Nominees for key Senate seat to be set while voters choose in congressional contests reshaped by GOP gerrymander
The first votes of the 2026 midterm cycle will be cast on Tuesday, with a pair of high-stakes US Senate primaries in Texas that will test both parties’ appetite for political change in the Trump era.
Voters across the state will decide their nominees for a critical Senate seat, as well as for several key congressional contests reshaped by a mid-decade gerrymander sought by Donald Trump to preserve the GOP’s fragile House majority.
In the Senate race, Republicans are measuring the potency of Trump’s Make America Great Again movement against old-guard conservatism. Democrats, meanwhile, face a choice between two progressive “powerhouses” with different theories of how to fight – and how to win – in the Trump era.
The fiercely competitive races have left Democrats unusually hopeful about their chances in a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat statewide since 1994, while Republicans fret they could lose a seat once viewed as safely red.
