U.S. Senate Elections 2026

The Republican primary battle between incumbent Sen. John Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, which has raged for more than a year, will come to its conclusion on May 26.

Texas voters will return to the polls this week to decide several high-profile runoff races, including contests for U.S. Senate, state attorney general and lieutenant governor.

The incumbent senator and his allies have massively outspent the pro-Paxton side, though polling points to a tight finish in the May 26 election.

The former president greeted patrons while stopping for tacos near the University of Texas at Austin campus — a notable show of support for the Democrats atop the ticket this fall.

Since many of the state’s congressional districts are drawn to favor one political party, Democratic and Republican voters this month can go a long way toward picking their next representatives in the U.S. House.

The Austin Democrat, who won his party’s nomination in March, led Cornyn and Paxton by margins of 3 and 5 percentage points, respectively. Both results were within the survey’s margin of error.

The movement, which stresses an overt role for a specific evangelical strain of Christianity in government, has been gaining strength nationwide in no small part because of Texas’ influence.

The new poll, conducted on behalf of Texas Public Opinion Research, shows that even an endorsement by President Donald Trump would not help Cornyn enough to close the gap with Paxton.

Both Republican candidates lagged far behind Democratic candidate James Talarico.

The Austin Democrat’s haul is the largest-ever sum for a Senate candidate — in any state — in the first quarter of an election year.

The president could still weigh in over the next seven weeks. But his inaction before last month’s dropout deadline has only hardened the rivalry.

The influential Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, is underway in Grapevine, Texas. While the annual event draws attendees and speakers from all over, a host of Texans — including Gov. Greg Abbott, U.S. Senate hopeful Ken Paxton and state Sen. Bryan Hughes — are scheduled to speak on Friday.