DemDaily: Tuesday’s Election Results! Democrats Dominate Voter Turnout

March 6, 2026

The first primaries of the 2026 midterms took place Tuesday night, in an early test of the mood of the electorate going into the midterms -- in Texas, Arkansas, and the battleground state of North Carolina.

Voter enthusiasm was off the scale, and Democratic voters delivered -- outpacing Republicans in record-high turnout levels.

In Texas, where more votes were cast in Tuesday’s Democratic primary than for Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election, Dems cast 2.3 million of the 4.5 million votes in the primaries, and in North Carolina, Democratic turnout exceeded Republicans by over 200,000 ballots.

TEXAS
In one of the highest-profile US Senate primaries of 2026 -- for both political parties -- Democrats elected State Representative James Talarico their nominee, while the GOP contest is going to a May 26 runoff between four-term Republican incumbent John Cornyn and State Attorney General Ken Paxton.

In the state Attorney General's race, both Democratic and Republican primaries are going to a runoff.

Texas Congressional Primary Results
The 38-seat Texas Congressional map, in a highly unusual mid-decade redistricting, was redrawn by the GOP state legislature last summer at the behest of President Trump to create five new Republican congressional districts to help the GOP retain the US House.

Among the 25 Republicans and 13 Democrats, nine members (3D/6R) have chosen to retire or run for higher office. Eight Democratic primaries are headed to a runoff in Districts 1, 5, 14, 17, 18, 24, 33, and 35. Of note:

Texas 18th: Newly-elected Congressman Christian Menefee (D), who won the January 26 special election to fill the seat of the late Sylvester Turner, and 11-term Democrat Al Green, whose 9th district was merged into Menefee's after redistricting, are headed to a runoff. Polling shows Menefee, 37, leading by a wide margin.

Texas 33: First-term Democrat Julie Johnson (CD-32), running in the redistricted 33rd seat, and former Congressman and US Senate candidate Colin Allred, advance to a runoff election. Allred led Johnson by 11 points coming out of the primary.

Among Republicans, GOP Congressman Dan Crenshaw (CD-2) lost his primary, and eleven seats are going to a runoff in Districts 7, 9, 16, 19, 23, 30, 32, 33, 35, 37, and 38.

NORTH CAROLINA
In the US Senate race to succeed retiring Republican Senator Thom Tillis, former two-term Democratic Governor Roy Cooper easily dispatched five other contenders, winning the Democratic primary nomination with 92%.

Cooper will face former Republican National Committee Chairman and Trump ally Michael Whatley, who bested his primary opponents with 64.6% of the vote. Navy JAG veteran Don Brown secured 15.6%, and five other candidates came in at under 5.8%.

While Democrats haven’t won a statewide federal race in North Carolina since 2008, its status as a battleground state has risen in recent years, and with the popular Cooper on the ballot, Democrats are confident of the ability to flip the seat. The Cooper-Whatley contest is expected to be one of this year’s most competitive and expensive Senate races.

North Carolina Congressional Primary Results
North Carolina's congressional map has undergone a rapid sequence of legislative and judicial challenges since the 2020 Census -- amid protests of illegal racial discrimination and gerrymandering. Following a November Federal Court ruling, the current Republican-drawn map is in effect for the 2026 midterm elections.

All 14 congressional representatives -- 10 Republicans and four Democrats -- are running for reelection, eight of whom had primary challengers. Of note:

North Carolina 1: Under mid-decade redistricting, the First District, held by two-term Democratic Congressman Don Davis (D), became more conservative, making it a prime GOP pickup opportunity. Laurie Buckhout, a retired Army colonel who narrowly lost to Davis in 2024, prevailed in the Republican primary.

North Carolina 4: Two-term incumbent Valerie Foushee won the Democratic primary Tuesday in a race that was too close to call election night. In a rematch of their 2022 contest, progressive County Commissioner Nida Allam, calling for generational change, came within approximately 1,200 votes of unseating Foushee.

ARKANSAS
In the historically red state of Arkansas, two-term GOP Senator Tom Cotton, who holds the third-ranking position in Republican leadership, secured his re-election nomination with 81.6% over two minor candidates.

Cotton is being challenged by Hallie Shoffner, who won the Democratic nomination with 78.2% of the vote. A 6th-generation farmer who grew up harvesting soybeans, rice, corn, and more in the Delta, Shoffner was forced to close her family farm after a devastating year of rising costs and tariffs.

She is running on the idea that the true divide in Arkansas is not political, but economic.

In the open Secretary of State seat, Democratic nominee Kelly Grappe will face the winner of the Republican runoff between Brian Norris and Kim Hammer.

Arkansas Congressional Elections
All four GOP members of the Congressional Delegation are running for re-election.

District Two, which has an R+8 rating and is held by six-term Congressman French Hill, is statistically the most competitive. Hill will face 2022 Democratic nominee for governor, pastor and scientist Chris Jones in the general election.

Related: DemDaily: Tuesday’s Election Results! Texas, North Carolina, Arkansas 3/4/26

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Sources: Texas Tribune, Washington Examiner, Politico, NYT, The Hill, CNN, NBC, AP, TX SOS, KTUV

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