Harris County voters have one more chance to cast ballots today, May 26, in midterm primary runoffs that will decide who’s on the ticket in November.
Will they choose Ken Paxton or John Cornyn as the GOP nominee to face James Talarico for a key U.S. Senate seat? Will Congressman Al Green’s political career come to an end after decades in office? Will the primary results set up former Houston Mayor Annise Parker to become the next Harris County judge?
Harris County’s early voting numbers were strong on the first day, May 18, when 18,898 Democrats and 20,898 Republicans cast ballots. The numbers dwindled throughout the week as storms hit Houston and some people headed out of town early for the Memorial Day weekend.
Paxton got a big boost last week when, two days into early voting and after mail-in ballots were already submitted, President Donald Trump offered his endorsement. Cornyn, who is hoping to hang onto the U.S. Senate seat he’s held since 2002, had pledged his loyalty to Trump in expensive campaign ads only to be dismissed for Paxton, who is more popular among GOP voters but arguably more problematic for the party in a November general election.
Some Democrats rejoiced at the endorsement, saying that Paxton, who’s been embattled by scandal since at least 2015 when he was indicted on felony fraud charges, will be easier to beat in November than Cornyn.
University of Houston political science lecturer Nancy Sims said the endorsement probably invigorated Paxton voters who hadn’t cast ballots yet. “It gave some life and infusion into [Paxton’s] campaign in the final days,” she said. “It’s a hit for John Cornyn. He’s probably not going to overcome this.”
Prior to the Trump endorsement, a University of Houston Hobby School of Public Affairs poll found that Paxton has a slight 3 percentage-point lead over Cornyn among Texans planning to vote in the runoff. Hobby School polls are nationally recognized for their accuracy.
Cornyn wrote on X after the endorsement, “We’re not giving up the fight. I know who gets to choose our senators, and it’s the people of Texas. And there’s no substitute for that.”
Renee Cross, senior executive director and researcher at the Hobby School, said neither Cornyn nor Paxton is “universally well-liked,” and noted that Harris County plays a huge role in the outcome of statewide elections.
“Because of Harris County’s size, we have a lot of influence on who those winners are,” she said. “We expect the Harris County vote to be between 20 to 25 percent of the total statewide vote. We have a lot of impact in these statewide offices.”
Criticism of Paxton is widespread, even within the Republican Party, because, as attorney general, he was impeached by the state House in 2023 (he was later acquitted by the Senate) and accused of abuse of office and adultery. A recent round of attack ads alleges that Paxton’s office offered a plea deal of one day in jail to an admitted child molester after the district attorney assigned to the case recused himself.
The criticism of Cornyn is that he’s old (he’s 74), weak and an ally to Democrats. Paxton has claimed in ads that Cornyn “loves radical Islam” and supports Muslim mass migration to the United States. Sims said the race is the “most expensive Senate primary in the country, ever,” and the most competitive contest she’s seen in Texas in the last several elections.
“I like to call party primaries the family feud,” Sims said. “You really bloody each other up and you think you make each other vulnerable but you know everybody’s going to come back together for Thanksgiving. ‘Tis the season that we’re in. The family is having a huge feud.”
“In the family, Trump is daddy,” Sims continued, noting that the President has had a high success rate with his endorsed candidates winning primaries. “Everybody’s going to come kiss Daddy’s ring, come Thanksgiving.”
The statewide vote tally in March had Cornyn leading with 42 percent, Paxton earning 41 percent and a third candidate, Wesley Hunt, getting 14 percent. But voters don’t necessarily cast ballots for the same candidate in a runoff as they did in March, and it’s unclear where Hunt voters will land.
Sims said Texas Democrats are energized behind state Rep. James Talarico, who is making his first bid for Congress after ousting Jasmine Crockett in the March primary.
“I suspect that Talarico supporters were dancing in the streets,” she said after the President made his endorsement. “John Cornyn would have the advantage of incumbency, whereas Paxton is just like Talarico, seeking his first term in the U.S. Senate. Trump is not popular outside of Republican primary voters. Trump is going to have to keep supporting Paxton throughout the election if he wins the primary, and Talarico is probably going to use that against him.”
Another race that’s getting statewide attention is the Congressional District 18 contest between Al Green and Christian Menefee. Both are already elected members of Congress but Green was redistricted out of his District 9 seat last year.
The District 18 seat is solidly blue, so whoever wins the runoff will likely win in November, political experts say. Menefee supporters argue that Green, 80, is too old and should retire, noting that the longtime congressman is known for his public outbursts and criticism of Trump but Menefee, as Harris County attorney, has actually successfully sued the President.
A Hobby School poll shows Menefee leading Green 50 percent to 43 percent in the primary runoff, with 7 percent unsure. Sims said she thinks Menefee will win “but it won’t be a landslide.”
U.S. Congressman Chip Roy and state Sen. Mayes Middleton are facing off in the GOP primary runoff for attorney general. Texas Sen. Nathan Johnson and former Galveston Mayor Joe Jaworski are in the Democratic primary runoff.
Polls taken in Harris County and statewide favor Middleton and Johnson for their respective primaries. Johnson told the Houston Press before the March election that he thinks Texas is “desperate to have a Democrat in a statewide office.”
“It would be a beacon of hope to not just Texas but to the whole country,” he said. “It would be a gift to the functioning of government. Finally, there would be something resembling checks and balances.”
While Jaworski is popular with the Galveston voters who elected him in 2010, he doesn’t have the name ID that Johnson enjoys as a three-term senator who flipped a Republican state Senate seat held by Don Huffines, now running for Texas comptroller, back in 2018.
Jaworski has been criticized for running misleading attack ads in an attempt to tie Johnson to a 2017 bill requiring Texas police to enforce federal immigration law, but Johnson wasn’t even in office when the bill passed. Johnson said he did not expect Jaworski to attack him but that’s politics.
“I’ve had candidates be nasty, mendacious and misleading in two prior primaries,” he said. “I crushed them both and I plan to again.”
Running for Senate allowed Johnson to use a “traditional ground game,” where he knocked on doors and attended neighborhood events, he said, but running for statewide office in Texas presents a new set of challenges. “On a statewide basis for an office like attorney general, particularly on the Democratic side, you don’t have the finances to create the infrastructure to run campaigns the way I’ve been able to as a state senator,” he said.
Johnson says he put thousands of miles on his car traveling across the state but says he’s also tried to reach people “digitally, on their screens.” He won Harris County in the March primary and beat Jaworski by 22 percentage points statewide, but because a third candidate was in the race and neither of the top two vote-getters earned more than 50 percent of the vote, a runoff was forced.
Sims pointed out that Texas has not elected a Democrat to a high-ranking statewide office in 32 years and whether a blue wave occurs depends heavily on what the Republican President does between now and November.
“Trump’s approval rating is hovering around 30 percent. If that anger continues, you could see a complete turnover, but it’s a huge ‘if’ to discuss in May for a November election,” she said. “Does the [Iran] War end and he comes out looking like a hero? Does he end the Ukraine War? Does he drop tariffs? Does he send money to every American because he’s sorry the gas prices escalated? With him, it’s so unpredictable.”
State Rep. Vikki Goodwin and union leader Marcos Velez are in a runoff for the Democratic nomination in the lieutenant governor’s race, but most government watchdogs and even the bluest of the Dems haven’t given the race much attention, perhaps because they don’t think it’s winnable.
The polls put Goodwin in the lead, but the current officeholder, Dan Patrick, handily won the Republican primary and, according to Cross and others, if a statewide seat is going to flip, it’ll probably be in the Senate.
Velez has gained some key endorsements during the runoff campaign from the Texas AFL-CIO, Houston LGBTQ+ Caucus and Houston Progressive Caucus, while Goodwin has been championed by legacy media outlets across the state.
And while Harris County judge isn’t a statewide office, it certainly carries a lot of power. Former Houston Mayor Annise Parker and former Houston City Council Member Letitia Plummer are vying for the Democratic nomination. Former Harris County Treasurer Orlando Sanchez and insurance businessman Warren Howell are facing off for the GOP nomination.
“Today, it looks like Parker and Orlando Sanchez will pull it out and that’s a win for Harris County,” Sims said. “They’re both experienced government office-holders.”
Both Cross and Sims said they didn’t think the public souring on County Judge Lina Hidalgo, a Democrat, during her second term would turn voters against the party.
“Harris County is basically purple,” Sims said. “In the last countywide election in 2024, nine Republican judges were elected. [Texas Gov.] Greg Abbott pledged that he would put $25 million toward the Republican Party to turn Harris County red. We haven’t seen him do that yet, but it could influence the outcome of elections in November.”
