) and Pete Sessions (R-Texas), among others, are backing Cain.
Polling released by the University of Houston’s Hobby School of Public Affairs this month found Mealer holding a 9-point lead over Cain, with 9 percent of respondents undecided.
Trump would have won the new district by 20 points in 2024, according to Spectrum News.
