Primary season kicks off on Tuesday in Texas, North Carolina, and Arkansas
We preview every major race in all three states, from the U.S. Senate down to district attorney
The 2026 primary cycle starts with a bang on Tuesday as voters in Arkansas, North Carolina, and Texas pick their candidates for state and federal offices in elections that will set the stage for the November midterms at all levels.
Below, you’ll find our guide to the top races to watch in all three states—40 in total—ranging from the U.S. Senate down to district attorney. When it’s available, we’ll tell you about any reliable polling that exists for each contest, but if we don’t mention any numbers, it means no recent surveys have been made public.
You can find interactive maps from Dave’s Redistricting App for congressional districts in Arkansas, North Carolina, and Texas, which in many cases look very different from the lines used in the 2024 elections.
Texas Republicans, under pressure from Donald Trump, passed a new gerrymander last summer aimed at flipping five Democratic-held seats, though it also reshaped other districts across the state.
Three Democrats whose seats were targeted—Greg Casar, Al Green, and Julie Johnson—opted to seek reelection in a revamped district with a different number than the one they currently represent. But while Casar faces only minimal opposition in the heavily Democratic 37th District in Austin, his two colleagues have tough primaries on Tuesday.
Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez, meanwhile, are running to defend constituencies that are now more conservative than the ones they were last elected to.
North Carolina Republicans followed suit in the fall when they approved a new map that made Democratic Rep. Don Davis’ competitive 1st District much tougher for him to hold. The GOP achieved this by moving several Republican-leaning constituencies out of GOP Rep. Greg Murphy’s 3rd District. The state’s other 12 U.S. House seats were not impacted.
Tuesday’s primaries mark just the start of a six-month marathon that doesn’t conclude until Sept. 15, when Delaware holds the final primaries of the year. Be sure to bookmark our primary calendar, which includes the dates for primaries in all 50 states.
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Texas
The first polls close at 8 PM ET / 7 PM local time in the portion of Texas located in the Central time zone, which includes about 97% of the state’s population. Polls close in the rest of the state (a much smaller region in the El Paso area that’s in the Mountain time zone) one hour later.
A runoff will take place on May 26 for all contests in which no one takes a majority of the vote.
TX-Sen (R & D) (56-42 Trump)
Republican Sen. John Cornyn faces the toughest fight in his decades-long career as he tries to fend off both Attorney General Ken Paxton and Rep. Wesley Hunt in a primary that will almost certainly go to a runoff.
Meanwhile, Rep. Jasmine Crockett and state Rep. James Talarico are also competing in a closely watched contest as they both seek to become the first Texas Democrat to win a statewide election since 1994.
GOP Senate leaders have deployed an astonishing $71 million on the airwaves to save Cornyn, who has long struggled to win over wary hardliners. Cornyn’s backers have focused on the many scandals surrounding Paxton, whom one ad calls a “wife-cheater and fraud,” while they’ve portrayed Hunt as disloyal to Trump.
Despite the massive outlay, though, polls show Cornyn mired in second, and even in danger of failing to advance to the second round. Paxton, despite spending relatively little, has taken first in most surveys, while Hunt has usually been in third—but still in a position to displace Cornyn. Trump, for his part, has remained stubbornly neutral.
The Democratic side pits Crockett, who has a huge following on TV and social media, against Talarico, whose side has enjoyed a huge spending advantage.
Republicans, though, have sought to help Crockett, in the apparent belief that she’d be the easier candidate to beat in the general election. Gov. Greg Abbott has even aired ads in his own race that, while ostensibly attacking the congresswoman, are actually aimed at helping her appeal to Democratic voters.
The Democratic primary, which has already seen massive turnout in early voting, has been especially unpredictable, as recent polling has shown everything from a double-digit lead for either Democrat to a tight race. A runoff is unlikely, though, since a little-known third candidate in the race has barely registered in the polls.
TX-Gov (D) (56-42 Trump)
Republican Gov. Greg Abbott is seeking an unprecedented fourth term, and eight Democrats are campaigning to stop him.
The frontrunner is state Rep. Gina Hinojosa, who would be the state’s first Hispanic governor. Most polls show Hinojosa, who has the support of prominent Democratic leaders, with a large lead over her rivals, though they disagree on whether she’ll be able to avoid a second round of voting.
Hinojosa’s best-known intraparty foe may be former Rep. Chris Bell, who was the 2006 Democratic nominee against then-Gov. Rick Perry. Rancher Bobby Cole has also attracted some attention.
TX-02 (R) (61-38 Trump)
Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw is trying to fend off state Rep. Steve Toth, a conservative hardliner who has highlighted the incumbent’s many clashes with both far-right House members and Tucker Carlson, in a district based in the suburbs north of Houston. Two other Republicans are also on the ballot, though they’ve attracted little attention.
Crenshaw and his allies have heavily outspent Toth’s side, but the challenger picked up a high-profile endorsement from Sen. Ted Cruz during the final week of the primary. Crenshaw, meanwhile, stands out as the only Republican in the state’s enormous House delegation who has yet to receive an endorsement from Trump.
The eventual GOP nominee will be the heavy favorite in November against Shaun Finnie, a wealthy businessman who has the Democratic side to himself. Thanks to heavy self-funding, though, Finnie has over $1.5 million on hand to finance his long-shot campaign to flip this seat.
TX-09 (R) (59-40 Trump)
Trump and Abbott are backing rival candidates in the nine-person Republican primary for an open Democratic-held seat that the GOP radically gerrymandered to make it a near-certain flip. The new 9th, which has just about nothing in common with the previous, dark-blue version of this seat, includes the eastern reaches of Houston’s Harris County as well as Liberty County further to the east.
Trump’s pick is Army veteran Alex Mealer, who lost a tight 2022 race to lead Harris County and then spent the better part of a year unsuccessfully challenging the result in court. Mealer also has the support of Rep. Brian Babin, whose old 36th District contains over 40% of the residents of the new 9th, and the Club for Growth, a radical anti-tax organization that often spends large sums to help its chosen candidates.
Below the paywall, you’ll find write-ups for dozens more races. Producing these extensive previews takes a ton of work, and we publish them before every primary. To gain access to the rest of this post and every primary preview we publish for the rest of the year, we’re offering $10 off our usual subscription price this week!
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