What Went Down At Biden’s State Of The Union And Texas’s Primary Election

As for whom Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton may face in the likely Republican primary runoff, it seems Land Commissioner George P. Bush has put a little distance between him and former Texas Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman. Bush now leads her by about 4 points for that second spot, 22 percent to 18 percent, with about three-fourths of the vote counted, according to the New York Times. Rep. Louie Gohmert is just behind Guzman in fourth place with 17 percent.

One potentially endangered GOP incumbent we’ve been monitoring is Rep. Van Taylor, who has come under fire from the right for voting to certify the 2020 election results and backing the establishment of a bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol. As things stand, he could just squeak out an outright win in the primary in the 3rd District — or end up in a runoff by the narrowest of margins. Right now, Taylor has 51 percent with about 92 percent reporting, according to the AP. Should he end up with just shy of a majority, it looks like former Collin County Judge Keith Self, sitting at 26 percent, would advance to face him.

For all the action in the GOP primary for attorney general — incumbent Ken Paxton will likely advance to a runoff, but it’s unclear against whom — the Democratic race may also be headed toward a runoff. There, former ACLU attorney Rochelle Garza leads with 42 percent, while former Galveston Mayor Joe Jaworski has a slight edge over attorney Lee Merritt for the second spot, 21 percent to 18 percent. Garza originally was running in the 34th District, but she dropped out when Rep. Vicente Gonzalez decided to run there instead of in the successor seat to his current district, the 15th. Now she could find herself running statewide against Paxton (if they both advance from likely runoffs), which could be Democrats’ best (maybe only) shot at competing for a statewide office in November.