Primary Postmortem
And looking to November
A bunch of reactions to the first set of 2026 primary elections:
Texas Democrats…sort of got their act together? I really have no idea whether Senate primary winner James Talarico is a stronger candidate for the party than Jasmine Crockett. I do think it’s likely he would at least be as good as her. And with a solid win and a quick endorsement, the Democrats appear to be unified and in as good shape as they could be for the Senate election.
That said: I think Crockett was an excellent candidate; so was Senate contest drop-out Colin Allred, as were perhaps a couple of others who sniffed around statewide races early on. And now the Democrats have only Talarico, out of those possibilities. Nothing against gubernatorial nominee Gina Hinojosa or the various other candidates still alive for state offices, but they don’t bring much star power. So good for Texas Democrats for avoiding a train wreck, but a more effective party would have a stronger overall ticket.
Texas Republicans, on the other hand, are still trying to avoid their own train wreck, with Senator John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton headed for a nasty runoff after already running a brutal initial campaign. Donald Trump is trying to avoid it at the last minute, announcing that he’s going to endorse one of them and urging the other to drop out; rumor has it that Cornyn will benefit.
Perhaps Paxton will drop out. But Tuesday wasn’t a great day for Trump’s electoral clout. He endorsed incumbent Texas Agriculture Sid Miller, who lost his effort at re-nomination; he also endorsed embattled House incumbent Tony Gonzales, who advanced to a runoff but finished a bit behind his challenger. Of course, Trump also endorsed plenty of winners. But it’s one thing to support an incumbent with little serious opposition or to give one of several seemingly similar candidates in a contest a boost when voters are looking for cues. Endorsements are less likely to be effective in fully engaged, well funded, two-candidate races.
Either way, Talarico has a realistic chance of winning. G. Elliott Morris makes the case. He’s still not the favorite. But he doesn’t need everything to go right. Just more than goes wrong.
Turnout for Democrats was way, way up in Texas and North Carolina on Tuesday. It’s hard to know what to make of that; primary turnout depends on a lot of things, not just party enthusiasm. But even if it’s a weak arrow, it’s still pointed in the right direction for Democrats – who, by the way, picked off another state legislative special election, this time in Arkansas.
The bottom line: While we pay a lot of attention to candidates and they can still matter on the margins – and the margins decide very close elections – the truth is that these days candidates and their campaigns just aren’t as important as they once were. The overwhelming context of what happens in individual elections is the national partisan swing. And that’s going to favor Democrats this year…but it’s still too early to know how much.
My guess is that the best Republicans can hope for is a national tide this year that’s only 4 or 5 percentage points against them. That happens if Trump’s popularity floats back up some, presumably something that would happen if the economy is perceived as improving and he avoids too many more unpopular policy initiatives.
The down side for Republicans? Here I’m like Gutman on the potential value of the Maltese Falcon: “The maximum I refuse to guess. You'd think me crazy. I don't know. No telling how high it could go, sir.” There are just so many things that could go wrong that voters would notice and that all but the most partisan would tie to the president. We’re talking, after all, about a president who essentially begged in his State of the Union address last Tuesday for voters to judge him by gasoline prices when he knew that they were very likely to spike up within a week.
I certainly don’t think it’s likely that all of the risks go wrong (and I hope they don’t!), but I don’t really remember a president with this many potential vulnerabilities and so few ways, at this point, to control any of it.
Back to the Democrats: In November, I set out three coming tests of Democratic party strength. One was the potential Texas logjam discussed above. I guess they get, what, a B on it? B-? The second one was recruiting the best potential candidate, Mary Peltola, into the Alaska Senate race when there were plenty of indications that she would prefer to run for governor. That one was entirely successful.
The third one? That was whether Democrats could derail Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner. He seemed to me, and still seems to me, to be way too risky for the party, with far too high chances of either imploding during the general election campaign or going all Sinema on them if he does get elected. And that’s giving him the benefit of the doubt that what we know about him now was, as he claims, perfectly innocent and just looked bad. So far, it sure looks as if he’ll at least survive until the primary and might even win it. Still I’ll give Democrats an incomplete on this one.
That said, it’s not just a question of a candidate against a party; there are plenty of party actors actively pushing Platner. So the question may be less about party strength and more about party preference.
Overall: No surprise, I guess, but when it comes to party vs. candidates…it’s complicated.