Texas’ Republican Gov. Greg Abbott will face off against Democrat Beto O’Rourke in the race for governor this November after the two candidates won their respective primaries last night, per AP.
Both men easily beat their challengers and secured their party’s nomination for governor.
“Tonight, Republicans sent a message they want to keep Texas the land of opportunity and prosperity for absolutely everybody, the prosperity that we have delivered over the past eight years,” Abbott said at his rally in Corpus Christi.
O’Rourke celebrated at a rally in Fort Worth, where he flipped Texas’ largest GOP county in 2018.
“This group of people, and then some, are going to make me the first Democrat to be governor of the state of Texas since 1994,” O’Rourke told supporters in Fort Worth, where he flipped Texas’ largest red county in 2018. “This is on us. This is on all of us.”
Meanwhile, an endorsement from former President Donald Trump wasn’t enough to give incumbent Attorney General Ken Paxton the votes he needed to avoid a runoff. He will face Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush, grandson of one president and the nephew of another, in a May runoff election. While Paxton won more votes than Bush, neither man captured enough to win the primary.
Paxton’s campaign has sought to divert attention away from his legal troubles. He has been under indictment since 2015 on securities-fraud charges. In 2020, eight of his top-ranking deputies accused him of illegal activities. Paxton has denied all wrongdoing.
In the Democratic primary for attorney general, former ACLU lawyer Rochelle Garza is headed to a May runoff but it’s too early to call who she’ll face.
Another closely watched race is the Democratic primary in Texas’ 28th Congressional district between lawyer Jessica Cisneros and Rep. Henry Cuellar, one of the most conservative Democrats in the House. Early results show the two locked in a tight race. Cisneros is backed by New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Tuesday marked the first primaries of the 2022 midterms, with both Republicans and Democrats vying for control of Congress this fall.
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