Democratic Representative Jasmine Crockett, a candidate for U.S. Senate in Texas. (Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times)
A separate article about the March 3 Republican primaries has been posted here.
The 2026 midterm elections begin on Tuesday, March 3, with primaries in Texas, North Carolina, and Arkansas. Nominees will be chosen for competitive statewide races, as well as dozens of U.S. House seats. In those House primaries, redistricting led by Republicans in Texas and North Carolina has changed the partisan makeup and geographic area of both states’ congressional districts, creating new pickup opportunities for Republicans and prompting some Democratic incumbents to retire or run against each other. All three states require a threshold of votes in order to win the primary outright, otherwise a runoff election between the top two candidates will be scheduled. Candidates need 50% of the vote to win a primary without a runoff in Texas and Arkansas, and 30% of the vote in North Carolina.
Texas
In Texas, nine Democratic candidates are running for the seat currently held by Republican Senator John Cornyn, in a race that their party may need to regain control of the chamber. The top two Democrats are state Representative James Talarico, a progressive Presbyterian seminarian from the Austin area who has made his Christian faith a centerpiece of his campaign, and Representative Jasmine Crockett of Dallas, a liberal rising star in the party and frequent target of attacks from President Donald Trump. According to the RealClearPolitics polling average of the race, Talarico and Crockett are tied with 41% support. The newest poll included in the average was conducted by the University of Houston, showing Crockett with a 47%-39% lead. “Talarico has built momentum among Hispanic (59%) and white (57%) voters, while a majority of Black Democratic primary voters (80%) support Crockett,” Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, explained in a January news release. “Men also break for Talarico 52% to 30%, while women are about evenly split between the two Democrats, 44% for Talarico and 43% for Crockett.”
Texas has long been a state that Democrats have dreamed of flipping. The last time a non-incumbent Democrat won a Texas Senate seat was Lloyd Bentsen in 1970, defeating future President George H.W. Bush. Trump won the state by 13.6 points in the 2024 presidential election, driven in large part by rightward shifts in the heavily Hispanic Rio Grande Valley region along the Mexico border. But in the 2018 midterm elections, in which Democrats performed well overall during Trump’s first term, Democrat Beto O’Rourke lost to Republican Senator Ted Cruz by only 2.6 points.
During the January 24 Democratic Senate Primary debate, Talarico talked about his Christian faith and how “the real fight in this country is not left versus right” but “top versus bottom.” He holds a fundraising lead, raising almost $7 million in the last quarter of 2025, whereas Crockett has transferred $4.5 million from her House campaign to close the gap in cash on hand. Crockett claims her electability comes from the votes of Black Texans and women, as she presents herself as “ready for real war” in the Senate. They both agreed on impeaching Trump, increasing billionaire taxes, and defunding ICE. Former Representative Colin Allred, who dropped out of the Senate race shortly before Crockett entered, endorsed Crockett in February after Talarico was accused of describing Allred as a “mediocre Black man” to a TikTok influencer. Talarico has described the accusation as a “mischaracterization,” claiming he was criticizing Allred’s method of campaigning. The GOP is having a fierce primary of its own and could nominate Attorney General Ken Paxton, who Talarico described during the debate as “maybe the most corrupt politician in America” due to his 2023 impeachment by the Republican-controlled Texas House and subsequent acquittal by the Texas Senate.
The governor’s seat in Texas has not been held by a Democrat since Governor Ann Richards left office in 1995. However, Democrats cite Republican Governor Greg Abbott’s 47% approval rating according to Emerson College as evidence that he is beatable in 2026. Abbott is a staunch supporter of Trump’s immigration policy and was the first to call on the National Guard as protests spread against the president’s approach to the issue. The frontrunner in the primary to challenge Abbott is state Representative Gina Hinojosa of Austin, who is campaigning for accessible healthcare and “back-to-basics education.” She has been endorsed by both Talarico and Crockett, although eight Democrats, including Chris Bell and Bobby Cole, are challenging her for the nod. Bell represented Houston in Congress from 2003 to 2005. Bell was the Democratic nominee for Texas governor in 2006, but in his more recent 2020 U.S. Senate bid, he placed sixth in the Democratic primary with just 8.5% of the vote.
Crockett’s run for Senate and Representative Marc Veasey’s decision not to run for a redrawn Dallas seat left Texas’s strongly Democratic 30th district open. Democrats Barbara Caraway, Frederick Haynes, and Rodney LaBruce are running. Caraway is a former state representative from Dallas who served from 2007 to 2013 and has run for this congressional seat multiple times. However, Crockett has endorsed Haynes, her pastor at Friendship-West Baptist Church – one of the largest churches in Dallas.
Redistricting means that Republicans are now favored in Texas’ 35th, a district that had historically been a reliable Democratic stronghold connecting San Antonio and Austin, but was redrawn to include some parts of San Antonio and some of the rural counties around it. Under the old lines, Kamala Harris carried the district by 33.6 points in 2024, but Trump won the new district by 10.4 points. Progressive Democratic Representative Greg Casar’s decision to run in Texas’ 37th district in Austin in 2026 leaves his party without an incumbent for the new 35th district, but the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) still labels it as one of its “Districts in Play” in 2026. The Democratic primary for the 35th district includes Bexar County sheriff’s deputy Johnny Garcia, a self-proclaimed “old-school Democrat” who has the endorsement of the moderate Blue Dog PAC. Garcia’s closest competitor in fundraising is U.S. Marine Corps veteran John Lira, who ran for Congress in Texas’ 23rd district in 2022.
Through redistricting, Republicans dismantled the Houston district of longtime Democratic Representative Al Green, who declared he will run for the 18th congressional district in 2026, where most of his constituents have been drawn into. Green will face newly elected Representative Christian Menefee in the primary, who won the 18th district seat in a January special election this year. The 18th district has had four different representatives since the beginning of 2024 due to two vacancies caused by death, and if the 78-year-old Green defeats the 37-year-old Menefee in this primary, the district would be guaranteed a fifth. A January poll by Lake Research Partners for Menefee’s campaign found Menefee leading Green by a 41%-35% margin.
Two Democratic incumbents are being challenged in the context of redistricting: Representative Sylvia Garcia in Texas’ 29th and Representative Julie Johnson in Texas’ 33rd. Under the previous district lines, Hispanics accounted for 63% of eligible voters in Garcia’s Houston area district, but after redistricting, the district is just 43% Hispanic. Garcia’s campaign website advertises her as “the first Latina ever” to represent TX-29. Challenging her in the primary is former state Representative Jarvis Johnson, a “native Houstonian, lifelong public servant, entrepreneur, and organizer” who feels he’ll better address black voters. Under the district’s new lines, the Black eligible voting population grew from 18% to 33%. Despite the new district lines, the 29th district is still likely to elect the Democratic nominee in the general election – Kamala Harris won the district by 30.4 points in the 2024 presidential race.
Julie Johnson is being challenged by her predecessor in Congress, Colin Allred, who just left this year’s Senate race and is now bringing his recent campaign visibility to the Dallas area district. Johnson had already announced she would run in the 33rd district after the new map made her current seat in the 32nd district majority Republican, but she did not expect to face Allred in the primary, who she succeeded in 2024. Allred left his House seat in 2024 to challenge Republican Senator Ted Cruz, whom he lost to by 8.5 points. In a statement to WFAA, Allred cited that the reason for his decision to face Johnson in 2026 is that a “bruising Democratic primary and runoff” in the Senate race “would prevent the Democratic Party from going into this critical election unified against the danger posed to our communities and our Constitution.”
Texas’ 15th is a red-trending, heavily Hispanic district where Democrats want to retake lost ground in 2026. Republican Representative Monica De La Cruz, who flipped the seat in 2022 and held it in 2024, is seeking re-election. Democrats are targeting her with Tejano music star Bobby Pulido, although it will be an uphill battle considering President Trump won the 15th district by 17.9 points in 2024. Pulido, who has also been campaigning alongside Talarico, has placed less emphasis on partisanship but criticized inflation, corporate greed, and harsh immigration policies in his launch video. Ada Cuellar, a doctor and law student from Harlingen, will face him in the primary. Democrats picked up Texas seats in 2018 by talking about Republicans’ efforts to quash the Affordable Care Act, and as a physician, Cuellar hopes to follow a similar playbook by honing in on Medicaid cuts. A September 2025 general election poll by the Democratic aligned pollster Public Policy Polling found De La Cruz leading Pulido by 3%, with 21% of voters undecided.
In Texas’ 23rd, another South Texas district and one of the nation’s largest and most diverse, Republican Representative Tony Gonzales is facing a competitive rematch with a primary challenger whom he narrowly defeated in 2024. Gonzales outperformed Trump by 9.1 points in his 2024 general election, but if he loses his 2026 primary, Texas’ 23rd could become more competitive. Santos Limon, a civil engineer, is a leading candidate in the Democratic primary. The district has not elected a Democrat since 2012, and in the 2024 general election, Limon lost to Gonzales with just 37.7% of the vote. Limon is focused mainly on supporting entitlement programs and improving infrastructure, but he has also proposed a high-speed rail network to support tourism to some of El Paso’s rural areas. Limon’s opponents in the Democratic primary include attorney Katy Padilla Stout and former National Park Service employee Gretel Enck.
North Carolina
North Carolina’s 2026 Senate race will be competitive in November with Republican Senator Thom Tillis retiring, but both parties are largely united around their primary frontrunners. Former Governor Roy Cooper is the leading Democratic candidate for Tillis’s seat, after former Representative Wiley Nickel dropped out of the race and endorsed him in July 2025. Cooper, who won his 2020 gubernatorial reelection by 4.5 points even as North Carolina voted Republican for president and Senate, has been hailed as a strong general election candidate. For example, Lakshya Jain of the nonpartisan election coverage website Split Ticket described Cooper as the “best swing-state recruit Democrats have landed in years,” making Democrats the “slight favorites” to win Tillis’ seat. Before Cooper can face likely Republican nominee Michael Whatley in the general election, however, he will have to defeat five opponents in the Democratic primary, including High Point pastor Orrick Quick and former U.S. House candidates Justin Dues and Daryl Farrow. The Democratic nominee will seek to end a Republican winning streak in North Carolina, which has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since former Senator Kay Hagan won her first and only term in 2008.
In the Research Triangle, Democratic Representative Valerie Foushee faces a rematch of her competitive 2022 congressional primary. North Carolina’s 4th district has been redrawn twice since Foushee was first elected to Congress in 2022, but the district has stayed reliably Democratic under each new map. Under its current lines, the 4th district voted for Kamala Harris by 45.3 points in its 2024 presidential vote. Foushee’s 2026 primary challenge comes from Durham County Commissioner Nida Allam, a 32-year-old Muslim progressive endorsed by Senator Bernie Sanders (VT). Foushee defeated Allam in the 2022 primary for the 4th district by just 8,107 votes, but since then, the district has been redrawn to include some Raleigh suburbs in Wake County. In the 2022 primary, Allam carried her home of Durham County, where the university cities of Durham and Chapel Hill are located. Meanwhile, Foushee won in Orange County, which she has represented in elected offices since 2004. In her 2026 campaign, Allam has criticized Foushee for accepting donations from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in the past. Foushee’s campaign has committed to not accepting AIPAC dollars in 2026, but Allam has still questioned the congresswoman’s pro-Israel stances. Although Allam has support from some progressives, Foushee has endorsements from prominent North Carolina Democrats, including Governor Josh Stein and Representatives Alma Adams (NC-12), Don Davis (NC-1), and Deborah Ross (NC-2). At the end of 2025, Allam had a $100,000 cash on hand advantage over Foushee, even though Foushee has outraised Allam by about $27,000 to date.
Pickup opportunities are scarce for Democrats in North Carolina, but the party still has some contested primaries to take on the state’s Republican incumbents. In the western 11th district, held by Republican Representative Chuck Edwards, five Democrats are hoping to flip the district that backed Donald Trump by 9.5 points in 2024. Those Democrats include farmer Jamie Ager, cancer researcher Paul Maddox, and physician Richard Hudspeth. In the eastern 3rd district, where Republican Representative Greg Murphy did not have a Democratic challenger in 2024, state Representative Raymond Smith Jr. is facing Army veteran Allison Jaslow for the 2026 Democratic nomination. Donald Trump won the 3rd district by 13.6 points in 2024. And in the Charlotte-area 14th district, which Trump won by 15.1 points in 2024, attorney Brent Caldwell and business consultant LaKesha Womack are among the Democrats looking to take on freshman Republican Representative Tim Moore.
Arkansas
Donald Trump won Arkansas by 30.6 points in the 2024 presidential election, and Republican incumbents are strongly favored in the state’s 2026 races for governor and U.S. Senate. In the gubernatorial race, state Senator Frederick Love of Little Rock is facing businesswoman Supha Xayprasith-Mays of Bentonville for the Democratic nomination. The winner will challenge Republican Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who has Trump’s endorsement. In the Senate race, Lewisville Mayor Ethan Dunbar and former farmer Hallie Shoffner are running for the Democratic nomination to challenge Trump-backed Republican Senator Tom Cotton.
Arkansas’ most competitive congressional district is the 2nd district, which includes most of Pulaski County, home of the Democratic stronghold of Little Rock. Still, the district reelected Republican Representative French Hill by 17.9 points in 2024 and voted for Trump in the presidential race by 15.6 points. Nuclear engineer Chris Jones and educator Zack Huffman are running for the Democratic nomination to challenge Hill in 2026. Jones was the 2022 Democratic nominee for governor and lost to Huckabee Sanders by 27.8 points.
