High-stakes Texas primary comes down to wire with both Republican and Democratic candidates on edge

A heated U.S. Senate race in Texas entered its final stretch on Sunday with candidates on both sides of the aisle making final pitches to voters ahead of Tuesday’s primary, the nation’s first big contest of the 2026 midterm elections.

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Incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn is trying to avoid being the first Republican senator from Texas to lose a primary, fighting challenges from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt.

And yet, Cornyn’s schedule was very light, as he spoke at a San Antonio church with little notice, where he held private meetings and was raising money, campaign aides said.

Democrats, hungry to win a Senate race for the first time since 1988, see an opening, but have their own knotty race to figure out.

U.S Rep. Jasmine Crockett, the rhetorical brawler and regular antagonist for President Donald Trump, is stressing her federal experience, reminding voters that she has brought millions of dollars in federal funding back to her district.

“So yes, I will clash with folk when it’s time to do so but I actually govern as well,” Crockett said during a church stop Sunday.

She also gave a nod to the Black women she described as the core of her support, in Texas and nationally. Crockett, who would be the first Black woman from Texas elected to the U.S. Senate if she wins office, is backed by prominent Black women in politics including former Vice President Kamala Harris, who endorsed her on Friday. Sens. Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland and Ayanna Presley of Massachusetts campaigned for her in the state this weekend.

State Rep. James Talarico, the soft-spoken seminarian who emphasizes his crossover appeal, met with voters as he strolled San Antonio’s Historic Market District before headlining a rally downtown.

“Thousands of people showing up to rally with us. I can’t tell you how many people are coming up to me and telling me they are not a Democrat,” Talarico told The Associated Press. “I’m just so proud of the movement we are building.”

In the downtown heat Sunday, hundreds stood in line along San Antonio’s Pearl Parkway awaiting entry to the event in the 132-year-old Stable Hall.

But Cornyn’s precarious stature as an incumbent vulnerable in his own party’s primary has been the focus of a majority of the massive sums spent by both sides in the run up to March 3.

“Complacency is a killer,” Cornyn told voters Saturday at a seafood restaurant in The Woodlands, a Houston suburb. “It kills relationships. It kills careers.”

Senate Republican leaders in Washington, working to hold their thin majority, have worried out loud for months that Democrats could have a shot at a long out-of-reach Texas seat, if Republicans nominate Paxton, who is popular with MAGA voters but has had years of legal problems.

Talarico, who has raised more money than Crockett, is part of the Texas primary’s record fundraising pace. His campaign has spent $13 million on television advertising just this year, the most of any single entity in the crowded field of groups spending on either side, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact.

“That means we’re building a true grassroots movement,” Talarico told AP.

Heading into Tuesday’s primary elections, the cost of advertising and reserved advertising time had topped $110 million, the most ever for a Senate primary. Most of it — more than $67 million — had been spent by Cornyn’s campaign and allied groups, much of it attacking Paxton, but also lately trying to keep Hunt from advancing.

If no candidate receives at least 50% of the vote on Tuesday, the primary proceeds to a runoff between the top two vote recipients on May 26.

A late visit to Texas on Friday by President Donald Trump, who used the Port of Corpus Christi as a backdrop for a speech highlighting energy production, drew all of the top Republican U.S. Senate candidates. And while Trump said Friday he’s “pretty much” decided whom to endorse, he declined to name who he’ll actually support.

“We have a great attorney general, Ken Paxton. Where’s Ken? Hi, Ken,” Trump said. He continued, “And we have a great senator, John Cornyn. Hi, John.”

Noting that they’re in a “little bit of a race,” Trump added: ’It’s going to be an interesting one, right? They’re both great people.”

Despite his long career in Texas politics, Paxton has painted himself as a Washington outsider and a staunch supporter of Trump.

“I’m not going up to Washington, D.C., to join the swamp club,” Paxton said at a campaign event in Fort Worth. “I will go up there and fight for you.”

Murphy reported from Oklahoma City.

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