Democrats in Texas are feeling enthusiastic about their voters’ enthusiasm — and for good reason.
For the first time in a generation, it appears they have outpaced Republicans in turnout for a midterm primary in the state. It’s a significant achievement for a party that believes that in James Talarico and 2026, it has finally found the nominee and the moment to deliver a breakthrough victory in the traditional Republican stronghold.
But while Democrats are emerging from Tuesday’s primary with understandable optimism about Talarico’s chances of capturing a Senate seat, the results come with some cautionary notes, too.
Start with the numbers. With the final votes still being tabulated, more than 2.2 million ballots have been cast in the Democratic Senate primary featuring Talarico, a state legislator, and Rep. Jasmine Crockett. That figure is more than twice as high as anything seen in a midterm primary for Texas Democrats this century. It’s also more than 100,000 votes higher than the current turnout level for the GOP contest.
What’s doubly impressive about the Democrats’ turnout level in the race is that it came even as Republicans were locked in an unusually competitive primary of their own, with Sen. John Cornyn facing challenges from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Rep. Wesley Hunt. In a red state like Texas, one might assume that a high-stakes GOP contest would easily attract the most interest from voters, especially with the astronomical sums of money that were poured into it.
In previous cycles when Democrats have made noise about flipping Texas, Republicans have long been able to counter that they still enjoyed a clear turnout advantage in primaries. For instance, in the 2018 midterm during President Donald Trump’s first term, Democrats were predicting that then-Rep. Beto O’Rourke would unseat Sen. Ted Cruz. But turnout in that year’s GOP primary ended up eclipsing the Democratic contest by more than 500,000 votes. (Both Cruz and O’Rourke won their primaries comfortably.)
“We have been hearing for weeks in Texas and across the country that a great ‘blue wave’ was coming to Texas,” Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said at the time. “But the votes have been counted and we know that so-called ‘blue wave’ never made landfall.”
But this time around, Republicans can’t make that kind of a claim. For the first time in a long time, Democrats have matched their hype with real numbers at the polls. Clearly, Democratic-aligned voters are deeply — even historically — energized right now.
What isn’t at all clear, though, is what this will portend for November.
Certainly, primary turnout doesn’t always correlate with general election triumph. For instance, in the 2008 presidential primary season, nearly 3 million voters took part in Texas’ hotly contested Democratic race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, compared with barely 1 million in the GOP battle between John McCain and Mike Huckabee. But that November, Texas remained safely in the GOP column, with McCain beating Obama by 12 points in the state.
Democratic turnout in this year’s Texas Senate primary is also part of a much broader national trend that has accelerated since Trump’s return to the White House. Particularly among the economically upscale, college-educated voters who have become a bigger part of the party’s base, participation in elections is sky-high. These are voters who are repelled by Trump and intent on using any and every chance they have to register their views at the polls.
This has been evident in every special House election of the past year. In all of them, Democratic candidates have posted double-digit net-improvements compared with the party’s 2024 presidential election performance. And it was evident in a race for the off-year state Supreme Court in battleground Wisconsin, where massively disproportionate Democratic turnout propelled the liberal candidate to a landslide victory.
With Trump in power, this is the condition of the Democratic base. Among the GOP rank and file, there is simply no comparable urgency right now.
In primaries and special elections, this kind of energy imbalance can really show. But November will bring a much broader electorate, and in Texas, the Senate general election could conceivably attract 10 million voters. As impressive as their show of force was Tuesday, that will leave Democrats needing to win over about 3 million additional voters in a state that delivered a 14-point victory to Trump in 2024. As the Democratic nominee, Talarico will need to persuade voters, not just motivate them.
Tuesday’s results may have produced a significant challenge for him on this front already. Democrats have been hoping that the GOP would choose the scandal-plagued Paxton as its Senate nominee. That still may happen, with Paxton and Cornyn heading to a May 26 runoff, but Cornyn proved more resilient than expected on Tuesday. It appears he will finish with more votes than Paxton, which could help him persuade Trump to come off the sidelines and back him in the runoff.
Talarico’s brand of politics could prove a tough sell as well. His admirers view him as a unifier who merges Christian theology with progressive values. But the ideological turf he has staked out is unmistakably to the left, particularly on some contentious cultural issues. It’s possible that what a Democratic electorate deems pragmatic moderation may be received quite differently by a general election audience in Texas.
Tuesday’s primary has left no doubt that Democrats have the will to win Texas. It remains to be seen if they have a way to.