Today is
Friday June 05, 2026
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AUSTIN (AP) – As Texas waits on President Donald Trump’s promised endorsement, Sen. John Cornyn isn’t holding back on his runoff opponent in the Republican primary.
His campaign is releasing a new video Thursday with a litany of ethical and personal accusations against state Attorney General Ken Paxton. It’s an initial salvo in a second round of campaigning that could be even more bitter and expensive than the first.
The video revisits issues like Paxton’s impeachment trial on corruption charges, which ended in an acquittal but exposed an extramarital affair, and a state fraud indictment for securities fraud, which Paxton resolved with a plea deal without admitting guilt.
Cornyn’s team said it’s spending tens of thousands of dollars to keep the video in front of voters’ eyes. It’s pocket change in a race where spending surpassed $110 million before Tuesday, but a possible foreshadowing of a future deluge if the six-minute clip is edited into television spots.
Trump did not endorse a candidate in the primary, frustrating Republicans who fear that they’re wasting time and resources in Texas that could be devoted to more competitive battleground states. The president said Wednesday that he would weigh in on the May 26 runoff and expect the candidate without his endorsement to drop out, but he hasn’t announced a decision.
Cornyn narrowly finished first in the primary that ended on Tuesday, but he did not cross the 50%-plus threshold necessary to avoid a runoff. U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt finished third and was disqualified.
Party leaders are pushing for Cornyn, a stalwart incumbent seeking his fifth term, and warn that Paxton has too much baggage to be successful in a November general election against James Talarico, the Democratic nominee.
But Paxton has proven resilient to attacks over the years, and he’s fashioned himself as a political warrior for Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement. He told conservative influencer Benny Johnson that he wouldn’t drop out, no matter what happens with the endorsement.
“I’m going to give people in Texas a choice,” Paxton said. “The people in Washington can have their own opinion. The president can have his own opinion.”
Paxton made a different offer on social media. There, he said he would consider dropping out if Senate Republican leaders lifted the filibuster to pass legislation supported by Trump to create strict new proof-of-citizenship requirements for voting. The proposal has stalled in the Senate.
Trump appeared frustrated by Paxton’s intransigence.
“That is bad for him,” he told Politico. “So maybe, maybe that leads me to go the other direction.”
The president previously wrote on social media that he would endorse a Texas candidate because the divisive contest cannot “be allowed to go on any longer.”
AUSTIN (AP) — Newly released police body camera footage shows bargoers and pedestrians fleeing and ducking for cover in the moments after a gunman began firing outside a Texas bar, leaving three dead in what is being investigated as potential terrorism.
“Everybody down!” one officer yells. “Where is he?”
The terrifying moments captured on video by officers and surveillance cameras that were released Thursday show how the shooting that wounded more than a dozen others unfolded quickly early Sunday in downtown Austin’s entertainment district.
Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis said officers arrived within 56 seconds of the first 911 call, shooting and killing the suspect after he fired at police.
Davis said the investigation is ongoing and would not discuss a possible motive for the shooting that erupted a day after the U.S. and Israel launched an attack on Iran.
The FBI has said it’s investigating the shooting as a potential act of terrorism and a law enforcement official told The Associated Press that the gunman was wearing clothes with an Iranian flag design and bearing the words “Property of Allah.”
Police have identified the gunman as 53-year-old Ndiaga Diagne and say he legally bought the pistol and rifle that he used in the attack outside Buford’s Backyard Beer Garden. The venue is on Sixth Street, a nightlife destination filled with bars and music clubs close to the University of Texas at Austin..
Authorities now know 19 people were hit by gunfire, including the three who died, Davis said Thursday. One person remains in critical condition.
Most of those who were shot were outside the bar, including one victim who was waiting for a ride, she said.
Screaming and shouts of “get down” can be heard on a 911 call released Thursday. “There has been a shooting at Buford’s,” one caller said. “There are people dead over here. We need help right now.”
Diagne was not on the radar of authorities before he opened fire early Sunday. Davis said investigators have found he was the subject of a mental health-related welfare check, possibly in 2022, by an agency elsewhere.
He fired the first shots from his SUV then parked his vehicle and emerged with a rifle, police said. He shot another person before officers rushed to the intersection and shot and killed him, Davis said.
Jorge Pederson, 30, an aspiring mixed martial arts fighter, died from his gunshot wounds Monday. He had just moved to Texas from Minnesota. His former gym, the Academy Martial Arts Gym, said in a Facebook post that he brought “light and joy into the grueling work of training.”
Also killed were 21-year-old Savitha Shan and 19-year-old Ryder Harrington.
Shan, a business student at the University of Texas at Austin, had a job waiting for her at a consulting firm, her family said in a statement released through the university. It said she was an only child and described her death as “profoundly unfair.”
Harrington had attended Texas Tech University through last fall, and his former fraternity brothers at Beta Theta Pi recalled in an Instagram post his ability to “make ordinary days unforgettable.”
TEXAS – Fuel prices continue to climb across the U.S., with gasoline surging toward its highest level since 2024 and diesel pushing to fresh multi-year highs.
As of 8 a.m. ET, the national average price of gasoline stands at $3.246 per gallon. That’s now just 1.4 cents shy of its highest national average since 2024 — and, based on GasBuddy’s tracking, the highest national average so far during President Trump’s two terms.
Gasoline: A Fast Move Higher — and It’s Starting to Add Up
The national average is now up 26.1 cents per gallon from a week ago, an unusually strong weekly climb.
That matters because even “a quarter per gallon” adds up quickly at a national scale. With U.S. gasoline demand at seasonal levels, a +26.1¢/gal increase implies Americans are collectively spending about:
~$95 million more per day on gasoline versus a week ago (roughly, based on current demand)
If prices remain elevated and/or continue rising as expected, the incremental cost can approach hundreds of millions of dollars per week — and could move closer to the $1B/week range if the national average climbs further or demand strengthens as we move deeper into spring.
The Increases Are Broad — Not Isolated
This isn’t just a one-region story. Price gains are widespread:
12 states are up 30 cents or more from a week ago
29 states are up 25 cents or more
39 states are up 20 cents or more
49 states are up 10 cents or more
Hawaii is the lone outlier, where prices are up only a few cents so far.
What’s Next for Gasoline
From here, I still see room for the national average to rise another 10–15 cents per gallon over the next week or so, to $3.30-$3.45/gal as retail continues catching up to wholesale increases.
Seasonal pressure could also build again in mid-March, when another step in the transition to summer gasoline typically increases production costs and can tighten supply in some regions.
That said, we’ve already seen the pace of rise slow down, and as we get closer to the weekend, I expect the pace of gasoline increases to slow further— not reversing, but climbing less aggressively once the market finishes absorbing the initial run-up.
Diesel: The Bigger Story Right Now
Diesel is where the stress is showing more clearly.
The national average price of diesel is now $4.124 per gallon, the highest level since December 2023 — which is more than two years ago (about 27 months).
Diesel has surged nearly 40 cents in the last week, and the speed is notable:
Roughly +37–40¢ in a week
One of the top ten fastest weekly increases in GasBuddy’s diesel history going back to 2005
The largest diesel surge since the 2022 energy crisis (based on weekly/monthly change comparisons)
An especially striking move: about 38 cents in just four days
Why Diesel Is Spiking More Than Gasoline
The diesel market is simply tighter, and with drone attacks on a Saudi refinery, Qatar shutting down natural gas production, boosting heating oil use, and lower U.S. inventories amidst cold weather, diesel has out-rallied gasoline.
Diesel is driven less by commuter demand and more by:
freight and trucking
industrial activity
agriculture
construction
global distillate flows
When distillates tighten, they can move faster and stay elevated longer — and that’s what we’re seeing now.
My expectation is that diesel may continue to climb into early next week, even if gasoline’s pace cools sooner. Diesel often lags on the way down, too.
Bottom Line
Gasoline is moving quickly and broadly higher, with the national average approaching a 2024 high and rising 26 cents in a week. Diesel is moving even faster, reaching its highest level since December 2023 after a weekly surge that ranks among the steepest in decades of GasBuddy tracking.
The near-term outlook:
Gasoline: increases likely continue, but the pace may slow by the weekend
Diesel: may keep climbing into early next week
SMITH COUNTY — A wreck involving a car and a motorcycle Thursday morning left the rider in critical condition. According to our news partner KETK, Smith County ESD2 said the wreck happened around 7:08 a.m. at the intersection of Highway 155 and FM 2868 near Noonday. The motorcyclist was taken to a hospital in critical condition following the wreck. Two people in the passenger car were not injured.
(THE TEXAS TRIBUNE) – Nearly one in four registered voters in Texas cast a ballot in Tuesday’s primaries, a high-water mark for midterm elections in the state’s recent history, driven by electrifying momentum surrounding both parties’ races for U.S. Senate.
In all, nearly 4.5 million Texans voted across the Democratic and Republican primaries, according to unofficial numbers on the Texas Secretary of State’s Office as of 8 a.m. Thursday. The turnout was divided between 2.3 million ballots in the Democratic primary and nearly 2.2 million on the Republican side; it was the first time with higher Democratic turnout since 2020, when voters flocked to weigh in on the party’s open presidential primary.
The energy across both parties this year was clear from the start. In the first seven days of early voting, the state recorded more ballots cast than in any recent midterm or presidential election year. There are roughly 18.7 million registered voters in the state.
The higher turnout on the Democratic side, despite the draw of spicy contests at the top for both parties’ ballots, has helped fuel Democrats’ hopes that backlash to President Donald Trump’s policies could propel them to their first statewide win since 1994.
Should that become reality, the political trophy could be claimed by their nominee for Senate, state Rep. James Talarico, who Democratic voters selected over U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Dallas. Meanwhile Republicans sent two party stalwarts, incumbent Sen. John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton, into a runoff to decide who will face Talarico in November.
Democratic turnout was significantly higher than in 2018, the last midterm when Trump was in office. That March, about 7 percent of registered voters cast a ballot in the Democratic primary, compared to 12 percent in this year’s intraparty contest. That November, then-Congressman Beto O’Rourke of El Paso came within 2.6 points of unseating GOP U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.
A geographic analysis of turnout suggests there was political energy propelling voters to the polls virtually throughout the state. Nearly two-thirds of Texas counties — 158 of 254 — saw higher percentages of their registered voting population participate in either the Democratic and Republican primary this year compared to the 2022 primary, the most recent midterm.
About 17% and 18% of registered voters participated in the 2018 and 2022 primaries, respectively, compared to about 24% this year, according to the latest unofficial figures Wednesday afternoon.
The widespread propulsion was laid bare in the Tribune’s geographic analysis, which found the highest turnout came in the state’s solidly red counties — from bigger population centers like Lubbock County to the many sparsely populated rural counties — along with the fast-growing suburban counties such as Tarrant and Fort Bend.
Both saw turnout north of 25%, followed closely by the nearly 24% clip in the biggest liberal counties. Turnout was lowest — 16% — in the border counties, though all four geographic buckets saw an increase in turnout rate from four years ago.
To be sure, there were far fewer competitive races in 2022 — when the gubernatorial contest was the top statewide draw — compared to barnburner Senate and down-ballot races during this year’s primaries. Voters on Tuesday also picked nominees for an unusually large number competitive statewide offices.
Learn about The Texas Tribune’s policies, including our partnership with The Trust Project to increase transparency in news. To see this article in its original form, go to The Texas Tribune.
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LONE STAR (KETK) – An East Texas woman was arrested in February after it was discovered that she provided THC to a Daingerfield Junior High School student. According to the Lone Star Police Department and our news partner KETK, on Feb. 24, officers were called to Daingerfield Junior High School to take a report of a child abuse case involving a student. After officers filed the report, Child Protective Services was contacted the next day and conducted an interview with one of the students involved in the case.
During the interview, officials said a cookie tin containing THC gummies was found in the student’s possession, leading to the arrest of Cynthia Shaffer, who had provided the drugs to the student. Shaffer was charged with the manufacture and delivery of a controlled substance and the delivery of a controlled substance to a child.
ONALASKA (KETK) — An Onalaska Elementary School teacher was arrested on Tuesday night for possession of child pornography and unwanted contact against a juvenile.
Mugshot of Jerry Cobb, courtesy of Angelina County Sheriff’s Office.
According to the Onalaska Police Department, they were notified on Feb. 11 of an incident involving Jerry Cobb, 47, who had made unwanted contact against a juvenile. During the investigation, several adults and juveniles were interviewed.
The police department was able to establish probable cause for warrants of two counts of misdemeanor A assault and one count of a third degree felony of possession of child pornography.
On Tuesday night, the Angelina County Sheriff’s Office located and arrested Cobb. He was booked into the Angelina County Jail with a $15,000 bond.
Cobb is currently on administrative leave and Onalaska ISD released a statement on Wednesday addressing the arrest.
“It is our goal to communicate as fully as possible while not impeding an open investigation, nor violating personnel confidentiality requirements and state law,” the school district said.
The police department said that none of the images Cobb possessed included any juveniles from the Onalaska community. The investigation is still active and has been forwarded to the Polk County District Attorney’s Office for prosecution.
(KETK) – President Trump said the Texas Republican Senate candidate that does not get his endorsement should drop out of the race, announcing on Wednesday that he will throw his weight behind the race “soon.”
In a lengthy TruthSocial post, Trump argued that the GOP primary race in the Lone Star State “cannot, for the good of the Party, and our Country, itself, be allowed to go on any longer.”
“IT MUST STOP NOW! We have an easy to beat, Radical Left Opponent, and we have to TOTALLY FOCUS on putting him away, quickly and decisively! Both John [Cornyn] and Ken [Paxton] ran great races, but not good enough. Now, this one, must be PERFECT!” he continued.
“My Endorsements within the Republican Party have been virtually insurmountable! It is such an honor to realize and say that almost everyone I Endorse WINS, and wins by a lot, especially in Texas! I will be making my Endorsement soon, and will be asking the candidate that I don’t Endorse to immediately DROP OUT OF THE RACE! Is that fair? We must win in November!!!” he said.
The party’s Senate primary went to a runoff on Tuesday after neither Attorney General Ken Paxton or Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) were able to win a majority of the electorate. A run off election is scheduled for late May.
According to the latest results on Monday, Cornyn led Paxton 41.9 percent to 40.7 percent.
Trump held off on endorsing in the primary, noting he had good relationships with all of the candidates, including Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Texas), who did not advance to the runoff.
LUFKIN — 
A man injured in a stabbing in a Lufkin parking lot Sunday evening led to the arrest of one, Lufkin city officials said. Lufkin police responded around 5:30 p.m. to a report of a stabbing in the 4500 block of South Melford Drive. Officers found the victim, a 32-year-old man, with a wound to his upper back and a woman applying pressure to the injury. Police assisted until emergency medical services arrived, according to our news partners at KETK. Surveillance footage from nearby stores showed the victim and a another man, identified as 30-year-old Justin William Benton, preparing to fight. Benton appeared to cut the victim in the back before leaving the scene. Benton was arrested and booked into Angelina County Jail for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. He was released on Monday after posting bail.
TEXAS – 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, according to the Texas Tribune.
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.
Two Trump-backed state representatives, Reps. Cecil Bell and Stan Kitzman, also lost reelection by decisive margins. Bell and Kitzman were among the more than 100 members of the Texas Legislature who received a blanket endorsement from Trump last year as a reward for voting for Abbott’s priority legislation on school vouchers.
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.
AUSTIN (AP) – The first round of primary elections is showing how this year’s midterms will be taking place on shifting political ground for incumbents.
That was particularly true in Texas — the first state to redraw its congressional districts last year — where two incumbent members of Congress have been pushed to a runoff and another has been scuttled from the House altogether.
Democratic Rep. Al Green, an outspoken liberal who has twice been ejected from President Donald Trump’s State of the Union addresses for protesting, and newly elected Rep. Christian Menefee will compete in the May 26 runoff for a Houston-area district.
Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a Republican and former Navy SEAL with an independent streak, faced attacks from the party’s hard right that he was not in lockstep with Trump, and was the state’s only House Republican not to win the president’s endorsement. He lost to Steve Toth, a Republican state lawmaker who received late backing from Sen. Ted Cruz.
Incumbents also are in close races in Texas and North Carolina that were too early to call early Wednesday.
A look at where things stand after Tuesday’s primaries:
The unusual primary between two sitting Democratic congressmen in Texas was the result of redrawn voting maps that Trump ordered ahead of November’s midterm elections. Green, 78, switched to run in the newly redrawn 18th Congressional District after his current district was redrawn to favor Republicans.
Menefee, 37, was sworn in to Congress only a month ago after winning a special election to fill the remaining term of Rep. Sylvester Turner, who died last year. For some Houston voters, Tuesday’s primary was their third time casting ballots in a congressional race in four months, sowing confusion.
Green, who was first elected to the U.S. House in 2004, is one of his party’s most outspoken Trump critics and filed articles of impeachment during the president’s first term.
The primary is one of the generational competitions among Democrats this year, as younger candidates argue it’s time for a new crop of party leaders. Green has faced concerns from within the party, which is increasingly unwilling to defer to seniority.
Crenshaw ousted by Toth
Crenshaw, seeking his fifth term in Texas’ 2nd Congressional District, was the state’s only House Republican whom Trump didn’t endorse heading into the nation’s first big primary of 2026.
The former Navy SEAL, whose independent streak sometimes clashed with fellow Republicans, spent the primary trying to fend off attacks from the party’s hard right that he wasn’t in step with Trump’s agenda.
Toth, a state representative and member of the GOP’s hard-right caucus in the Legislature, picked up a big endorsement late in the primary from Cruz.
“This campaign has been a referendum on representatives who campaign one way and govern another, and the people have spoken,” Toth said in a statement after his victory.
Crenshaw, who lost his right eye when he was hit with an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan in 2012, had clashed with Cruz over the senator’s support of Trump’s unfounded claim that he won the 2020 presidential election.
He was one of the few Texas Republican candidates for Congress in 2022 who acknowledged that President Joe Biden’s victory in 2020 was legitimate, a position that occasionally found him at odds with fellow Republicans.
Crenshaw also drew the ire of conservatives when a video clip went viral of him criticizing some Republican politicians as “grifters” and “performance artists” who simply tell conservative voters what they want to hear.
AUSTIN (AP) — James Talarico did not mention Donald Trump when he greeted exuberant supporters at his primary night celebration.
But the newly minted Democratic U.S. Senate nominee in Texas is now a front man for the political opposition to the Republican president, not just in his own state but around the country. With his victory over U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, the state lawmaker from Austin will test whether a smiling message of unity and change is enough to answer voters’ frustrations amid discord at home and now a war abroad.
“We are not just trying to win an election,” Talarico told supporters in the Texas capital early Wednesday. “We are trying to fundamentally change our politics, and it’s working.”
The campaign provided “Love thy Neighbor” signs to people in the crowd.
The question for Talarico as he heads into the general election campaign is whether he can generate enthusiasm from voters who opted for Crockett because they saw her as the more aggressive fighter against Trump. Crockett conceded to Talarico on Wednesday morning, saying that “Texas is primed to turn blue and we must remain united because this is bigger than any one person.”
Talarico was endorsed by Kamala Harris, the party’s 2024 presidential nominee who had backed Crockett in the primary.
Democrats’ long losing streak in Texas
Talarico will need all the help he can get in a Republican-dominated state where Democrats have gone three decades without winning a statewide race. He will face either U.S. Sen. John Cornyn or state Attorney General Ken Paxton, who advanced to a Republican runoff on Tuesday.
Conventional political wisdom has it that Talarico was the stronger Democratic candidate for November, especially if Republicans nominate Paxton, a conservative firebrand who has weathered allegations of corruption and infidelity over the years.
Although Democrats are often choosing between moderate and progressive candidates in primaries, they faced a largely stylistic choice in Texas.
Talarico, 36, is a Presbyterian seminarian who quotes Scripture and rarely raises his voice. Crockett, 44, is an unapologetic political brawler who hammers Trump and other Republicans with acidic flourish.
Both have been reliably progressive votes in their current roles and telegenic faces across cable news and social media. Both represent generational change for a party with aging leadership. Each called for a more equitable economy and society. Each talked about reaching sporadic voters.
But Talarico’s broader argument is one that he could have made regardless of whether Trump was in the White House. Talarico’s campaign, he said often, is about addressing a country whose fundamental divide is not partisan but “top vs. bottom.” He regularly assails the rise in Christian nationalism. A former teacher, he has advocated for public education –- and against Texas conservatives’ policies to restrict curriculum and reshape how U.S. history is taught.
“He’s just a good friend and he’s a serious advocate for the disenfranchised and a serious policymaker,” said Lea Downey Gallatin, 40, an Austin resident who became friends with Talarico when they interned together for a congressman.
Talarico aims to broaden the party’s Texas base
Crockett promised Democrats that she could increase turnout within the party’s base, while Talarico campaigned on the theory that he could pull new people into the party’s tent.
“I can’t tell you how many have come up to me, whispering that they’re not a Democrat,” Talarico said as he campaigned in San Antonio in the closing days of the primary campaign. “I can’t tell you how many young people have said it’s the first time that they’ve ever voted, and that they are participating for the first time.”
As he strolled through the city, Talarico posed for pictures and greeted the singer of a Tejano band playing nearby. He later spoke to hundreds of people at the historic Stable Hall, a 130-year-old circular structure built for showing horses and now a converted event center. Hundreds more, unable to get into the full event, wound around the corner and along the sidewalk for blocks.
Inside, Lori Alvarez, a 39-year-old who works for a disaster relief nonprofit, said she supported Talarico because “he really listens to what we need.”
“I think he’s going to be able to make change in Washington for us,” said the married mother of three young girls.
Yet that was not what attracted so many voters to Crockett.
Crockett’s voters must decide whether Talarico is a fighter
Troy Burrow, a 61-year-old Navy retiree, called Crockett “rugged” and “the only one I see fighting for us.”
He added: “I like how she doesn’t back down from anybody.”
Burrow said some voters probably saw Talarico as more electable because he is more soft-spoken. But, he said, “We’ve got to get into the gutter with these folks, because that’s where they are.”
Unofficial primary returns showed Talarico with a dominating performance around his home base of Austin, including in mostly white areas. He outpaced Crockett across much of rural and small-town Texas, including in the Rio Grande Valley, where Trump made gains in his 2024 presidential victory among Hispanic voters. Crockett was strongest in metro Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth, including areas with large concentrations of Black voters.
Crockett is Black. Talarico is white.
A Democratic win in Texas would require stitching together that multiracial and multiethnic coalition, spanning the metro areas and heavily Latino South and West Texas, while limiting GOP margins in whiter rural counties.
In 2018, Democrat Beto O’Rourke came the closest to that mix, losing to Republican Sen. Ted Cruz by about 215,000 votes or about 2.5 percentage points. With both parties holding competitive primaries Tuesday, Democratic primary voters outnumbered Republicans by more than 110,000 out of almost 4.4 million — with some ballots still being tallied. Because Texas does not have party registration and allows voters to choose either party’s primary ballot, Democrats saw their advantage as a sign of enthusiasm beyond the party’s usual base.
Talarico, meanwhile, keeps fighting his own way.
“Tonight, the people of our state gave this country a little bit of hope,” he said Tuesday, “and a little bit of hope is a dangerous thing.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House Ethics Committee said Wednesday that it has opened an investigation of Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, over allegations that include having an affair with an aide.
The top Republican and Democratic members on the committee said in a joint statement that an investigative panel would look into whether Gonzales engaged in sexual misconduct toward an employee in his office and whether he discriminated unfairly by dispensing special favors or privileges.
Gonzales’ office did not immediately reply to a request for comment from The Associated Press.
The congressman, now in his third term, has said he would not step down in response to the allegations, telling reporters at the Capitol recently that there will be opportunities for all the details and facts to come out.
“What you’ve seen is not all the facts,” Gonzales said.
Gonzales, a father of six, first won his seat in 2020 after retiring from a 20-year career in the Navy that included time in Iraq and Afghanistan. On Tuesday, he was forced into a May runoff against Brandon Herrera, a gun manufacturer and YouTube gun-rights influencer who narrowly lost to Gonzales in the 2024 primary.
The San Antonio Express-News reported that it had obtained text messages in which the former Gonzales staffer, Regina Ann Santos-Aviles, wrote to a colleague that she had an affair with the congressman.
The AP has not independently obtained copies of the messages. A lawyer for Adrian Aviles, Santos-Aviles’ husband, has said the husband found out about the affair before his wife’s death.
Santos-Aviles, 35, died in September 2025 after setting herself on fire in the backyard of her home in Uvalde, Texas. The Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office later ruled her death a suicide.