Moderate Democratic candidates and Trumpists prevail in Texas primaries for the House

Rarely have state primaries in the United States garnered so much attention. This Tuesday, North Carolina, Arkansas and Texas kicked off the midterm election year with the first ballots to determine each party’s nominees for the November elections. Among these, eight months before the midterms in which the entire House of Representatives and a third of the Senate are up for election, the Texas primaries have captured the most attention in the American political arena. Several races in the state of over 30 million residents are being viewed as an ideological barometer for both sides, in anticipation of a long and bitter campaign that, by all accounts, will revolve around the rejection or support of President Donald Trump’s policies.

The Texas Senate primaries have been among the most expensive in history, and clearly reflect the internal ideological divisions within each party. The Democratic primary pitted Democrats James Talarico, a more moderate candidate, against Jasmine Crockett, from the party’s more progressive wing. Talarico prevailed in the end by a small margin with a message focused on “love” and consensus-seeking. In the GOP, Jon Cornyn, a senator in Washington since 2002 and a traditional Republican, will face off against Ken Paxton, the controversial Texas state attorney general and ally of President Trump, in a runoff in May, as neither candidate secured more than 50% of the vote.

However, several races to choose House candidates for Texas’s 38 congressional districts have also garnered considerable attention. On the Democratic side, the nomination of Tejano music singer Bobby Pulido has been confirmed in District 15, which runs from San Antonio to the Mexican border. The two-time Latin Grammy winner defeated Ada Cuéllar by more than 30 points and will now seek to unseat Mónica de la Cruz, the current representative of a district that had always voted Democratic until opting for the Republican party for the first time in 2022 amid a Trump wave.

While Pulido was the clear favorite against emergency room physician Cuéllar, largely due to his personal brand, the race was seen as an indirect reflection of the party’s Senate primary: Talarico had endorsed Pulido, while Crockett had supported Cuéllar. In this area, where roughly 90% of the population is Hispanic, the outcome and voter turnout are also seen as a barometer of this electorate, especially after their unexpected support for Trump in the last presidential election.

On the other hand, the extraordinary redistricting efforts to benefit Republicans approved last year has left several current Democratic congressmembers in the same districts, forcing them to battle each other to be nominated in November. For example, in District 18 in Houston, a contest between newly elected Christian Menefee, former Harris County prosecutor, and veteran Congressman Al Green has presented voters with the option of a generational change. In the end, voters chose Menefee, 37, over Green, a vocal critic of the president who has been in the Hose since 2005.

In District 33, encompassing Dallas and Fort Worth, a similar situation has unfolded. Following a radical redistricting effort by Republicans, two established Democratic politicians in the state have been forced to face off for the nomination. The contest was between incumbent Congresswoman Julie Johnson and former Representative and Senate candidate—who lost to Ted Cruz in 2024—Colin Allred. After a campaign focused on the politicians’ corporate funding and past endorsements, Allred emerged victorious by more than 10 points in a race that also highlighted the same strategic tensions within the party between moderation and more overt progressivism.

On the Republican side, in the enormous 23rd District, which stretches hundreds of miles from El Paso to San Antonio, incumbent Republican Representative Tony Gonzales faced the most turbulent challenge of his career, attacked by allegations of an alleged affair with a former employee who later committed suicide. His rival, gun influencer Brandon Herrera, known as “TheAKGuy,” used that controversy to argue that Gonzales would be vulnerable in November. In spite of this, Gonzales won the race by around four points.

And in the Houston area, in District 2, Congressman Dan Crenshaw, a former Navy SEAL who wears a distinctive eye patch and has been critical of the Trump administration, also faced an internal challenge in these primaries. His opponent, State Representative Steve Toth, backed by conservatives and Senator Ted Cruz, has tried to portray Crenshaw, a foreign policy hawk, as insufficiently loyal to the Trump agenda. In that sense, this race has been described as a test of the president’s popularity among his base in a state that strongly supported him in 2014, and Toth’s convincing victory indicates that Trumpism is still alive and well here.

Back in the Rio Grande Valley, as the southeasternmost region of Texas is known, in District 34, there was another close race among conservatives. Eric Flores, a former federal prosecutor and Army veteran backed by President Trump, and Mayra Flores, who won the congressional seat in a 2022 special election, vied for the right to challenge Democrat Vicente Gonzalez, who has been in Congress since 2017, though in his early terms he represented District 15. Here, too, Trump-backed candidate Eric Flores won by a margin of more than 20 points.

Taken together, these Texas primaries have not only defined candidacies. They also offer clues as to which messages—from loyalty to Trump, positions on his immigration agenda, or debates about Israel or corporate financing—resonate with voters in a key state heading into November.

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