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

Happy Wednesday, everybody! We’re officially in the morning post- Texas’s Primary Day, so here are a few notable updates that happened while you were probably sleeping:

• The Attorney General race: We mentioned this last night, but embattled incumbent Ken Paxton is officially headed to a runoff against Land Commissioner George P. Bush. Per the New York Times, with more than 95 percent of the vote reported, Paxton got 42.7 percent of the vote versus Bush’s 22.8 percent. In a radio interview this morning, though, Paxton assured his base that “if conservatives unite … we can end the Bush dynasty.”
• The Lieutenant Governor Race: Incumbent Dan Patrick easily sailed through the Republican primary last night — earning about 76 percent of the vote. But it looks like Democrats Mike Collier and Michelle Beckley are headed to a runoff this May to see who will challenge the Republican in November.
• The Land Commissioner Race: In the one open statewide seat, state Sen. Dawn Buckingham, who had the backing of Trump, received the most votes in her bid for the GOP nomination for land commissioner. Unfortunately for her, though, she didn’t earn over 50 percent of the vote, which means she’ll go to a runoff against Tim Westley, a pastor and former congressional candidate. There will also be a runoff on the Democratic side between conservationist Jay Kleberg and Sandragrace Martinez.
• The 28th District: Overnight, the New York Times announced that incumbent Rep. Henry Cuellar and Jessica Cisneros are officially headed to a runoff. With over 95 percent of the vote reported, Cuellar has a small edge at 48.5 percent, while Cisneros trails closely behind him at 46.8 percent.
• The 3rd District: Rep. Van Taylor, one of the few conservative congressmen who faced a difficult reelection bid, didn’t hit the 50 percent mark outright and is now headed to primary runoff after facing a group of challengers who attacked his vote for a commission to investigate the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. According to the New York Times with more than 95 percent of the vote reported, Taylor is still barely clinging onto first place with 48.7 percent of the vote, while former Collin County Judge Keith Self sits at roughly 27 percent.
• The 8th District: In the hard-fought Republican primary in the state’s 8th District, Morgan Luttrell, a former Navy SEAL, has declared victory, and it does seem with 91 percent of the vote reported that Luttrell will avoid a runoff. His most formidable opponent was political operative Christian Collins, but he currently has roughly 22 percent of the vote compared to Luttrell’s 53 percent.
• The 15th District: Though the Republican primary in this district is settled, two Democrats — lawyer Ruben Ramirez and business owner Michelle Vallejo — are poised to head to a runoff, earning 28.3 percent and 20.1 percent of the vote, respectively

It was a busy night in politics, both for policy with the State of the Union and for elections with Texas’s primaries. In the latter, though, there wasn’t a lot of statewide drama. There were a number of things we were watching tonight, but one of the main stories ended up being scandal-ridden Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, who will now face a primary runoff in May, probably against Land Commissioner George P. Bush, although as of 12:25 a.m. Eastern the No. 2 in that race hadn’t yet been called.

I mentioned earlier tonight the strong hold that Trump continues to have on the GOP in Texas (many Republicans in the state have a popular view of the former president), and indeed, there were many strong performances by Republican incumbents who voted against certifying the 2020 election in the U.S. House — every one handily won renomination or looked to be on their way in a couple of uncalled races.

But in an example of how our politics are often full of contradictions, most Republicans who voted to certify the election did well, too — except Rep. Van Taylor, who is hovering right around the 50 percent mark and may not be able to avoid a runoff in the 3rd District. As we wrote about earlier, Taylor faced a number of attacks for his vote to certify the 2020 election results and for his support of a commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Many congressional primaries are too close to call at this point, in particular the 28th District, where the Democratic primary is neck-and-neck between Rep. Henry Cuellar and challenger Jessica Cisneros, and may be headed for a runoff. Should Cisneros win, though, she would join the ranks of fellow progressive Greg Casar, who handily won the primary for the open race in the safely blue 35th District, helping notch another high-profile win for progressives in Texas’s Democratic primaries tonight.

That said, it’s worth noting that despite all the excitement, tonight is a bit of a false start to the 2022 primary season. That’s because the next state primaries aren’t until the beginning of May, two months from now. Unlike in a presidential primary year, when there are multiple primaries practically every Tuesday in March, that’s very much not the case in this midterm year. So we’ll have to wait a bit before we can see how future nomination races play out.

As always, thanks for following along, and scroll back through to relive the liveblog in all its chronological glory. And if there are any big developments in the races too close to call now, we’ll post an update here tomorrow.

We’re wrapping up the live blog shortly, so let’s take a final look at how Black candidates for House and governor fared tonight. Although many races still aren’t called, we know that at least five Black Democrats have won their primaries, while at least two Black Republicans and two Black Democrats have lost theirs.