Politics

Trump looms over Texas attorney general race

Published

9 months ago

February 18, 2026

The Republican battle to become Texas’ next attorney general has turned into a MAGA purity test, with major implications for the future of the GOP after President Donald Trump leaves office.

Rep. Chip Roy, a well known Freedom Caucus rabble-rouser and hardline fiscal conservative who has occasionally broken with Trump, is fighting to stay the front-runner for a job that has long been used to aggressively push the conservative agenda and served as a jumping-off point for higher office — like current Attorney General Ken Paxton, who’s running for Senate.

The next Texas attorney general will help shape the future of the Republican party post-Trump, playing a key role leading the conservative legal movement. But if Roy is going to get there, he’ll first have to get by State Sen. Mayes Middleton and former DOJ attorney Aaron Reitz, who have both carved paths as aggressive foot soldiers for the MAGA movement. The race also includes state Sen. Joan Huffman, who is making a more measured pitch for the job.

Roy has a lead in the polls, and all three candidates are trying to keep him from earning more than 50 percent of the vote in the March primary to force a runoff in May.

Their main line of attack: Roy’s past dustups with Trump shows he is inadequately conservative in order to represent Texas in court. Roy, in response, has argued that his reputation as an obstructionist in Congress, deep experience in Washington and independent streak within the party demonstrates he’s well equipped to serve as Texas’ top lawyer.

The candidates’ eagerness to prove their MAGA credentials were on display in the first few moments of a debate Tuesday night. Middleton bragged that Trump once called him a “MAGA champion.” Reitz said Trump regards him as a “true MAGA attorney.” Huffman said she “led the fight with President Trump on border security” in the state legislature. Roy said he has worked alongside Trump to designate cartels as terrorist organizations.

But Roy’s rivals have repeatedly hammered him for being at odds with Trump and the GOP in the past. The congressman was the first to call for Paxton to resign after he faced charges of bribery and abuse of office in 2020. He bucked Trump to certify the 2020 election and said the president demonstrated “clearly impeachable conduct” on Jan. 6. Roy backed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for president in 2024, making him one of just a handful of House Republicans who opposed Trump during that year’s primaries.

And, his refusal to fall in line with GOP leadership in the House — even holding up numerous funding bills — has occasionally infuriated Trump. In late 2024, as Roy led the charge against Trump’s demand that the House raise the debt ceiling without restrictions on future spending, Trump blasted him as “just another ambitious guy, with no talent” and invited primary challengers against him. Roy was a late holdout on Trump’s signature legislative achievement, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, though he eventually voted for it.

“This is somebody who has a deep disdain for the MAGA movement … and he’s only now singing a different tune now that it’s campaign season,” Reitz said of Roy in an interview, while touting his own experience working in the Trump Justice Department’s Office of Legal Policy, a position he held for several months. Reitz has received Paxton’s coveted endorsement and posted strong fundraising numbers.

Trump has not yet weighed in on who he prefers to take the mantle from Paxton, but his potential endorsement looms over the field. A recent poll shows Roy in the lead, with 33 percent of likely Republican voters, followed by Middleton, with 23 percent. Huffman and Reitz trail at 13 percent and 6 percent, respectively. A quarter of voters are undecided.

Among Texas Republican voters, “the attorney general position is kind of viewed as the police officer of the state,” said Jen French, chair of the Travis County GOP. “Voters like somebody who’s going to get in there and what they perceive as ‘fight, fight, fight.’”

All four GOP candidates are closely aligned on policy, vowing to follow strict interpretations of the Texas and U.S. Constitutions, but Middleton and Reitz have made more bombastic declarations about how they would enforce the law. The differences between the set are mostly stylistic, as they try one to one-up each other on red meat issues like stopping the alleged spread of Sharia law in Texas and halting the flow of abortion pills into the state.

Middleton has nicknamed himself “MAGA Mayes,” a slogan he’s put on hats his campaign gives away. He’s also leaned into culture war issues that rally the base like banning trans student athletes from competition and allowing the Ten Commandments in schools. The oil and gas businessman from Galveston has largely self-funded his campaign, putting more than $11 million toward the effort.

Roy, who also leads in fundraising, has been endorsed by well-known conservatives like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who Roy once worked for as his chief of staff, as well as fellow Freedom Caucus Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Andy Biggs of Arizona. Roy reported $4.2 million in the bank in January, fueled by a $2 million transfer from his congressional campaign account.

Huffman, one of the longest-serving state senators, highlights her experience prosecuting felony crimes as an assistant district attorney and state district judge in Harris County. In an interview, she said she would treat the job of attorney general as “chief law enforcement officer for Texans,” and work closely with local law enforcement.

Whoever emerges from the GOP primary will be the heavy favorite in the general election in the Republican-leaning state. On the Democratic side, the race includes State Sen. Nathan Johnson and former Galveston mayor Joe Jaworski, who is making his second shot at the nomination. Jaworski, in an interview, said voters are tired of “a rabid ultra MAGA representation of what government is. It’s all about punishing the vulnerable.”

The job has long allowed its holder a leading role in the national culture wars — and a springboard to higher office. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott was attorney general before he ran for governor and barraged the Obama administration with lawsuits that made national headlines: He famously quipped in 2013 that his day-to-day was, “I go into the office, I sue the federal government and I go home.” Before he had the job, it was filled by now-Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), the man Paxton is currently running against.

Paxton spent a decade steering the office into the center of the culture wars, pursuing actions in the name of preserving religious liberty and spearheading multistate lawsuits filed by Republican attorneys general against the federal government. The AG role has since become the top destination for young conservative legal talents, a number of whom have gone on to become judges appointed by Trump.

It is a “choice position,” said Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University.

“There’s this whole playing field within the legal system where the states can have a powerful impact on national policy in a wide range of areas,” he said. “And no state has more successfully – or at least more aggressively – used the power of the courts to try to further a conservative policy agenda than the state of Texas.”

Politics

Democrats sweep Texas

Published

5 hours ago

November 4, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

AUSTIN — Democrats’ vision of a blue Texas is finally here.

James Talarico has been elected a U.S. senator and Gina Hinojosa as governor, the first Democrats to win either office in more than a generation. The four other statewide candidates are leading as ballots continue to be counted. Democrats further down the ballot are leading some red districts, changing the complexion of the state legislature, congressional delegation and courts.

“It’s something that I haven’t seen in decades, that none of us have seen in decades,” said former Texas House Speaker Joe Straus, a moderate Republican.

It’s an outcome that even the most bullish Democrats didn’t dare enunciate in the late days of the election. But as results have poured in Tuesday night, the party is outpacing its expectations across the country’s second most populous state amidst a national romp.

Both Hinojosa’s and Talarico’s victory margins came by running up vote counts in Texas’ deep-blue urban centers and while also leading in the largest Republican-led county in the country, Tarrant County. They reversed Republican gains across the Latino-heavy Rio Grande Valley region, an ancestrally Democratic area that had swung hard to the right in recent years. Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez romped to a near-20 point victory in a seat Republicans drew to favor them during last year’s redrawing of the state’s House map, ousting a top Republican recruit who campaigned alongside Speaker Mike Johnson to begin election day.

It amounts to a set of remarkable results in a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1988 and to the governor’s mansion since 1990. In recent cycles, Democrats have tried and failed to flip the state in presidential and U.S. Senate contests but have been largely uncompetitive for state offices. But Tuesday’s blue wave slammed into Texas particularly hard, as it combined frustrations over the economy, immigration enforcement, data centers and corruption with a collapse of Trump’s 2024 coalition.

“We reminded voters that Republicans have been in charge in Texas for 30 years. That every problem we have, was caused by Republicans,” Michelle Lowe Solis, chair of the Bexar County Democratic Party. “They aren’t going to fix the problems, they caused them.”

As votes continue to be counted, Democrats appear poised to blunt the impact of Republicans’ attempted gerrymander, likely sweeping the Rio Grande Valley congressional seats while holding onto another San Antonio-area district drawn to favor Republicans. In state Supreme Court races, they lead in all four seats up for grabs, potentially turning a 9-0 conservative majority into a 5-4 split. Among the first 36 state house races called by the Associated Press, 34 have gone to Democrats and just two to Republicans.“Voters aren’t dumb,” said Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.), who chairs the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’ BOLD PAC. “Even though the Republicans have tried to cheat with the series of gerrymanders, that has, I think, only made voters in those areas more willing to participate.”

Talarico’s and Hinojosa’s victories will be felt nationally. Texas Democrats, who have long asked for national money and resources in a state where elections are costly, now have a test case of how to win. And it will bolster their arguments that their state, with 40 electoral votes, should be treated as a presidential battleground.

Ali Bianco and Jonathan Martin contributed reporting.

Politics

The blue wave is cresting: GOP braces for midterm wipeout

Published

5 hours ago

November 4, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Just a few hours into election night, Republicans acknowledged what appeared to be a historic midterm defeat — a long-feared “blue wave” that had started washing across the nation.

The extent of the washout became clear soon after polls closed: Republicans lost a South Carolina Senate seat for the first time in nearly 30 years. Democrats nipped on the heels of House incumbents in deep red Florida districts. And the man in charge of the party’s House reelection effort was at grave risk of losing his own seat.

By 10 p.m., Democrats had already flipped three GOP House seats — itself enough to win a majority if Republicans can’t make gains elsewhere — and many in the party feared dozens more could follow as voters registered their dissatisfaction with President Donald Trump.

Voters in Texas, a ruby-red state for a generation, appeared at risk of handing multiple statewide races to Republicans and possible control of the legislature. Joe Straus, a former state House speaker, cast it as a historic rebuke of an unpopular president.

“President Trump hasn’t exactly done any Republicans favors across the country,” he said on a Blue Light News election night broadcast. “They haven’t done themselves favors, frankly, by following so closely along.”

Many of the political professionals charged with getting GOP candidates elected in this environment said the results could be potentially historic in nature.

“We are looking at tsunami territory,” said one national Republican operative who, like others, was granted anonymity to candidly describe the returns.

“This is the worst electoral defeat in my lifetime and likely in history,” said another GOP operative working on battleground races. “Trump said his name and record was on the ballot and people responded — resoundingly.”

At an ill-fated victory party for Senate candidate Michael Whatley in North Carolina, staff were already packing up the room less than two hours after polls closed. Returns showed Democrat Roy Cooper on track to win by as many as 20 points in a race that was supposed to have been tooth-and-nail.

Standing in the room, one North Carolina Republican openly pondered what many others in the party had long avoided saying openly — that it was finally time to think about life after Trump.

“Trump has done some excellent things, and I appreciate that. But it can’t be the party of Trump forever,” said Jonathan Fletcher, a former GOP county chair. “If the Republican Party is going to be serious about winning, we have to be serious about winning people in the middle.”

Nearly every state, district and county shows movement toward Democrats, from counties that Trump won three times to blue strongholds where Democrats are improving their margins. County-level data shows Democrats doing on average more than 5 points better than Kamala Harris did in the 2024 presidential race.

That suggests that districts Trump won by double digits just two years ago are in reach for Democrats.

The losses threatened to pile up even after Republican candidates, committees and super PACs spent massive sums in an effort to retain control of Congress — including more than $380 million from President Donald Trump’s political operation.

“I can’t believe how these House races aren’t close given the amount spent,” a senior Senate GOP operative said. Another senior Senate GOP official called it a “bloodbath.”

Many of the Republicans said the war in Iran, which sent voters’ gas prices soaring, and continued frustration with the economy drove frustration with a party that won on those same issues in 2024.

On top of that some quickly vented about substandard candidates — such as Darline Graham in the South Carolina Senate race and Ken Paxton in the Texas Senate contest.

“Not only were folks upset about the war, inflation and gas prices, but add to that the fact they think he was making them eat a shit sandwich in Darline, and they just had enough,” said Mick Mulvaney, a former Trump White House chief of staff and South Carolina congressman.

Trump said on Truth Social his own absence from the ballot for the drastic Republican underperformance — even after barnstorming the country begging Republicans to “vote like I’m on the ballot.”

“I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!” Trump posted shortly after 10:30 p.m.

Other Republicans were ready to blame Trump’s own decisions.

“Republicans got their asses kicked tonight because of the Iran war — plain and simple. Everything else is just noise and spin,” said a person close to the White House.

Meanwhile, power in Washington was already shifting. The likely next chair of the House Oversight Committee, who has been gearing up for massive probes into the Trump administration, issued a two-word statement Tuesday addressed to administration officials and the “Trump Crime Family.”

“Lawyer up,” Rep. Robert Garcia of California said.

Will Steakin, Erin Doherty, Lauren Fedor, Ashley Ahn and Lisa Kashinsky contributed to this report.

Politics

Biden’s revenge: His alumni are winning in the midterms

Published

6 hours ago

November 4, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Joe Biden was unceremoniously ushered out of the White House two years ago.

On Tuesday, he got a small measure of revenge.

Prominent Biden administration alumni are winning in a handful of notable races, with Keisha Lance Bottoms — the one-time Atlanta mayor turned Biden’s senior adviser and director of the Office of Public Engagement — leading the pack by flipping Georgia’s governorship.

The victories, his former staffers say, are an important part of rehabilitating his legacy within a Democratic Party that all but banished him in 2024.

“It’s proof that President Biden assembled a talented team of public servants — who the public is calling on now to help turn this country around,” said Ron Klain, Biden’s former chief of staff. “These fantastic men and women will make life more affordable, health care more available, protect our rights, fight corruption, and make our country stronger.”

Biden was not a regular on the trail this year, and most Democrats kept their distance from the former president. But he did weigh in on a handful of primaries, helping put loyal lieutenants in front of voters who still held him in high regard.

While Bottoms was the highest profile victory, there’s a number of Biden alumni also poised to head to Washington. Gabe Amo, who won a 2023 special election in a blue Rhode Island seat, secured his first full term in Congress. And Dan Koh, who won Massachusetts’ 6th District to succeed Rep. Seth Moulton, was Biden’s deputy Cabinet secretary and deputy director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs.

He leaned into his Biden endorsement throughout the campaign and this week reposted a video of a phone call he and his family had with Joe and Jill Biden on primary night in September.

“Mr. President and Madame first lady, thank you so much for all of your support,” he told them. “It wouldn’t have been possible without both of you. … You changed my life by giving me a job of a lifetime. And you got my back the minute I decided to run.”

Biden’s Cabinet also had a strong night in other governor races. Xavier Becerra, Biden’s secretary of Health and Human Services, had a solid polling lead over Republican Steve Hilton in the race to be California’s next governor going into Tuesday. And, Deb Haaland, Biden’s Interior secretary, was projected to win the New Mexico governor race.

“In his farewell speech, President Biden warned that ‘an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy,’” said Andrew Bates, the former president’s longtime spokesperson. “He urged his team and supporters to keep standing up for the values that we all care about, including decency, hard work, and a sense of national community. On the ballot and off, a whole lot of his alumni are fighting to carry on that legacy.”