Texas US Senate 2026
Election day is November 3, 2026. A statewide contest in Texas.
Who is favoured in Texas US Senate?
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What the Texas US Senate election decides
The Senate confirms federal judges and cabinet officers, ratifies treaties, and can stop legislation the House passes. With a six-year term and a hundred-member chamber, a single seat is a larger share of the institution than any House district, which is why Senate races draw national money into state contests.
Each state sends two senators regardless of population, so this seat carries the same weight as California's or Wyoming's. Texas voters fill it alongside all 38 of the state's House seats and the governorship, and a Senate term runs six years, spanning two future Congresses and, in this case, the next presidential election.
How Texas votes
Texas is the largest Republican-led state, with booming and diversifying metros set against a vast conservative rural base. Energy, the border and the grid define its statewide races, which have tightened without yet flipping. That backdrop is the ground any Texas campaign fights on, and it is what the Electorate HQ simulation reads first when it weighs a ticket's platform against this contest.
About this race
The 2026 United States Senate election in Texas was held on November 3, 2026, to elect the Class 2 member of the United States Senate from the state of Texas. Democratic state representative James Talarico defeated Republican state attorney general Ken Paxton.
Four-term Republican incumbent John Cornyn sought re-election, but was challenged for the party's nomination by Paxton, which led to no candidates receiving a majority in the March 3 primary. Aided by a late endorsement from President Donald Trump, Paxton won a runoff on May 26 with 63.8% of the vote, making Cornyn the first incumbent senator from Texas to lose renomination since Ralph Yarborough in 1970. In the Democratic primary, Talarico won the nomination with 52.4% of the vote over Representative Jasmine Crockett.
The general election was considered to be one of the most competitive Senate races in 2026. The race was the most expensive in Senate history; Talarico raised over $146 million in campaign donations, while Paxton was primarily supported by super PACs. While Talarico entered the election with a narrow polling lead, he defeated Paxton by an unexpectedly large 12-point margin. Talarico's win was part of a broad wave of victories for Democrats in Texas, who flipped every statewide office on the ballot from Republican control. Talarico is the first Democrat to win a Senate election in Texas since Lloyd Bentsen in 1988.
Latest coverage of the Texas US Senate race
Democrat James Talarico wins Texas Senate seatTexas 2026 Election ResultsFocus groups: Their candidates lost in the Michigan and Texas primaries. Now what?More than $500 million has been spent on advertising in Texas’ U.S. Senate race2026 U.S. Senate primary election candidates: an overview | Texas A&M University-San Antonio | TAMUSAMonitoring the Midterms: What's making the Texas Senate race so competitiveTexas election results: Democrats break decades-long losing streak in Texas as Talarico wins Senate race, Hinojosa unseats AbbottTalarico works to reach Black voters in his bid to win a US Senate seat as a Democrat in TexasThe rest of the Texas ballot
Every Texas House district, the counties inside each one, and an address lookup that resolves your exact districts are on the Texas state page.
Other 2026 races in Texas
Analysis covering Texas
Ten whole congressional districts fit inside Los Angeles County
Seventy-nine of the 435 districts sit entirely within a single county. Ten of them are in one county in California.
One seat covers 34 square kilometres. One seat covers 1,713,379.
New York's 12th and Alaska's at-large seat each elect one member of the House. On the ground, one is fifty thousand times the size of the other.