The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - March 6, 2026

Episode Date: March 6, 2026

Show off your Lone Star spirit with a free "Remember the Alamo" hat with an annual subscription to The Texan: https://thetexan.news/subscribe/The Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion.Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review! Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast.Cornyn, Paxton Advance to Runoff in GOP Primary for Texas U.S. Senate SeatTalarico Secures Democratic Nomination for U.S. Senate Race Over CrockettState Sen. Middleton, Congressman Roy Head to GOP Primary Runoff for Texas Attorney GeneralTexas Sen. Johnson, Jaworski Head to Democratic Primary Runoff for Texas Attorney GeneralNate Sheets Projected to Prevail in Republican Primary for Agriculture CommissionerDon Huffines Secures Strong Win in Republican Comptroller PrimaryState Rep. Gina Hinojosa Secures Democratic Nomination to Challenge Gov. Greg Abbott in NovemberRailroad Commissioner Jim Wright Heads to Runoff with Former Tarrant County GOP Chair Bo FrenchCecil Bell knocked from seat And so much more. 

Well, howdy folks, and happy primary week. I'm McKinney here with a full house. We have Mary Elites, we have Meredith, we have Hannah, we have Holly, we have Kim, all to talk through the primaries that happened in Texas this week. We have so much to talk about. And if you've not checked out the Texan.com news to read on dozens, literally dozens and dozens of races. And the results there, I'd encourage you to do so. We are still in the process of reporting on all the results that came in on Tuesday night through Wednesday mornings. So make sure to go and check that out. We have incredible team of reporters that I have the pleasure of speaking with today that will run through a lot on this podcast, but there is too much to cover in an hour. So we'll do our best

to hit as much as humanly possible, but definitely go to the ception. News. Subscribe if you haven't and make sure you're caught up on all things, primary in elections on our site. Let's start right off the bat. We're just going to delve into this news here. Mary Lee, so let's talk about the top of the ballot, how Republicans fared in the U.S. race. Yeah, so this is a race we've been long waiting for, right? But United States Senator John Cornyn, and then his Republican challenger, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, are headed to a runoff this spring after they weeded out Congressman Wesley Hunt in the primary election. I think this was an expected outcome after Hunt jumped into the race, these three Republican contenders. It seemed to be a

lot of the speculation leading up to this race was that Wesley Hunt would come in third. You know, lots of speculation about whether Cornyn or Pakistan would lead in this, but they are headed to a runoff. Cornyn came in the lead with 43% of the vote on official election results, and then Paxton earned 40% of the vote. And then Hunt came in third with 13% of the vote. So, of course, lots of reactions after this, after we know, okay, Paxton. and Cornyn are headed to runoff, which will be held on May 26th.

We saw the National Republican Senateorial Committee was out right away, really bashing Hunt and saying, calling us a vanity project and talking about the money that was spent that could have been used elsewhere in a different Senate race, and then also putting support, again, behind Cornyn, who they've been supporting for a while. So a very big kind of plot twist in this whole race now is President Donald Trump has confirmed that he's going to be endorsing in this race. He sent out a true social post yesterday, which was March 4th. So we're reporting this on March 5th.

On March 4th, President Donald Trump sent out a post and he said that he is going to be endorsing this race, which of course has been up in the air for quite a while, and people have been saying, always going to do it soon, but now we actually have it from Trump's own social media account. He said that he'll be issuing an endorsement in this race and that he's also going to be asking whoever he doesn't endorse to drop out. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton went on a couple different TV radio shows, and he said that he doesn't have plans to drop out if Cornyn is endorsed, but also, of course, we don't know for sure who's going to get this endorsement who will be asked to drop out by Trump.

So while we're recording this podcast, endorsement has not been issued yet. But of course, this would make a big difference in this race with Cornyn-Paxson headed to runoff. If one is endorsed and one does drop out, then a runoff won't be happening. So we'll see. We're just kind of waiting to see how this winds up.

But as of now, Paxson and Cornyn are headed to a runoff in May. And we'll watch because there are contingencies and encourage folks, again, go read Mary Lisa's coverage at the Texan. But there are tie lines we're working with here, right? or if somebody drops off the ballot, if, you know, withdraws from the race within a certain time frame, they are on the ballot. But if they don't, they're still there. And the race is technically still between those two candidates.

So lots to watch there. We're working with these time frames. Mary Lisa, thank you so much. And we'll keep an eye on all of it. Maybe by the time this podcast goes out, this will be outdated information. But until then, that's the latest. Let's keep talking about the Senate race here, Mary Elise, but the Democratic side, walk us through the result there.

Yeah, extremely interesting race as well, a Democratic primary for U.S. Senate. State Representative James Tala Rico did come in the lead. He won the race. There's no runoff needed there. He beat Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett. He came in, the unofficial results where he came in with 53% of the vote. And then Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett came in with 46%. We saw right after Talariko won this race, he was reaching out to Jasmine Crockett's voter base. saying that he hopes that he can earn their trust and he can earn their vote. So just acknowledging those voters who had a different result than they had hoped for, but just kind of reaching out to this Democratic voters there. Yeah, so Tala Rieco will go on to face either Paxton or Cornyn, but of course that race is up in the year like we were just talking about, but that will be in the November 26th general election. there was kind of an interesting wrinkle in this race where we had reports circulating that there were large numbers of voters in Dallas County that were showing up to the wrong voting locations due to requirements that the residents cast their votes in precincts.

So a lot of confusion there, a lot of different reports circulating online in response to this confusion. And then Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett in Tallah Rico requesting so, a Dallas, Dallas. County judge extended the voting hours until 9 p.m. instead of 7 p.m. and then the polls would usually close. But then Paxton filed the motion at the Texas Supreme Court to halt the voting and the require that any of those votes that were cast after 7 p.m. be separated and that was granted to him. So then there was a lot of confusion there when, okay, these votes are going to be counted. But eventually on Tuesday night, well, it may have been very early on Wednesday, day around 1 or 2 a.m. where Talarico is clearly in the lead and lots of different groups

we're calling the race for Tala Rico. So now Tala Rico is just prepared for the preparing for the November election while we've still got the Republican race up in the air who's going to be the Republican candidate. But as of now, Tala RICO is definitely the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate. Do you think his nomination is part of why there is this reaction from Trump, trying to get maybe a runoff out of the way so that Republicans aren't spending tens of millions of dollars for a few months, you know, fighting each other and throwing every punch imaginable at the other,

while Tala Rico is kind of set and has a lot of time to fundraise more and not spend as much money on all the big ticket items that, you know, is required of a statewide campaign, right? That's the argument. Of course, then you also see reactions and, you know, Mary Lee's jump in here, where folks are saying, well, it's up to the Texans to decide who our senator is, who represents us in the Republican nomination and is not the president of the United States helicoptering in and saying, okay, this is our guy, let's move forward and the other guy drop out,

right? Two different reactions. One saying for the sake of maybe campaign efficiency to mobilize against a Democratic challenger in November perceived as far more moderate than Crockett, right? There's more concern there that on a statewide ballot he could potentially, outperform Crockett against somebody in November. And the other side, you know, a lot of voters saying, excuse me, we want to choose our guy, whoever that might be. So we'll see what happens. But is that your take on the situation, Mary Lease? Yeah, for sure. And I mean, Trump himself said in his post, he had some very strong words for Talarigo, but he essentially said that the great state of Texas needs to unify here, the Republican Party. We need to have a very clear path. And we need to be

preparing for the November election against this, he said leftist. And as some people might remember, Congressman Jasmine Crockett was somebody that was being pushed by some Republican leadership. They were, some folks were joking, some were more serious and others saying, oh, Congresswoman Crocket would be a great candidate for the Republican Party to have to go against. Like you were saying, Tala Rico is perceived as being a bit more moderate and they're clearly a little bit more concerned about Tala Rico being on the ballot here. And now we're still, we've got these two candidates that we're having to figure out our election there while he's, as you said, able to fundraise, and he is a solid fundraiser, as we saw leading up to this primary. So, I mean, Trump said it himself

in his post that they need to, the Republican Party needs to be able to unify around one candidate. So happens. The next 24, 48 hours are going to be very interesting. Mary Lisa, thank you for your coverage. Holly, let's talk about another race here that was very highly anticipated this election cycle. Attorney General, walk us through the Republican debacle on the Attorney General side of the ticket. That's an interesting word for it. Yes, of course, we had four candidates running in the Republican primary for Attorney General this time, all vying to replace Attorney General Ken Paxton, and we just talked about. But there was a surprise on. election day. I think the polls had indicated that Congressman Chip Roy was leading and everybody else

was vying for second place there to make a runoff election. But it was actually Texas Senator Mays Middleton who came in first place. Of course, not with enough to go without a runoff, but close to 40%. And so now he is in a runoff with Chip Roy. You had state senator Joan Huffman coming in, I believe, at about 15% at this point. And then Aaron Wright, who formerly worked for Ken Paxton, coming in at about 13% or 14%. I'm trying to remember 14%. So, you know, it was a bit of a surprise,

certainly a surprise to what we call the Twitterverse sometimes. If you're on Twitter or what we now call X, you would have thought that Aaron Wright's was the number one candidate it and that he was going to run away with it, but the reality is that it really was a Mays-Mittleton night. And in his comments that he put out yesterday regarding the results, he points out that he came in first. And of course, he has deep pockets. So he's got a lot of funding, a lot of campaign money at his fingertips that he can continue to get out that message. And obviously what he's done so far has resonated with the voters.

So heading to a runoff there between those two, and we are also wondering if the president will endorse in that race. He did not endorse in this primary run-up. He has previously endorsed Mays Middleton when Mays Middleton was running for state senate. And as most of our listeners know, Chip Roy has often clashed with the president, and so there is some speculation as to what may happen there. So we'll certainly be watching for that going forward. Absolutely. I'm sure, too, it's an interesting cycle in that every candidate in running in the primary in Republican politics, for the most part, is in some way in their ads or in their messaging, either likinging themselves to Trump and his policies or just implying that there's support there, right?

Whether or not there's an endorsement. And so that imagery is fascinating to watch where, you know, Magamaze. he doesn't have the president's endorsement, but that's the campaign that he's running. It is the slogan. That's what people know him as are on all of his mailers and in his social media post. That's what he's being, you know, that's the messaging. So if an endorsement comes down on either side, and even, you know, Congressman Roy, his ads are showing, okay, well, here are the moments where me and the president, like he finds those moments are he and the president have had agreement, which are plenty and putting those in all of his campaign

materials. So we'll see how an endorsement would shake that up. And, and of course we could say the same for U.S. Senate. The exact same thing is happening. So, well, walk us through, Holly, the Democratic side, because this is another race where, you know, the statewide, the Democrats are eyeing this as a potential for them in November. Absolutely. So they see an opportunity here as they do with the Senate seat. So we had three candidates running on the Democrat side, and there was a bit of a surprise there in those results because a lot of people were hearing from. former Gavis to Mayor Joe Jaworski, who previously ran for Attorney General on the Democratic

ticket on the last cycle, that that was up for re-election. But he did not perform as well as many thought he would. He came in with just about 26 percent at this point when we're looking at the unofficial totals. And state senator Nathan Johnson came in first, not quite with enough to make it to the nomination without a runoff, but he is looking like he's at about 48% as of the results we're looking at on Thursday, two days after the election. So not quite there, so we're going to see a runoff there. Interestingly enough, Tony Box, or Anthony Box, is a former FBI agent,

came in third place, but really just behind Joe Jaworski at 25, almost 25.5%. So that that was a bit of a surprise and could be an indicator of what may happen in this runoff. If I were going to predict today, I would say Nathan Johnson wins it. Tiny Box, I would argue, based on what he said and the way he's campaigned, that he's probably a bit more moderate than Joe Jaworski, who is very vocal about progressive issues and certainly part of that progressive wing of the Democratic party. But to see Tony take such a high vote count and then wonder where those voters go in this runoff election, if I were betting and I don't, I would probably bet a lot of those voters would be going for Johnson instead of Jaworsky. But again, this is one we're going to be watching

closely and we'll keep our readers up to date. Absolutely. Of course, the shadow of Paxton always looms large in a race like this when, you know, these folks are vying to replace You know, who's now running for U.S. Senate. Holly, thank you for your coverage there and go read all the details of Holly's coverage at the texin.com. Kim, let's talk, okay, this race, let's, I'm so excited to talk about the Agriculture Commissioner race. The incumbent did not win. This is an incumbent who'd been challenged multiple times in previous primaries and nothing had stuck. Here we are. Sid Miller's been defeated.

Walk us through what happened on election night. That's right, McKenzie. The incumbent Sid Miller has been in the position of Texas Agriculture Commissioner since 2014. He's been challenged twice before in 2018 and 2022, but pretty easily defeated his opponents in those races. The polling leading into this election showed Miller ahead. However, an significant number of voters, I think about 34 percent, said they were undecided. and apparently many of those swung to Nate Sheets because he ended up winning the night. Another notable point in this race is that Governor Greg Abbott endorsed against a fellow

statewide elected official and through his support behind Nate Sheets. Sheets came out pretty strong in the early voting returns. It was an interesting race to watch throughout the night. it kept, it changed back and forth a little bit, but Sheets stayed in the lead most of the time. He was ahead at some points in the night by more than 10 points. However, as the night drew to a close, Miller closed the gap quite a bit, down to about five points, but Nate Sheets eventually prevailed in the unofficial voting returns. Miller did give a concession statement in which he congratulated Nate Sheets and said that he will, quote,

continue fighting for the farmers, ranchers, and rural communities every single day for as long as I have the privilege of serving in this office. Now, Nate Sheets will face a Democrat in November, Democrat Clayton Tucker, who ran unopposed in the Democrat primary. They will face off in November. Now, there are a lot of issues, especially the New World Screw Worm facing the Texas Department of Agriculture right now. I would encourage our readers to go and look at the article to explain some of the challenges that the Texas Department of Agriculture are facing. Agriculture is a huge business in Texas. It's not necessarily a race that gets a lot of attention, but it's a very big industry in Texas. It's a very important position.

they have the opportunity to help agriculture succeed in Texas. And Nate Sheet says that that's what he wants to do. He really wants to help farmers and ranchers in Texas succeed in getting their products in a more robust market setting. That's the race. And I'd say, you know, agriculture commissioner, certainly when you go to the ballot box, most voters are looking at U.S. Senator, you know, Attorney General, those are the spicy races.

But for political folks who are, for better and more, for our students into these races, this is one that folks are really watching because Sid Miller has had, he's embattled in many senses and has had a lot of controversy surrounding his 10 years, Agriculture Commissioner, and, you know, has very openly and publicly gone against the governor, whether it's joining the lawsuit during COVID-19 or publicly making statements about, yeah, the governor's kind of stopped fundraising for me or told folks not to donate to me. These two have been at odds for years. And so watching, yes, some of those fundraising chops dry up for for miller right sheets was certainly um bringing in a lot of money compared to

miller and able to respond in ways that were um you know able to mobilize messages through that money that he's been able to raise in ways that miller wasn't so fascinating to watch all that come through and in past primaries you know be the opponent and have a ton of money um and so they weren't able to mobilize in this way but also like miller's just a formidable candidate he's beloved in a lot of republican primary circles and has that reputation well and when i looked at the map of the voting between the two. Actually, the rural areas voted heavily for Sid Miller. It was the urban areas that supported Nate Sheets.

And so that'll be interesting to see how Sheets is received by the rural communities he wants to serve because they didn't support him as broadly as they supported Miller in the primary election, at least according to the map. So we'll see how that all goes. Absolutely. And at the same, and we could talk about this race forever, but at the same time, Sheets also was endorsed by a lot of ag organizations that typically had supported Miller, right? So there is momentum here that we're watching kind of switch and change in a way that we have not

seen one of the more primary challenger against Miller before. So go read Kim Spies. She has coverage for a long time here about this race. So I encourage folks to go check that out. And Kim, thank you, as always, for your coverage. Meredith, another wild race. This one here is an open seat technically. Let's talk about the race for comptroller. So yes, this was another high profile, a lot of attention, a lot of eyes on it. And at the end of the, well, actually the whole way through, former state senator, Don Huffeins was in the lead and ended up securing a very solid victory. I think even the more recent numbers were around 34, 35 point lead.

So it was very strong defeating three different opponents. Previously, Huffines had represented northern Dallas County in the Texas Senate and ran against Governor Greg Abbott in the 2022 Republican primary for governor. And so some of his opponents were acting comptroller Kelly Hancock, who was endorsed by Abbott and had actually done a lot of traveling in the more leading up to the election with Abbott. And Railroad Commissioner Christy Craddick and then businessman Michael Burlinga. And so Hancock had stepped into this role when former comptroller Glenn Hager had become the Texas A&M University System Chancellor.

And so in the beginning, Huff finds comes out with like almost 66% of the vote, which was a, when you watched it, it was like a big jump immediately. Craddock had 17.6 and Hancock had about 14.5%. And then the unofficial final results that we had gotten were that Don Huffines ended the night with about 57%. Kelly Hancock had bumped up a little bit to closer to 24%. Christy Craddock was at about 15%. So Huffines had a lot of major endorsements, including President Trump, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, and some different nationally known, recognized names.

And so in his acceptance speech, he obviously thanked Trump and Cruz for those endorsements and then thanked his opponents acknowledging they had campaigned all over the state, and he said they reminded the voters of Texas the importance of the office of Comptroller. And so he reiterated some of the things he'd said throughout his campaign of the idea that he wants to bring this private sector mentality to Texas government. He's also stated that he won't take a salary if he is elected. And so just this idea also of doging Texas government and really getting rid of waste and things like that. So in the Democratic side, state senator Sarah Eckhart won with about 65% of the vote. And so she will go against Huffines in the November

election. She specifically focused on the idea of really she talked about, I want to serve the people, not the rich and powerful. She talks about things like she said she was tired of seeing hard-earned tax dollars go to culture wars, corporate tax breaks, no bid contracts, and voucher schemes referring to the Texas Education Freedom Accounts. So we'll see those two go against each other in November. I'm about two candidates who could not be more different. Huffe-Eyne's and Eckhart, Meredith. Thank you so much for your coverage. And I think that's a race too where, you know, talk about, you know, over the weekend, this seems like old news now, now that we've been through the primaries, but the president didn't come out in any. endorse both Huffines and Miller. And one candidate won and one lost. I think some of that is due to Huffines. I mean, he is also one of those that is in large part. Self-funding has a lot of money, huge accounts to be able to pull from, was able to mobilize that endorsement and make sure folks knew about it. Now, he also has had a formidable campaign the entire time. It's been spending millions of dollars to ensure that folks hear his message. And, you know, for months, for months and

months has been out there ahead of the field for a very long time, whereas Miller, maybe that endorsement came, you know, too little too late. So interesting to watch kind of difference in campaigns there and the results of those. They're not apples to apples. It's not equal. It's not the same thing going back and forth, but it is interesting watching a Trump endorsement land in two different campaign camps and seeing how they react and utilize it. So thank you, Meredith, for your coverage. Let's talk about another race, maybe a little bit under, not under the radar. governor's race is never under the radar, but one that is a little bit less contentious in some ways, but still sets up an interesting contest for November. Walk us through, you know, who Governor Abbott will be up against come November. Governor Abbott will be up against Representative Gina Hinojosa, who secured 59% of the Democratic vote. It was pretty crowded race, but she was able to be well ahead of her competitors the whole duration of the race. So Greg Abbott received over 82.

2% of the Republican vote. Doc Chambers, most notably, trailed behind him at 10% of votes. So Gina Hinajosa and Greg Abbott will be facing off in November. Absolutely. We'll keep an eye on it. Gina knows an Austin Democrat who's been in the house for, I don't even know how many terms he had,

but many now at this point. And education's a big issue of hers. She said, and you've said this in your article that she entered politics because she was an angry mom and has kind of responded politically to that. and entered the fray because of that. So we'll watch what happens in November. Of course, Abbott's a formidable fundraiser and is well, well suited to be just fine November, but in a midterm election, it'll be interesting to see what that

margin looks like regardless. So thank you for covering that for us. Meredith, let's talk about railroad commissioner. This is interesting. We have a tie, or almost done that, not a tie. We're headed to a runoff. Walk us through this. Yeah, so this race was one that had a lot of characters in it.

And so sometimes when you write so many things about different races, you're trying to keep everyone straight. And I feel like these were very distinct personalities that had things that stood out to them. So it is going to a runoff. Just as a quick reminder, just that the Railroad Commission has nothing to do with railroads. It is about oil and gas production, pipelines, energy infrastructure. That was all over to the Department of the Transportation like in 2005 or something. But they kept the name, of course, just to keep everything nice and clear for everyone voting. And so there's three commissioners.

They serve six-year staggered terms. So currently it's Wayne Christian, Christy Craddock, who we were just talking about, was running for comptroller, and chairman Jim Wright, who ran in this election as the incumbent. He's the current chairman. So people joining him on this race were former Tarrant County GOP chairman Beau French, who is very active on social media and has a very, he's known for some of his hot takes and things like that. engineer Catherine Colbert, who had previously ran as a Democrat for this position, and now he was running as a Republican, so that made her stand out.

And then oil worker Hawk Dunlap, who had a very grassroots campaign, who has just a lot of experience in the oil industry, like boots on the ground kind of thing. And then a man, Jim Matlock, who is also a former energy engineer, who was very interesting. He didn't even have an updated website. He has run before, but we couldn't even find a website for him. but he did secure a good portion of the vote without seemingly doing a lot of campaigning. So in the beginning, or the final results were that we had Jim Wright with about 32% of the, 32.07,

I'll give you the exact ones, and Beau French with 31.77. So a little bit less than 1% between the two. Jim Wright, eeked out right at the end to come out on top. He had started with about 26, reversed with Beau French around 39. So over the course of the evening, they evened out. And Jim Wright was just a teeny bit ahead of that. Like I said, Jim Matlock got almost 20% of the vote. And then Catherine Colbert and Hawk Dunlup were under 10% the whole evening.

Jim Wright is an incumbent who, when he ran last time, had this shocking upset victory, 10-point victory over the then-incumbent, Ryan Sitton, beating him by almost more than 220,000 votes. So he's had a success in the past. This was not quite, this is a little bit harder race for him. French has drawn a lot of attention for some of his things he said on the last. line. One specific thing that stands out is before he announced he was running. He had had a campaign that was very controversial in X asking people whether Jews or Muslims were the bigger threat to America, which a lot of Republican leaders called for him to step down as the Tarrant County Republican Party chair, including Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, John Cornyn, who we've been talking about. And he

did not step down at that point, but eventually stepped down to run for this position. So we'll be going to a runoff between right and French. And then on the Democratic side, state rep John Rosenthal of Houston ran unopposed. And so he will be running against whoever wins that May 26th runoff. Absolutely, Meredith. Thank you. Again, Commissioner and Railroad Commissioner, too, maybe lesser known statewide positions, but resulting in some very interesting fodder for discussion and watching during the primary. Senator, thanks for your coverage there. Those are statewide contest. Let's talk about some districts. We're going to go pretty quick through these, but I want to talk about specific districts that you all have covered that were particularly notable or interesting.

Again, folks, we have dozens of these pieces and races on the website, but we're going to start just with one from each reporter. So Kim, let's start with you. What caught your eye? Well, I covered a open seat in Congressional District 32, which was one of the districts that was redrawn during the legislative session to try to get. more Republicans elected to Congress. And so this starts kind of over in Dallas and then stretches out like kind of like a chicken like drumstick into East Texas. And it's predicted to be a Republican district. And so nine people were in this race. And what caught my eye was early on, it looked like it might be won outright by J.C.R.boro. But it turned out that he fell beneath the 50%

threshold and so there's going to be a runoff between J.C. Yarbrough, who was endorsed by President Trump and Governor Greg Abbott and is an attorney. And then Ryan Binkley, who is a CEO and a pastor, and has actually was in the Republican presidential race in 2024. So we'll see how that runoff goes. Yarbrose like 25 points ahead of Binkley, but runoffs are strange. creatures. So we never know what's going to happen there. Lower turnout, a consolidation of voter support from other candidates to kind of throw everything off. So thank you. Mary Lisa, let's talk to you here. Let's talk about a Texas house incumbent. That was a very interesting race to watch as the results came in. Yeah, so I covered this House District 3, a Republican primary. So state

representative Cecil Bell Jr. actually lost his primary and his re-election bid for the Texas House to Republican challenger Christian Placence on Tuesday night. She collected 55% of the vote by Wednesday morning per the unofficial results. And then Bell came in with 45%. So a large enough gap, of course, that no runoff is necessary and that Bell has lost his seat. He's held it for over a decade. He first assumed office in 2013. And this district includes portions of Montgomery County and then it has cities like stagecoach and Magnolia in it. Bell has served as chair of the House Committee on Intergovernmental Affairs and he was also a member of the House Committee on Natural Resources during 89th legislature. But of course, he's been serving in the chamber since 2013.

his Republican opponent said that there were two key things that she listed as kind of motivating her to get involved into politics, the 2020 election and then the COVID-19 pandemic. They did both campaign on very similar Republican issues. Of course, this is a primary, so the candidates that likely agree on a lot of the same topics, but might come at them from a different angle. They talked about reducing property taxes, border security, and then social issues, including abortion, being against abortion, and certain transgender-related issues. One of the key campaign issues that Bell focused on on his website highlighted was his opposition to the atrocity of forced annexation. That's a quote from Bell. So it's kind of an interesting campaign issue he chose to focus on.

And he had endorseance, actually, from Governor Greg Abbott, Senator Ted Cruz as well, and then President Donald Trump. But that was a part of the mass endorsements that were issued for Texas House Republicans who voted for the education savings accounts. So Bell has officially lost his House District 3 race to his challenger, and she will go on to face Nicole King, who won the Democratic primary for HD3 against James Alvarado. And so then Nicole King will go on a face place on in November. one of a couple candidates are excuse me incumbents that lost their primaries it was not the same last cycle we saw dozens of incumbents you know fall prey to you know major efforts from the governor and outside groups specifically over education funding account or education savings accounts or impeachment of the attorney general all sorts of different factors at play but still we did see a couple incumbents you know fall to their challengers so while to watch and go read

Mary Lisa Coverage, Holly. What do you got for us? Well, I was going to talk about congressional district 18 in Houston, which has been much in the news over the past few years. This district is considered very important to Democrats and especially black Democrats in Texas and in Houston. It is the district that was held by Barbara Jordan back in the 1970s. She was the first black woman to hold a congressional seat from the south. And so it's, you know, it's very important to them. It was held by Sheila Jackson Lee for years and then by the late Sylvester Turner for just a few months before he passed away last year from throat cancer. And what we had was a hard-fought race between the new incumbent, Christian Menofee, he used to be the Harris County attorney, and Al Green, who is a congressman,

who was representing congressional district nine, but of course when Texas redrew those boundaries, they pretty much took District 9 and made it District 18, which actually does mirror the history of that district. So it wasn't out of line there. But Al Green opted to run against Christian Menofi for this seat. And what we saw was a very hard-fought race between the two. what we see as of Thursday, two days after the election, is the two are basically in a statistical dead heat that kind of jump back and forth as these late votes come in between 44 and 48 percent, but basically Menifee and Green are tied there, neither one getting that 50 percent margin needed to avoid the runoff. And so we're going to be hearing from these two candidates for the next

two and a half months as they head towards that runoff election. And this is really very divisive in the city of Houston, whether you support Al Green or Christian Menofi. Interestingly enough, one of the power brokers in the Democratic Party in the Houston area, Harris County area, is Commissioner Rodney Ellis, who also is a former state lawmaker. But he initially backed Menopheed for this seat, but then when Al Green switched to run for the seat, Rodney also switched his allegiance to Al Green. Green, of course, is an 11-term congressman in representing District 9, which is now favored towards Republicans. But, you know, Menefi represents the younger, up-and-coming generation. And so we're watching Democrats kind of argue that out as we go into yet another.

the runoff. I was cracking up at people online saying, oh my gosh, now the campaign mailers and the texts are going to stop. It's like, no, they're not. What are you talking about? Now you're just going to get, instead of having a wide array of candidate spaces to see, you're going to have far fewer and you're going to get even more tired of them. So welcome to runoff. Yes. Well, and I think our colleague Matt Stringer had probably the best tweet about that when someone quipped that, oh, now we're going to be through with all this, you know, campaign stuff coming at us for a while. And I think, And he said, oh, but you've been deceived. So he'll continue.

Not always good. Always, always a reliable Twitter zinger. We love that about that. Absolutely. Allie, thank you. Meredith, what do you got for us? So this is another situation where an incumbent lost their seat a long time, Democratic. I don't know, what would you call him, Titan in the house or something?

Yeah. Is that a right word? Yeah, he's just a like a pillar. He's a fixed. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. So in House District 101, state rep Chris Turner lost the nomination to Grand Prairie Council Member Jr. Eziano. And this is another instance of a younger person taking the nomination. He, asianu is 26 years old. And he had this very successful primary challenge against the longtime legislator. And Turner has been in the house since 2008, except for losing his first reelection bid. he came back and then for eight more straight terms was in the House. He was even the House Democratic Caucus chair from 2017 to 2022. And so it was a shock to a lot of people when he lost the election or the primary,

and it was 53% for Eziano to 47% for Turner. And so Turner issued a statement, just acknowledging the loss, obviously the typical, you know, this is what we expected was going to be the outcome. He said, sometimes you leave it all out on the field. and you still come up short, and he said that serving as a state rep for nearly 16 years was the honor of a lifetime. But he also mentioned that voters have spoken. He respects that and congratulated Ezianu and kind of as an up-and-coming new member of the House. So Eziano is very progressive, and some of the things that he highlighted in his campaign were raising the statement in wage to $15,

increasing public school funding. He wanted to specifically repeal the private, what he called the school voucher law, so the Texas Education Freedom accounts. He wants to legalize casino gambling to create jobs to increase educational funding. And while he does support a secure border, he talks about wanting to show grace and empathy towards nonviolent immigrants already in the U.S. And so a lot of Democratic lawmakers responded on social media. Just like paying homage to Turner.

State rep Lauren Ashley Simmons from Houston wrote truly one of the best members in our caucus and sometimes I, someone, not sometimes, someone I consider a friend. I'm going to miss his leadership next session, but I hope he knows I'll be calling him for advice all the time. State rep Gene Wu said, called him my deskmate, a friend, and someone who served with integrity every day. It was an honor to have my boys learn from you, and he showed a picture of his sons with Turner.

And state rep Joe Moody also said there isn't a better member of the Texas legislature than Chris Turner. We fought so many battles together over the years, and I don't know what we will do without him. So there were even more people paying their respects to him. This sounds like he hasn't passed away, but it was like a really big blow to the Democratic Party in this. But they just said nice things about him. There are a lot of those messages coming in through X even after the article.

And so there actually was no Republican primary in HD 101. So that means that effectively as Ionu is the state rep because he'll be running on a post in the November 3rd general election. Yeah. When you have somebody like Turner who's been in the house for such a long time, And at the same time, as it really assumed a leadership position in his caucus. That is an absence that will be felt very deeply. And you see that in the response from, you know, members of his caucus. So when really a race, I think that a lot of folks were not watching very closely until Election Day.

And so that was a huge surprise. And those are the kinds of members you just assume are safe on a primary day. So, Meredith, thank you for your coverage there. Hannah, let's talk about another wilder race. This was an open seat full of many candidates. Walk us through Congressional District 21. Yes. An open seat to replace Chip Roy, who, as we heard, is in the Attorney General race.

Mark Tashira won by a lay and slide in Congressional District 21, despite having little political history and reportedly no GOP voting record. So he's a longtime Major League baseball player, competed in a very crowded Republican primary race with 15 candidates. And he received almost 62% of the vote with Tray Trayner coming in behind him at 8.21% and Jason Cahill, just above Traynor, at 10% of votes. So DeShira had a large war chest with total receipts coming out to about $3.5 million, which was way above his competitors. And he received endorsements by President Trump and Governor Abbott. So he will face Dr. Kristen Hook, who won the Democratic nomination in November for the district.

and the district is rated Republican at 62% according to our Texas Partisan Index. So, yeah, surprising you go. It's going to be pretty solid race there for this year. And it goes to show my MLB ignorance, but I did not realize how famous of a baseball player we were dealing with in this race. And so I was talking about the friend this week who was close to the campaign and was talking about like all of fame ballots and all these things. And I'm like, oh, I did not know. Okay, got it. Contextually, I'm unlocked in now, but it'll be interesting to watch that all come

coming through in November what the margin there is like. So, Hannah, thanks for your coverage. Let's zoom out here. So my favorite part of a primary election podcast is talking about takeaways, surprises, themes. As we all were watching the results, I'm sure many things are popping in our brains throughout the evening is just surprises or just notable. takeaways. So I want to walk through that with you guys and see what, um, what came to mind for y'all as results started piling in. And now that has been a couple of days, maybe those are even more

solidified. So, um, I'm going to start off with one. I have a couple. And if I have time to get into them, I will. I'll get into the others. The first I want to talk about is polling. We saw many different polls come out ahead of primary night. And I think what is, you know, we say this all the time on the podcast. I've said it's on blue in the face. Pull. They're just a screenshot of a moment in time and are not reliable. They are interesting and they can be

reliable, but until you see results actually come through or until you see returns on the Secretary of State website, you can't bank on them. But this time was worse than usual. This time we saw folks like Beau French who was pulling at what, six or nine percent according to a poll. And this was granted, a few weeks

Mexico, going to a run off and lead for most of the night, right? While to watch some of this come through, you know, Mays Middleton, which some of this is due, which is my other bullet point here, I'll get to if I have time. Some of this is due to the sheer amount of money that was spent by some of these campaigns, right? But at the same time, you know, Maize Milton was trailing Roy by double digits for most of the race, according to polls. He came out on top, And everyone was very shocked to see that. And she kind of says, okay, this runoff is going to be a little bit more interesting than we thought. It was going to be interesting regardless, but now there's this kind of new factor at play.

All that to say, polling really, and I think there will be many different Twitter talking heads going off about why this is the case. We will hear time and time again why the way we think polling was not necessarily as on point and as usual in this cycle. But a while to watch, it really did not give us that same level of assurance or indication as election day came close and came knocking. So we'll see how that goes into the runoff. And it'll, as is always the case, you watch pollsters be like, I was closest. You were far. I was closest. Like, give me your business the next primaries or the next election cycle.

And so we'll see that over and over in the next few weeks as a runoff ramp up. But that's my first takeaway. Poling was off and off by significant margins. Mary Elise, let's go to you. What's the takeaway you got? Well, I kind of wanted to hone in a little bit on the U.S. Senate primary, the Democratic primary, which are just so fascinating to watch, especially since they're not going to a runoff. I think that there's a couple things that we could look at about the way that

Tala Rico and Crockett ran their campaigns. they both campaigned from very different angles. So Tala Rico kept emphasizing, we need unity, and he had a very classist message he talked about. It was top versus bottom. He kept saying that. And so, you know, us folks who are not quite as wealthy, we need to unite against the billionaires

who are running our world, running our politics. So that was kind of his theme. And then Crockett really focused on a word fight. and she kept talking about we need to fight the Trump administration and talking about how she has a record of that. I mean, of course, she's known for having some spicy verbal fights with Republicans in Congress. I mean, that's where she got a lot of attention there when she was arguing with Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green at one point that went super viral. But I think something interesting here is that

Crockett had mentioned when they debated that Tala Rico just had a lower name ID, which of course, he's a state representative. Crockett went from being a state rep to being a congresswoman who got a lot of headlines pretty frequently for clashing with the Trump administration. And that was something that she mentioned when they were debating. She was pointing out, you know, we need someone that's a little bit better known, known for fighting, etc. But it appeared that Talarico's campaign put in the work to raise that name ID and to raise the awareness around who he was. And Crockett seemed pretty confident throughout her campaign that

her name ID was enough. Her time in Congress could stay it on its own for voters. I think that Tala RICO also really appealed to disaffected Republicans, potentially more than just more than Crockett maybe did in the sense of we were talking about earlier how Tala Rico came across as more moderate. So it's possible that there are some individuals who weren't happy with the state of the current Republican Party. And if they did choose to vote Democratic, my guess would be that they would go for Tala RICO versus Crockett.

just from that, him kind of like angling himself as being more about unifying people from both parties, unifying them against the people who are in control, people at the top. Also significant is that Taurico gained a lot of ground with Latino voters. South Texas areas like Bear and Webb County, he was very successful in. And that's notable because I think that's a group of people that a lot of politicals have their eyes on because we saw Trump was so successful in gaining the Latino vote. But then a lot of people have been talking about well with immigration enforcement, is that going to affect things the way that they've been executing their immigration policies?

Is that going to affect the way the Latino voters look at the party and other policies of the presidential administration might be implementing now that might affect them? So that definitely at least challenges the Republican gains with Latino voters, which is the goal of the Democratic Party right now. So yeah, I'll just reiterate the top versus bottom idea. I think that was a big theme of Tala Rico's campaign, and it appears that it appealed to Democratic voters, and I think that potentially a lot of voters right now

are looking for kind of a different sort of politician, and I think that's what Talleyco aimed to be was kind of coming at this from a different angle. Crocket was more so with the attitude of we're fighting the Trump administration. So there's a lot of themes we could pull from the Senate race here, but it's just fascinating to look at to see, okay, what made Talarico stand out from Crockett? What made him so successful here going against someone with a really high profile? Absolutely. And I think we talked, I remember months ago, we were talking about potential,

you know, statewide Democratic candidates, like, who is their bench? And Talarico is top of mind. Just again, he's a state rep. So we're talking about somebody who represents a very small district comparative to either Senate districts, congressional districts, like it's a very small district. But at the same time, he has millions of followers on social media. I'm talking Instagram, TikTok, whatever it might be. His profile is significant. And as somebody that folks even, you know, I have friends even outside of the state who know who he is and knew who he was before he ran for Senate.

It's easy to forget when we're so in this political sphere that that's who we're dealing with on the Democratic ticket. And to your point, Mary Elise, when we're talking about, you know, a ticket that Republicans want for November would have been, you know, either Paxton or Cornyn, or probably Cornyn and Crockett, right? That's kind of the ticket. Republicans are like, we could have major success in margins here. But Democrats want a Paxton and Tolerico ticket. Those are the tickets that each camp wants when they look at, okay, how could we potentially persuade that middle of the aisle voter to come to our side? That's who they, you know, the parties

are perceiving as the more palatable candidates. We'll see how that shapes up. We'll see who ends up in the runoff on the Republican side, but notable in the, you know, the U.S. Senate race is going to show us a lot here. Also interesting to see how, you know, Tala Rico's, the comparisons to Bado are in full force already. It is wild. And of course,

there is, there's lots to be said there. We could go into the differences in the similarities. But there's, I think, a similar tone that's being struck here from Tala Rico that is similar to the 2018 bid from Bado. Unity, you know,

trying to appeal to the every man, the moderate approach, quote unquote, moderate approach. You know, Republicans, of course, are arguing that he's not moderate at all. But that's what the, you know, that's the way that the campaign is positioning itself and his candidate. So we'll watch. We'll see what happens. I was just going to add real quick, I think that is Republicans are going to really try in market Tallinnos being extremely radical Democrat. Because I saw immediately after Tallinn won this race, lots of. different people were reposting his tweets from 2020, 2021, which was a very notable turning point,

I think, for the Democratic Party, those couple of years. Well, I am for the Republican Party, but there were different things that he was saying that probably wouldn't be considered so moderate. And so we saw Republicans sharing that. So you can already see it's kind of underway. The Republicans are aiming to mark him as much more radical than he presents himself. Yeah, immediately. Absolutely. Holly, jump in. Yeah, I was just going to say when we talked about this on one of the television shows I went on a couple of weeks ago, we talked about Tala Rico and his comments about abortion and how it's justified by the Bible. Some of the Democrats that were on the panel were shocked by those comments. So I think we're going to see a lot of Tolariko's past public statements really come to the forefront now as we're going into that general election.

The classic primary general split, right, where you have a candidate. it, yeah, find their lane, try to run to the middle a little bit. We see this in Republican Party politics all the time, but in a primary, you're really trying to appeal to your base of voters who may not want you to be as moderate. And then again, as soon as we head into the general records catch up, what have you actually voted on? What have you said publicly? Immediately I saw, you know, a clip of Tala Rico in a house hearing where he was saying that there were six genders, and that was making its, you know, its rounds on social media. So we're going to see those attacks from Republicans, and it will be interesting to see how that is contrasted with whoever

Republican nominee is. So spot on. Okay, Kim, what do you got for us? Well, I'll bring it closer to home. I live in Tarrant County. And in Texas, all of the urban counties have turned blue. Dallas County is blue. Harris County's blue. Harris County's blue. Travis County is definitely blue. But Tarrant County has remained red. It has a majority of elected officials in Tarrant County are Republicans. And so it's always a mantra. We've got to keep Tarrant County red. Texas stays red as long as Tarrant County's red. And so people were watching closely after the runoff in Senate District 9 in January where a Democrat upset the Republican. People were really watching what happened in the primary. And as it turns out, about over 40,000 more Democrats voted in

Tarrant County primary elections than Republicans. According to the Secretary of State's unofficial results, in the U.S. Senate race, 188,476 people voted in the Democratic primary, and 145,329 voters voted in the Republican U.S. Senate primary in Tarrant County. So I don't know what that means for the general, but I do know that Democrats have their target right, and Tarrant County is right in the center of it, trying to turn out people who are either Democrats or who are swing voters or who have no previous voting history, and they might be able to persuade, to vote Democrat to try to turn Tarrant County blue that's been their goal for years, and they really are dead set on doing it this time around.

So I have written a couple articles about the Democrat strategy in Texas, and so I hope people will go and check that out because they are very organized, and they have a lot of money, and they've got their target set on Texas, and especially on Taryn County. been the criticism of the Democratic Party for decades now is that Republicans, as the majority party, as they should be, are far more organized in the Democrats, but their Democrats are very publicly talking about what they're doing to ensure they have their ducks in a row heading into November. So interesting to watch that. I think that'll benefit people up and down

the ticket, but watching an operation like Caleroigo, that'll be very indicative of how down-valloc candidates do as well. Okay, Holly, coming to you. Yeah, so the, The most shocking result, I think, of Tuesday night was what happened in Congressional District 2, with Dan Crenshaw being unseated by state representative Steve Toth. And, you know, a lot of people were looking at that race. Krenshaw, of course, has been kind of a national superstar. He's been on major talk shows. But increasingly controversial over the years, most people thought that he would still come out on top in this primary election or

that at worst he would go to a runoff with Tooth, not so. So what we're looking at right now, the vote count at the moment shows Crenshaw with just 40%. There were two other lower tier candidates in the race, but Steve Toth handily won with almost 56% of the vote. And so I think that sent shockwaves through the state. A lot of people were very surprised about that outcome, myself included. But we're looking at, you know, what happened? there and Tooth really ran a great campaign. He also had some big money support from Montgomery County. There's a big donor there. His name is Robert Marling. And he gave Toh, I think, just under $250,000 to run that campaign. And of course, Toh has a very strong support from

that Montgomery County portion of the district. Whereas Dan Crenshaw really drew support from the Harris County portion of the district. But Crenshaw had lost a lot of support over the past few cycles. Initially, he was supported by Michael Berry, who's the radio talk show host out of Houston and sometimes subs in for what used to be the Rush Limbaugh show. So he's got national recognition and a lot of sway. But he had turned against Crenshaw, along with a number of other big name endorsements in the area. And then on Toth's side, he got. an endorsement from Senator Ted Cruz, which surprised a lot of people. But I would say that was probably one of the top upsets of Tuesday night.

And a big shocker to a lot of people, a lot of Republicans who did not see that one coming. Yeah, absolutely. Holly, here's the thing with Holly. Holly's always going to have her phone ring. That's just the nature. Holly has people calling her. I'm so sorry. I like the inside scoop.

It's 24-7. It's 24-7, the inside scoop where Holly's like, I'm on the phone. Got it. We'll circle back. It's the nature of Holly Hanson is she's always talking, always getting the scoop. We love it. But another instance, I think we're polling. You're like, what is going on in this race?

And then here we see a result that was so different from what folks expected. Absolutely. Holly, thank you. Meredith, let's go to you. Yeah. So for me, there was a couple of Abbott endorsements that I had followed the races. And it was just interesting to see that they were very early support or very strong support and they just kind of fell flat and didn't seem to, they didn't help these candidates

garner the support that they needed to win their primaries. And one of them was statewide for Hancock for comptroller. Abbott took him on this tour with Nate Sheets and him and they would go around to different cities and it was all over social media and it's an example of overinflating online where you just see them together, you see all this support. You'd see some polls and they weren't great, but you just kind of wonder, like, is that a polling thing? Like, is he going to be able to pull something out? But he eventually, he got around, I think the latest counts, like around 24% of the vote or something like that. So that was kind of just like really strong from Abbott in his inner circle that didn't work out for him.

And then the other one was a more local race, HD 94, which is in Tarrant County, where Jackie Schlegel had garnered some very early support when she announced from Abbott because she had worked with him on some, like, helping to advocacy in 2023 to ban vaccine mandates by private employers. So they had some kind of history there and he had endorsed her. But then she ran into some legal troubles with the former organization that she co-founded the Texans for vaccine choice that ended up. She was ordered to pay them about $380,000 in damages. And that happened during the campaign. And so even and then the Texans, Texans for vaccine choice, endorsed her opponent,

Cheryl Bean, who ended up solidly winning that race. that primary race with over 50% the entire evening from early vote on. So just seeing like where an abid and aband endorsements could not overcome certain circumstances. And both Hancock and Schlegel only got about less than not barely a quarter of the votes in their in their primaries. Absolutely. And certainly races where there were so many other factors that play other than endorsements. But we know coming off a cycle last two years ago when the avid endorsement meant so much. and not just because, you know, Abbott's name and likeness could be placed on a mailer, but because of the money and the apparatus that then was behind you, right?

A little bit of a different cycle. So definitely worth mentioning and keeping track of. Meredith, thank you. Hannah, coming to you, last but certainly not least, walk us through your takeaways from election night. Yes, actually going off what Meredith said, that was one of my takeaways to in congressional district 19. Abraham Norikas was endorsed by Governor Abbott.

And now he's going to run off with Tom Sell. But Tom Sell had, he was 20 points ahead of Abraham and Rikas in the election. So he also had way more money behind him. So that was just something interesting I saw, like similar to you, Meredith. Even though Enriquez had the Abbott endorsement, he wasn't performing as well in the election. Absolutely. Yeah. And on that note, Hannah, you're talking about money, right? this is my last point that I'll make, but money mattered so much in this election.

And we see that in the Middleton factor. We see that in the Sheets factor, in the Huffines factor, where all of these candidates significantly outperformed the expectations folks had for them. And money played a huge role. And now we're talking about Middleton, somebody who can self-fund as long as he wants, and certainly did so. Spent a lot of money, fostering his name everywhere. and really overcoming a larger profile in Congressman Roy and leading, you know, going into the runoff.

How finds the same thing. I think it was largely expected that there would be a runoff in that race. This was not a race with a bunch of, you know, no-named candidates. These are, in Craddock, you have somebody who's run on a statewide ballot for many years. And in Hancock, you have someone who's held public office in the state for a very long time in a district sense, but still was endorsed by the governor and is the interim of the acting comptroller currently. didn't matter. How finds one outright? And so really where this, you know, where money was spent this cycle that we saw a lot of success for these candidates. So interesting. We'll see that, you know, takes off into the runoff and continues in that way. But folks, ladies, thank you so

much for joining me. We've talked for so long and we could talk for much longer. I will, again, folks, say, go to the Texan.com. News and read all the coverage from our incredible team. We have a plethora of information and articles for you to delve into. There's lots of information, lots to be said, and I'm sure we'll continue to talk about all of it. Now let's go watch for our Trump endorsement. See if we've got Corny and see if we've got Paxton. Mary Lease and Rob and I have been messaging throughout this podcast about things that are happening as we speak and things we need to add to this podcast.

So anyways, I'll add to her article that was already written and ready to go. So we'll see where we end up. But folks, thanks so much for listening. Happy Primary Week, and we will catch you on the next week's episode. Thank you to everyone for listening. If you enjoy our show, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you want more of our stories, subscribe to the Texan at the Texan. News. Follow us on social media for the latest in Texas politics and send any questions for our team to our mailbag by DMing us on Twitter or shooting an email to editor at the Texan. News.

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