Primary night preview: Texas turnout surges

The midterms are finally upon us as the primary season kicks off with a splash on March 3, with voters heading to the polls in Texas, North Carolina, and Arkansas to decide who will be the Democratic and Republican nominees in November. Here are some of the key races to watch this Tuesday.

(Click here for a detailed look at all of tomorrow’s races on Kalshi’s 2026 Primary Election Hub.)

The (lone) star of the night is undoubtedly Texas, which has potentially one of this year’s marquee Senate races, a slew of statewide elections, and 38 House districts recently reshaped by a mid-decade redistricting plan that kicked off a nationwide scramble.

At the top of the ticket is a Senate election that could very well determine overall control of the chamber. In a rarity, both the Democratic and Republican primaries are still unsettled going into Election Day. 

On the Republican side, incumbent Senator John Cornyn is in real trouble in his reelection bid, where he faces a primary challenge from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Congressman Wesley Hunt. It is ultraconservative Paxton who leads the race; despite his professional and personal scandals, which included his impeachment by the GOP-controlled Texas House of Representatives in 2023, Paxton now has an over 80% chance of winning the Republican nomination. 

But that victory may not come in March. In Texas, if no candidate receives over 50% of the vote in the first round, then the election proceeds to a runoff with the top two candidates. Given the three-way nature of the GOP primary, it is very likely that the election will head to a runoff, meaning it won’t be decided until late May. One wildcard? President Trump, who has not yet endorsed in this race, but may step in if GOP concerns over Paxton’s general election strength mount.

The Democratic Senate primary, meanwhile, is equally competitive. The race is now primarily a two-way battle between state representative James Talarico and U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett. Talarico has sought to weave religious themes into his progressive and populist message, while the bombastic Crockett has made her opposition to Trump and reputation as a “fighter” central to her campaign.

The campaign has been rocked by two developments in the last month; the first was former Senate candidate (and current Congressional candidate) Colin Allred accusing Talarico of calling him “mediocre,” a jab with racial undertones. The second was an interview that Talarico did with Stephen Colbert reporting getting pulled off after the FCC threatened adverse action under equal time laws. The latter generated a surge of national energy and fundraising for Talarico, but we will see how that translates on primary day.

Overall, though, this primary is one in which the markets stubbornly show a different narrative than polling. Recent public polls have shown Crockett ahead, sometimes even by double digits, while the markets consistently give Talarico between a 60% and 80% chance of winning the nomination. It’s an interesting showcase of how other factors beyond polling, like rally and crowd size, fundraising, even the old cliche of yard signs, factor into how traders and markets decide who will emerge victorious at the end of the day.

Speaking of other factors, one metric that will also be key to watch is the ultimate turnout of both parties. In recent cycles, Texas Republicans have consistently outvoted Democrats in the primaries, often by a margin of 2-to-1 or more. And yet in this election, Democratic turnout has been eye-wateringly high.

In relative terms, Democrats have cast nearly 150,000 more ballots than Republicans. If Democrats can keep this advantage (and traders think there’s around a 70% chance they do), it would mark one of very few instances where that has happened in recent history. And in the other instances where it did (2020 presidential primary, 2002 governor primary), the GOP candidate was essentially running uncontested, while the Democrats had a competitive primary.

For Democrats to outvote Republicans when Republicans also have a competitive primary is unheard of. 

In absolute terms, the Democratic primary has already crossed 1 million votes, surpassing the 2024 presidential primary turnout. The current market forecast is for a total Democratic turnout of 2.5 million votes.

For context, in 2016 1.4 million Democratic primary votes were cast, a number which rose to 2.1 million in 2020. On the Republican side, 2.3 million votes were cast in 2024, and, in the highest number I could find, over 2.8 million were cast in the contentious 2016 GOP presidential primary.

If Democrats do hit the market forecast of 2.5 million votes, it would mark the highest Democratic primary turnout ever, and would approach Republican presidential levels.

What does that all mean? It’s difficult to extrapolate directly from the primary to general election, but needless to say it would be unwise to simply dismiss such record-breaking Democratic turnout and claim that it does not reflect on the party’s enthusiasm one way or the other. If Democrats truly are to have a shot at turning Texas blue in 2026, off-the-charts primary mobilization may be a necessary, though not sufficient, start. 

In addition to the Senate race, here are some of the most notable other primary elections in Texas:

A race that became very competitive late in the cycle, with State Representative Steve Toth challenging Congressman Dan Crenshaw (who you might know for wearing an eye patch). This race was notable given that Crenshaw was conspicuously one of the only incumbent representatives who Trump did not endorse, likely due to Crenshaw’s rejection of Trump’s assertions that the 2020 election was stolen and his staunch support for Ukraine.

Then this past week, Senator Ted Cruz officially endorsed Toth and filmed an ad for him. Now markets see this primary as a tossup (although Crenshaw has regained ground in recent days) heading into election day, with Crenshaw fighting for his political survival.  

This member-on-member primary election in deep-blue Houston was precipitated by the Republican redraw of Texas’ congressional districts, jumbling longtime incumbent Al Green with new Rep. Christian Menefee, who just won a January special election for the previous incarnation of TX-18. But polling and markets heavily favor the 37-year-old Menefee to win, in a race shaped by a generational contrast between him and the 78-year-old Green.

One factor potentially shaping the race? Both elderly previous representatives of TX-18 died while in office, leaving the district without representation for almost a year. 

In 2024, Rep. Tony Gonzales barely won his primary election after voting for a gun control bill, narrowly fending off gun manufacturer and YouTuber Brandon Herrera by 1.2%. Herrera is running to challenge Gonzales again this year, but Gonzales is now facing a maelstrom of scandal of his own making.

In a deeply disturbing and sad situation, text messages recently came to light of Gonzales pressuring a female staffer to send inappropriate photographs of herself, despite her repeated protests. The staffer later committed suicide.

This scandal seems very likely to cost Gonzales reelection, and even his current position in Congress is at risk; several Republicans have already called on Gonzales to resign amid the fallout of the released texts. 

In an example of a member-on-former-member primary, Rep. Julie Johnson faces her predecessor, Rep. Colin Allred, who is running for his old seat in an attempt to return to Congress after a failed Senate bid in 2024. The two candidates have since lobbed accusations of being too pro-ICE at each other, with Allred hitting Johnson for her past stock trades of Palantir and Johnson pointing out that Allred voted for the Laken Riley Act in 2024.

Part of the tension, and awkwardness, of the primary stems from the fact that Allred had actually endorsed Johnson to succeed him back in 2024. Markets initially had Allred favored, but have flipped in the final weeks, now favoring Johnson to emerge victorious. 

Outside of Texas, North Carolina and Arkansas will also hold primary elections on March 3. Neither, however, have many competitive elections on Tuesday. While North Carolina will feature one of the blockbuster Senate races in the fall, the parties have all largely fallen behind their preferred nominees: former governor Roy Cooper for the Democrats, and former RNC chair Michael Whatley for the Republicans.

In Arkansas, incumbent governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders and incumbent senator Tom Cotton both seem poised to win their primaries and face much lesser-known Democratic opponents.

One House primary worth noting in North Carolina, though, is NC-04, where incumbent Democrat Valerie Foushee is facing a tough challenge from progressive Nida Allam in this deep blue district centered on the Research Triangle. This primary is something of a rematch; Foushee defeated Allam, a Durham County Commissioner, by around 9 points in 2022, although Allam may be betting that the party’s left wing and anti-incumbent sentiment will carry her to victory this time. Traders seem to agree, with Allam having a 72% chance of toppling the incumbent. 

Overall, Tuesday marks the kickoff for the midterm elections, which will come November to decide the fate of Trump’s second term, and ultimately the shape of the 2028 presidential election.

(Click here for Kalshi’s 2026 Primary Election Hub.)

Follow Jaron Zhou on X: @ZhouJaron

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