The midterm elections has officially began with primaries in Texas, North Carolina and Arkansas.
The states will select nominees for Congress and some statewide offices. North Carolina and Texas will debut their new congressional maps after both underwent mid-cycle redistricting.
Democrats and Republicans are figuring out who they want to lead their party into November’s midterm election, when control of Congress and statehouses around the country will be up for grabs.
About 2,600 voting sites in North Carolina opened at 6:30 am ET and will close at 7:30 pm. ET. Some ballots have already been cast by mail or during an early in-person voting period that ended Saturday.
There’s an open race for a seat in the US Senate because Republican Senator Thom Tillis decided not to seek reelection after clashing with Trump. Former Governor Roy Cooper is seeking the Democratic nomination, while former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley is running to represent his party.
Voters are also picking nominees for US House seats, including the Republican choice to challenge Democratic Rep. Don Davis in the 1st District.
That district became more Republican as state legislators redrew it during Trump’s redistricting effort to help his party maintain control of the House.
Polls in Arkansas opened from 7:30 am local time to 7:30 pm local time. Republican incumbents, including U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, are heavy favorites to win their primaries in Arkansas.
Cotton, who is seeking his third term in office, will face Jeb Little, an Arkansas State Police trooper, and Micah Ashby, a Minister from Bradford. Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who served as President Donald Trump’s Press Secretary during Trump’s first term, is seeking her second term in office. She did not draw a Republican opponent.
Arkansas hasn’t elected a Democrat statewide since 2010, and Sanders and Cotton will be heavy favorites to win reelection in November.
Hotly Contested Races In Texas
The most hotly contested races of the day are in Texas, with fierce competition on both sides of the aisle for US Senate nominations. It’s possible that the Republican campaign will continue into a runoff.
In the Senate race, Republicans are measuring the potency of Trump’s Make America Great Again movement against old-guard conservatism.
Democrats, meanwhile, face a choice between two progressive “powerhouses” with different theories of how to fight – and how to win – in the Trump era.
The fiercely competitive races have left Democrats unusually hopeful about their chances in a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat statewide since 1994, while Republicans fret they could lose the seat.
Four-term incumbent John Cornyn has to fend off a challenge from Ken Paxton, the state’s scandal-plagued Attorney General and a conservative culture warrior.
Cornyn, 74, has emphasized his seniority and record, which he has defended as closely aligned with the president. By contrast, Paxton, 64, has presented himself as Maga’s vanguard in Texas, willing to battle both Democrats and Republicans.
On the Democratic side, state representative James Talarico preached a “politics of love” that roots progressive policy in the teachings of his Christian faith.
The 36-year-old former middle school teacher and current seminary student argues that the central divide in American politics is “not left v right” but “top v bottom” and says that Democrats can rebuild trust in rural and suburban communities without abandoning their core values.
He faces Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, a firebrand progressive whose unsparing attacks on Trump and Republicans have earned her a starring role in the resistance movement to his second term.
Crockett, 44, entered the race in December, just before the filing deadline, embracing a different political playbook. Casting herself as a “proven fighter” who “drives the President crazy,” Crockett contends that high turnout among young voters and voters of color – not ideological moderation – is the key to winning statewide.
Democrats will be monitoring the political currents closely, as they target Republican-held seats in other states, from Alaska to Maine.
Whether Democrats seriously contest the Senate race may depend on the outcome of the Republican contest, which could be pushed to a runoff in late May. A third candidate, two-term Republican congressman Wesley Hunt is also seeking the nomination, and is expected to pull enough of the vote to prevent either Cornyn or Paxton from capturing the more than 50% needed to win outright.
Texas voters are casting ballots for a slate of other federal, state and local offices. As a result of redistricting, two sitting members of Congress are squaring off in the primary for congressional district 18, in what has become a referendum on generational change.
No results, including ballots cast during nearly two weeks of early voting, will be released until after the polls close.
