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U.S. Sen. John Cornyn debates Democratic challenger MJ Hegar in the inaugural video of our 2020 “Split Decision” series.

Texans are poised to set a record for voter turnout with Tuesday’s election. Voters are casting ballots in a litany of races, from president and U.S. Senate to seats in the Texas House. Watch live election results come in here, and check out what you need to know here. If you see an issue while voting, let us know about it here.More in this series

Before U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and his Democratic challenger, MJ Hegar, meet for their first official debate, we caught up with each of them virtually to see what they had to say on some of the issues important to Texans.

This is a race the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is targeting, committing at least $1 million to Hegar’s efforts to unseat the veteran lawmaker. Hegar, a former congressional candidate and Air Force helicopter pilot, beat state Sen. Royce West of Dallas in a July runoff. Cornyn, who was first elected to the Senate in 2002, sits on the Senate Finance, Intelligence, and Judiciary committees.

The Texas Tribune interviewed Hegar on Aug. 28 and Cornyn on Sept. 3, asking each the same set of questions in separate virtual interviews.

In the first video of our 2020 “Split Decision” series, watch the two weigh in on the pandemic, the U.S. Postal Service, police reform and working with U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, among other topics.

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Alana Rocha was the director of news partnerships for The Texas Tribune until June 2022. She was previously a multimedia reporter, after working in television and radio news for eight years. Alana covered...

Todd Wiseman was the senior editor for video and multimedia at The Texas Tribune, where he worked from 2010 to 2023. Todd previously worked at the Austin School of Film and Synthetic Pictures and interned...

Justin Dehn was a multimedia producer, focusing on video and audio production, from 2010 to 2023. He’s been shooting and producing news for more than two decades. Justin has been behind the camera for...