State Rep. James Talarico won the Texas Senate Democratic primary, defeating Rep. Jasmine Crockett and giving party leaders the candidate they had quietly seen as the stronger option to flip the ruby-red state.

The race was defined by questions of electability and simmering racial tensions, as Talarico and Crockett worked to reassemble the party’s fractured multiracial coalition. That carried over through Tuesday, with both candidates raising concerns that voters had been disenfranchised in Crockett’s home base of Dallas County, which includes a large number of Black voters.

The legal dispute over voting precincts in Dallas could cast a shadow over his victory. Crockett told her supporters not to expect a final call on election night.

Talarico, a progressive Seminarian, took a big-tent approach to his campaign by appealing to voters from both parties and independents. He will face off against either Sen. John Cornyn or Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is mounting a right wing challenge to the four-term incumbent.

Texas Democrats have failed to win statewide in three decades, but they believe they have a rare opening to flip the Senate seat in November, due to backlash to the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts and handling of the economy — especially if Paxton emerges from the GOP runoff.

There has been scant nonpartisan public polling in the general election, but a recent memo from the National Republican Senatorial Committee shows Cornyn ahead of Talarico by three points, while Talarico would lead Paxton by three points.

Scandal-embroiled Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) on Tuesday was forced into a runoff election after weeks of backlash to reports alleging he had an affair with a former staffer, who later took her own life.

He will face Brandon Herrera — a 2nd Amendment influencer who goes by “TheAKGuy” on social media — in late May. That sets them up for yet another expensive and prolonged contest like they experienced in 2024, when Gonzales prevailed by one percentage point.

Gonzales, who has represented the west Texas district since 2021, has faced calls to resign from several of his GOP colleagues after new evidence emerged of his alleged affair. Gonzales previously denied the affair and repeatedly said he would not step down.

Gonzales’ South Texas district favors Republicans, but could potentially become competitive should Hispanic voters sour on the GOP this cycle or stay home. Even with the scandal, House GOP leadership declined to rescind their endorsements of Gonzales and were content to wait and see how the voters decided.

“There’s a primary there in less than a week, these things will play out,” Speaker Mike Johnson said recently.

Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) was ousted by a primary challenger who successfully cast the four-term incumbent as anti-Trump and capitalized on a redrawn district.

State Rep. Steve Toth — who had the backing of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) — beat Crenshaw on Tuesday night, all but assuring his seat in Congress given the district’s safe-red bend.

Crenshaw was the only incumbent GOP representative in Texas without President Donald Trump’s support and had at times split with the president, including in his criticism of Trump’s refusal to accept his 2020 election loss.

And Toth, with Cruz’s help, focused his campaign on casting Crenshaw as insufficiently conservative for the district, which was redrawn in the GOP’s recent Texas redistricting push.

“You deserve an unwavering fighter, a Republican who walks the walk,” Cruz said in a recent ad for Toth.