The first midterm primaries of 2026, by the numbers
WASHINGTON (AP) — The first primaries of the year weren’t short on drama.
Much of it centered around Tuesday night’s marquee races: the primaries for the U.S. Senate in Texas. The Democratic contest was marred by voting issues affecting the state’s second-largest county, which caused confusion around ballot eligibility. The Republican nomination is still up in the air and headed to a runoff.
One incumbent congressperson lost reelection, and the fate of several more hang in the balance as some races advance to runoffs and others remain too close to call.
Here’s a look at some of the night’s key races, by the numbers.
No clear divide for Texas’ Republican Senate candidates
The most expensive Senate primary in history isn’t over yet. Neither Sen. John Cornyn nor state Attorney General Ken Paxton cleared the 50% threshold necessary to avoid a May runoff.
As of 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, Cornyn led Paxton by about 26,000 votes out of a total 2.1 million counted so far.
There wasn’t a clear ideological or geographic divide in the results, despite the race being framed as an establishment vs. insurgent showdown. The tight margins in Houston, Dallas and their surrounding areas underscore how the battle lines cut across, rather than neatly between, Texas’ urban and suburban regions.
Cornyn — whom Paxton attacked as too aligned with D.C. Republicans and not loyal enough to President Donald Trump — led in the state’s largest counties, including those encompassing the metro areas of Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio, Austin and Houston. But Paxton remained competitive, trailing by roughly 1,700 votes in Harris County, home to Houston, and 4,000 votes in Bexar County, home to San Antonio.
At the same time, Paxton won some of the fast-growing suburban counties around these cities. In Montgomery County, north of Houston, he built a 21,000-vote advantage, which was more than enough to offset his combined losses in Harris, Travis and Bexar counties.
The biggest separation between Cornyn and Paxton was in the counties least friendly to Trump. That’s a relative measure in Texas, where Trump won at least 80% of the vote in over half of the state’s counties in the 2024 presidential election, but it still provided Cornyn with a 6,000-vote buffer.
Paxton, conversely, received more total votes in the counties where Trump won at least 70% of the vote. That makes sense, given how Paxton styled himself as the more MAGA-faithful option.
Democratic candidates carved out clearer bases
State Rep. James Talarico’s outright primary victory was powered in part by the massive leads he built in his home base around heavily Democratic Austin as well as in the smaller, more rural counties in the center of the state. With nearly all ballots counted, he collectively received nearly 70% of the vote in these areas, much of which tends to vote overwhelmingly Republican in general elections.
Talarico also carried smaller but still decisive margins in the state’s southern and western regions with large Hispanic populations. He received about 60% of the vote across the regions along the U.S.-Mexico border where Trump made inroads in 2024. Talarico carried the larger counties of Hidalgo at the southern tip with nearly 70% of the vote and the westernmost county of El Paso with more than 60%.
The bulk of Rep. Jasmine Crockett’s support came from the state’s urban population centers around Houston and her home base of Dallas. Although these regions tend to contribute the most votes in Democratic primaries and often play a pivotal role in determining the winner, Crockett carried the areas by more modest margins than Talarico did in the state’s southern, central and western regions.
Crockett posted bigger margins in East Texas, which includes a concentration of counties with some of the state’s highest shares of Black population, but this area comprised less than 8% of the total primary vote.
More competition, more spending
Thanks in part to new congressional maps in both Texas and North Carolina, many of Tuesday’s House races saw higher spending than the last go-round.
Texas’ 15th and 34th districts, two border districts redrawn to favor Republicans, were among the most expensive House races in the state. Both had incumbents with nominal primary opposition, but the primaries to select a November challenger saw big spending.
North Carolina’s 1st District, which is likely to be the only competitive House race in the state come November, saw a similar dynamic. Five Republicans ran to challenge vulnerable Democratic incumbent Rep. Don Davis. The eventual winner, Laurie Buckhout, had over $1 million in ad spending alone, according to data from the nonpartisan ad-tracking firm AdImpact.
Other expensive races, like North Carolina’s 4th District and Texas’ 2nd and 23rd Districts, featured incumbents — already likely to have spending advantages — fending off challengers. Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw became the first House incumbent of 2026 to lose reelection despite his campaign benefiting from more than $2.3 million attacking his opponent, state Rep. Steve Toth. Brandon Herrera spent almost $1.4 million on ads attacking Rep. Tony Gonzales, whose reelection campaign was damaged by recent scandal.
Herrera and Gonzales are headed to a runoff and a few other incumbents’ fates remain in jeopardy.