The NPR Politics Podcast - What to watch in the Texas Senate race

Episode Date: February 10, 2026

Texas Sen. John Cornyn, running for his fifth term, is locked in a competitive Republican primary contest. Meanwhile, some Democrats think they can flip the seat, electing a Democrat to represent Texas in the Senate for the first time since 1988. We discuss what to watch in the heated primaries as voters begin casting their ballots next week.This episode: voting correspondent Miles Parks, political correspondent Ashley Lopez, and Houston Public Media senior reporter Andrew Schneider.This podcast was produced by Casey Morell and Bria Suggs, and edited by Rachel Baye.Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast for Tuesday, February 10th, 2026. I'm Miles Parks, and I cover voting. And I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics. And Andrew Schneider of Houston Public Media is also here with us today. Hi, Andrew. Hello. And today on the show, we are talking Texas, where early voting in the primary elections for this year's midterms starts next week. And we're going to start today with the Senate race because primary races for both parties are shaping up to be really interesting. And Andrew, I want to start with Republicans. This is John. On Corny's seat, he's been in office for more than 20 years. Who's challenging him? Right. So he's actually being challenged by two candidates. One is Ken Paxton, who's been the state attorney general for 11 years. Then there's Wesley Hunt, who's a two-term Houston area congressman and West Point graduate. Both of them have been making the arguments that they are the true conservatives in this race and that Cornyn is out of step with the party and the country. And Cornyn is sort of a more old-school Republican. Is that right? I mean, he came into office, you know, more than 20 years ago. I think of him as more of the sort of George W. Bush Republican versus the sort of MAGA Republican. Is that a fair assessment? I think that would be a fair assessment, although he has made the point repeatedly that he has voted almost entirely according to President Trump's priorities in Congress. And he's been making that point as he comes under attack from both. and Hunt over past statements that suggested less than full-throated support of the president. Got it. Well, Paxton's really interesting here, Ashley. We've talked about him on this podcast before.

He has made a lot of statements as Attorney General that have made news, but he also has some personal baggage for lack of a better term. Can you explain that? Yeah, I mean, Ken Paxton is arguably one of the most controversial, at least interesting figures in Texas politics. And I can say this is someone who covered Texas politics for many years, mostly because, he has been mired in legal trouble pretty much his entire tenure as the Texas Attorney General, which I should mention, is basically the top law enforcement official for the state. He has faced allegations of corruption. He was impeached by the House, but acquitted by the Senate, which means he wasn't removed and he was allowed to stay in office. There were whistleblowers and were among his allies. Basically, he has had to weather through a lot of allegations and court cases, but he has seemed to come out of it fairly unscathed for now, which is what I I think has prompted him to seek higher office now, is that a lot of the legal troubles that have plagued him for the past 10 years, a lot of them, there's either been a resolution through dealmaking or investigations and cases have been dropped so far.

I mean, this is all not to even mention. He had a very public divorce from a Texas lawmaker, right? And I guess I wonder how much of this is the sort of Trump era we're in where somebody like Ken Paxton, who's dealing with this myriad of different sort of issues in the public eye is still able to say, nope, I am going to run for office and have a real shot. You know, after President Trump was impeached multiple times and then was able to win the presidency, I guess I wonder if that was a game changer for other candidates as well. Yeah, I think at a time when Cornyn was first running for that Senate seat, it would be hard to imagine someone with this much legal baggage would be a viable candidate for the U.S. Senate. But I mean, who knows? We are.

are in a different political reality. Republican voters writ large now have a little bit more of, I don't know, ability to look past legal issues and scandal like alleged affairs. Maybe the signal that, you know, we should all take from that is that it doesn't matter as much as other things. They want to see candidates who are, you know, more consistent on issues that they care about or support the president more vociferously than, you know, Cornyn. So we'll see. I mean, this will be a good test case. because stylistically, these two candidates are very different. And, you know, maybe on substance, not so much. But, you know, primary voters in Texas will soon give the party a signal of where they want this to go.

Is Paxton's personal life coming up at all as part of this campaign, Andrew? Or what issues are sort of driving the race at this point? Cornyn's very much trying to make Paxton's record an issue. He's hammered him in advertisements and public statements over his past impeachment. over his investigation on securities fraud charges, over his messy divorce, over repeated infidelities. None of it seems to be making a dent in PACs and support with likely GOP primary voters, though, as Ashley said, this is a case where really there is a litmus test that's been going on in this race and across other Republican races in the state as to who is most in line with President Trump. And apart from those two issues, Paxton's record in support for President Trump, another major issue that's registering in the campaign is immigration and border security.

Cornyn's stressing his support by Border Patrol agents, his role in securing over $13 billion in reimbursement for Texas spending on border security as part of Trump's signature tax and spending package last year. Paxton, of course, is pointing to his efforts as Attorney General, among other measures, assisting the Trump administration with immigration raids in Texas. I mean, yeah, I will note that this race at this point has polled very, very close. It does seem to be a truly competitive race in this Republican primary, which I'll also say is very rare, generally. An incumbent senator has not lost a primary election in their party in 14 years, 2012 Dick Lugar in Indiana, which is part of why this race is so interesting. And getting to the sort of maga of it all, how President Trump relates to this race,

he hasn't endorsed anyone in this race. And I guess I wonder, Andrew, are there any thoughts about whether that's coming at some point and how big of a deal that would be if President Trump does weigh in? It certainly would be a big deal. According to the most recent poll just published by the University of Houston's Hobby School of Public Affairs, more than half of likely Texas Republican voters say they would be more inclined to support a candidate who had Trump's backing. Now, the question of whether Trump is willing to actually go on the record, that's less certain. I've spoken with a number of analysts and campaign consultants and the consensus that I heard was that Trump really doesn't have anything to gain by weighing in on the race at this point and quite a bit to lose. He's got three different candidates who are all arguing as full-throatedly as they can that the other person to carry Trump's policies forward.

And Trump can basically just sit back and enjoy the win from his perspective. Ashley, another thing we've talked about is the primary structure in Texas. This is a state that has open primaries. Can you explain for listeners what that means and how that could play into this race? Yeah, so you don't register with a party in Texas. The primaries are open. You can choose whatever primary you want to vote in, which means Democrats can vote in a Republican primary, you know, people who identify as Democrats and, you know, vice versa. And also independents get to weigh in on primaries. This is something that party officials, Republican party officials, I should say, have like brought this up a lot. They don't really like that. Either independents or Democrats can just weigh in on their primaries because they, I guess they don't want the sort of political leveling force, you know. But I will say, despite the fact that, you know, you could see a situation where a lot of independents or maybe like left-leaning voters come into effect a Republican primary. That's unlikely to happen. It doesn't happen often. Primary voters tend to be vase voters. These are more ideologically aligned voters with whatever party they're voting for. I feel like independent voters sometimes have a little bit of an influence, but it's never anything very remarkable. And who knows, maybe if moderates and,

and independents are really concerned about someone, a character like Ken Paxton, becoming the Republican nominee for this race, maybe a lot of them would weigh. And it will be something to watch. There's one other wrinkle here, which is that, according to Texas law, in order to win a political race, you have to poll at least 50 percent plus one of the electorate. And with three candidates here and two of them polling very closely, there's the real possibility that we're going to get to March 3rd, and no candidate will have emerged with that minimum 50% of the vote plus one. If that happens, then the top two vote getters will go to a May runoff.

And most of the analysis that I've heard suggests that the advantage there would be with Paxton because he tends to be viewed by more rank and file GOP primary voters as the more conservative candidate. That makes complete sense. And I do feel like it's tempting when you look at polls and you've got these two people kind of pulling neck and neck. We haven't really talked much about the third candidate, Wesley Hunt. Can you tell us a little bit more about him and the role he's playing in this race? Yes. He's been making the argument repeatedly that he has the advantage of being a fresh face, of being the youngest candidate in the field by far. He's 44 this year compared to Cornyn, who's 74, and Paxton, who's in his 60s. He has argued publicly that there's a reason why President Trump has staffed his administration with

younger people that his vice president is in his 40s, that his Pentagon chief is in his 40s, his secretary of state is in his 50s. And the idea is that if President Trump's policies are going to have a future beyond Trump in the presidency, you need to train that next generation of people in the same ideas. Hunt makes the case that he has been voting with Trump straight down the line and that therefore he is the candidate to do that. Cornyn has been striking back on that by making the point that Hunt has missed more than a few votes over the past several years that he has been in the House of Representatives

and that that is something that he ought to be judged on. I will note that most of the polling shows that Hunt is. in a rather distant third place. The poll that just came out earlier this week from the hobby school showed that he was trailing both Cornyn and Paxton by double digits. All right. Well, that's a good place to leave it. We're going to take a quick break, and I just want to remind people if you like what you're hearing. Make sure to follow so you can make sure you never miss an episode of the politics podcast.

When we get back, we're going to talk about another competitive race on the Democratic side of Texas. And we're back. Now we're going to talk about the Democrats. Andrew, tell us a little bit about the candidates running. We've got Jasmine Crockett. She's a Dallas Congresswoman. She's an attorney. She is a frequent and vocal critic of President Trump.

She argues that the key to democratic success in Texas is to boost turnout among non-voters. Texas historically has a problem of quite low voter turnout. And she says she's the best poised to do that, building on the work of Stacey Abrams in Georgia, whom she has worked with. On the other side, we've got James Telerico. He's an Austin State Representative. He's a seminary graduate. He made national headlines during the Democratic quorum break last year at the height of the Texas redistricting fight. He won election to the Texas House by flipping a heavily pro-Trump district.

And he argues he stands a better chance of winning independence and Republican crossover votes in a general election. Just like the Republican primary, this is another case where the candidates aren't wildly different politically, but stylistically they are. So Jasmine Crockett is, for all intensive purposes, a firebrand. Like, she speaks really forcefully and isn't afraid to pick fights with Republicans in a way that a lot of other members of the Democratic caucus in the House are. And James Tallerico, the theory of his case is that he can win over independent voters by, you know, appealing to the sort of Christian roots in Texas. And I think having a softer tone and just being a little more conciliatory. And this is a big question before the Democratic

Party right now, which is what strategy is going to work? What path should the party take to win back some of the voters that they lost during the last presidential election? So I think this is, this particular primary is going to be very interesting to watch to see what voters sort of signal to the party. I mean, the Houston Chronicle endorsed Tel Rico saying it's the same thing that he stands a better chance to win the general election. But Andrew, is there data to actually support that that's the case or is this just general vibes? I think it's probably a mix of both. We've had several relatively close elections for the Senate in recent cycles, most of them at the expense of Texas's other Republican senator, Ted Cruz. In terms of Tolarico, one of the other things that he has going

for him is that he is able to speak the language of economic populism in a way that perhaps Jasmine Crockett is not. He's definitely made a point in a lot of his campaign speeches and advertisements about needing to raise taxes on billionaires and making sure the wealthy pay their fair share. That's something that has typically been very popular with voters that have tended to go for Republicans in general and President Trump in particular. But it has been a long, long time since a Democrat has one statewide office in Texas. And in this, the case of this particular Senate seat, the last senator from the Democratic side to be elected to this seat was Lyndon Johnson when he was simultaneously running for vice president in 1960. Wow, a Lyndon Johnson name drop.

You don't hear that every day on the politics pod. I do feel like, Ashley, we do this every cycle of Texas. I mean, it's almost like I've been calling it the Beto O'Rourke syndrome, where it's just like Democrats are so sure that they're going to make it competitive this time around. And I mean, they haven't won any Senate seat in Texas since 1988. Do you think they actually have a shot here? Yeah, I mean, Democrats are plagued by this demographics or destiny story, which is that as the state gets more racially and ethnically diverse, that Democrats will just do better, but it's sheer numbers. But, I mean, that has not been true yet. In fact, you know, a lot of these Latino voters that Democrats have been, you know, banking on, started moving towards the Republican Party in recent elections. We'll see how much that trend

continues because by and large, these are swing voters we're talking about. You know, I will say there is one big thing that could be the wild card here, which is if John Cornyn does lose that primary, because what is really easy to bank on, if you're looking at a Senate race, is the incumbent winning. Incumbency power is very, very powerful in general elections. But if Ken Paxton wins, that's an open question. This is a man who, as we mentioned, has been mired and some some scandals. So we will see. I've covered Texas politics a long time, so I know better to say like, oh, you know,

this is like the best shot Democrats ever had this. I have like any sense of how this is going to go. Texas is really, more than anything, it is a non-voting state as well. Voter participation is really low compared to a lot of other states. You just don't know who's going to turn up what voters are going to be like more motivated to cast their ballots. So it's kind of hard to even read those T-leys. But I will say if, like, John Cornyn loses that primary, I do think, you know, it'll be harder to guess what's going to happen. Andrew, you mentioned the economic populism message that Tal RICO has been pushing.

One other kind of idea that I've been curious, whether it's coming up on the Democratic side, is ICE enforcement and immigration. I mean, how big of a deal has that been, considering Texas, is the largest border state? And broadly speaking, President Trump's immigration policies we know from polling are unpopular. Has that come up a lot between the two Democratic candidates? Absolutely. In the main debate between the two Democratic candidates, which took place a few weeks ago, the first several questions dealt with immigration enforcement. And both the candidates came out in favor of dramatic reform of, if not abolition, of ICE. Talariko said that he would vote to defund it.

Crockett pointed out that she had voting against funding the Department of Homeland. Homeland Security, both favor holding ICE agents accountable for violations of the law. They both favor impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noem for her role in the developments in Minnesota, among other developments since President Trump has taken office. Wow. Yeah, I feel like also put a pin in that in terms of, I imagine we're going to be revisiting a lot of those policy positions, no matter who wins in terms of Republicans will probably be able to hammer them on some of those positions come the general election, it feels like. Absolutely.

If nothing else, this is going to be the first big state voting in a primary for this election cycle. This will be the first time we get a sense of how voters are feeling about what is going on in the country. You know, Texas and North Carolina have their primaries next month. And because Texas has this pretty generous early voting, you know, time window, it's like two weeks of early voting. We're soon going to get a picture of like how much. what is happening with the second Trump administration, specifically ISIS affecting our politics. Well, Andrew, I do want to turn to the House side of things just for a moment because Texas, we talked about Texas so much last year. It was the first state to redistrict as a result of President Trump's request to try to make it so Republicans can hold on to the House of Representatives next year.

They re-trew the entire state in an effort to try to get five more Republican seats. What are you watching for from the House side of things when it comes to this new map? To Ashley's point about Hispanic voter participation, one of the major assumptions that went on in the Texas legislature when they were redrawing the maps was that Texas Hispanic voters would support Republicans in 2026 by margins similar to those enjoyed by President Trump in the 2024 presidential election. He did quite well. That assumption may be flawed. Most polling shows Texas Hispanic support for Trump has deteriorated over the president. past year. That's in part because of his hardline immigration enforcement policies, but it's also because of stubbornly high costs of living. Affordability is another major issue on the Democratic side,

and it's one that could potentially lure crossover votes. If this holds in November, particularly if the economy is weak or stumbling or costs remain high, the result could be that the GOP will pick up fewer seats in Texas than expected. All right, we can leave it there for today. Andrew Snyder, thank you so much for talking with us. You're welcome. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting. And I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics.

And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.