Many Texas Republicans entered Tuesday’s election having known November as a formality. They ended the night in the political wilderness trying to make sense of what went so wrong.
John Cornyn
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2026 Texas Elections
Ken Paxton survived scandal after scandal. He couldn’t survive a Senate race.
The attorney general ran for Senate as a grudge match, and in the process helped give Democrats their first win in decades.
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2026 Texas Elections
James Talarico defeats Ken Paxton, giving Democrats their first U.S. Senate win in Texas since 1988
The Austin state lawmaker ran on a message that America’s true fault line is between not the left and the right, but the wealthy and everyone else. He had not yet been born when Texas last elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate.
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2026 Texas Elections
Ken Paxton and James Talarico close their Senate campaigns on home turf
To win, Paxton needs to keep the margin close in Collin County, his political home base. Talarico must earn epic returns in Travis County, the bluest part of the state.
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2026 Texas Elections
Paxton vs. Talarico: Five things to watch in Texas’ tight U.S. Senate race
A swing back among Latino voters, Harris County turnout and Republicans skipping the Senate race are among the trends we’ll be tracking as returns come in.
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2026 Texas Elections
This young Latino mayor went all in for John Cornyn. But Ken Paxton is a sore subject.
Erik Gomez, a rising GOP star in South Texas, has modeled his career after Republicans like Cornyn. He’s wrestling with the idea of voting for Paxton.
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Hill Country floods
Emergency weather alerts may be sent via satellite under new “Mystic Alerts Act”
Not everyone received cell alerts during the deadly flooding in 2025 in the Texas Hill Country. A new law is trying to fix that.
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Energy
Republican Bo French denies he agreed to debate Railroad Commission opponent
The Dallas Press Club, which organized the event, said it would host a podcast recording with Democrat Jon Rosenthal if his GOP opponent doesn’t show.
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2026 Texas Elections
Trump says John Cornyn and Karl Rove to blame if Ken Paxton loses Senate race
If Ken Paxton loses to James Talarico, blame would fall on weak Republicans who failed to close ranks, the president said on social media.
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2026 Texas Elections
Elon Musk is the donor behind Senate Republicans’ massive rescue mission for Ken Paxton
The world’s wealthiest man transformed Texas’ U.S. Senate race with a massive cash infusion to the Senate GOP’s main outside group, which has taken over the airwaves with ads boosting Paxton.
