With a lot of high-profile races on the ballot in Texas, election officials expect a decent turnout.

AUSTIN, Texas — Early voting began across Texas on Tuesday for the March primary election. Some voters, like Gov. Greg Abbott, wasted no time casting their ballots.

“For me, it was important just to exercise my right to vote,” said Michele Olgren, who voted in Williamson County on Tuesday. “I wanted to do it as soon as I could.”

Randy Olgren said he was happy to cast his ballot and check voting off his to-do list.

“Just come in and get it done and go home,” he said.

Ross Black, who came to the polls eager to support Democrat James Talarico for U.S. Senate, said he felt like the process was quick and easy.

“Super easy. It is a touchscreen,” he said. “Not a problem at all.”

This is a primary election, and Texas is an open primary state. That means once you get to the polling place, you tell the election worker which party’s primary you want to vote in.

With a lot of high-profile races on the ballot in Texas, election officials expect a decent turnout for this election.


Candidates begin final push

On Tuesday, candidates began their final push to win their party’s nomination for the midterm elections in November.

At the top of the ballot, Texas voters will see the U.S. Senate race.

Incumbent U.S. Sen. John Cornyn is vying to hold onto his seat. On Tuesday morning in Austin, he held his first of 10 “Get Out the Vote” campaign stops.

The four-term Texas senator is running for a fifth term – but to get it, he needs to beat Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Houston Congressman Wesley Hunt in the primary.

“My message today is complacency is a killer,” Cornyn said at Tuesday’s event. “Complacency kills relationships. It kills careers. It kills countries, and it kills great political parties like the Republican Party right here in Texas.”

Cornyn was joined at his rally by former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who praised what Cornyn has done throughout his career on border security and, in particular, helping secure $11 billion in reimbursement for funds Texas spends on Operation Lone Star, the state’s border security operation. Perry said Cornyn’s four terms of experience in the Senate are a real benefit to Texas.

“When you can have a senior member of the United States Senate, someone who can, on any given day, walk into the white House and have a conversation directly with the president of the United States; when you have an individual whose seniority gives you the ability to talk to the senior leadership in the Senate and get things done,” Perry said. “When you have someone like John Cornyn, who literally went to the Senate Finance Committee and got $11 billion for the state of Texas to be able to repay us for the work that we were doing – a rookie can’t get that done.”

Perry likened getting rid of Cornyn to a stockholder in a corporation that just made record profits firing its CEO, which he said would be nonsense.

“Why in the world would any thinking Texan, any Republican in particular, want to say, we need to trade out senators?” Perry asked.

Cornyn is fighting for his political life in what could be one of the fiercest races in this 2026 midterm election cycle. 

He took direct aim at Paxton, with whom he is neck-and-neck in polls. He said nominating Paxton would spell trouble for Republicans.

“Republicans up and down the ticket will pay the price of having an albatross like there is, a corrupt attorney general hung around their neck,” Cornyn said. “If Ken Paxton is at the top of the ticket, we risk losing the Senate seat, losing the majority in the House of Representatives, and it will take a toll on everybody on the ballot.”

During his speech, Cornyn brought up the AG’s previous scandals and said he believes character is on the ballot in the primary.

“Texans can’t trust Ken Paxton. He’s lied to his family. He’s lied to Texas taxpayers. He’s lied to senior staff members, the heroic whistleblowers who turned him into the FBI for interfering in a federal investigation of one of his campaign donors,” Cornyn said. “If he lied to those folks, lied to us, what makes you think you can trust him to represent us in the United States Senate?”

In a statement, Paxton advisor Nick Maddux said the campaign also believes character matters in the race, but they believe “that’s why the people of Texas overwhelmingly support Ken Paxton.”

“They know that he is a conservative warrior who will always fight for us and our freedoms, even in the face of the left trying to tear him down,” Maddux said. “Texans also know that John Cornyn is just like every other career politician who talks tough during election season, but then does the exact opposite in D.C. and betrays Texas by repeatedly pushing gun control and amnesty.” 

Paxton has framed the race as a battle between the MAGA movement and the Republican establishment, arguing that he can turn out low-propensity supporters of President Donald Trump in a way that Cornyn cannot. Asked about that on Tuesday, Cornyn said Paxton is living in a fantasy.

“Independents and Democrats will not vote for Ken Paxton, and many Republicans won’t vote for Ken Paxton because of his blatant record of corruption. So I believe that he will if he were the nominee, he would lose the seat,” Cornyn said. “Republicans will turn out in November, I believe, in order to support President Trump and his agenda. We’ve got some work to do to be sure. But, Ken Paxton will be a deadweight around Republicans come November if he’s the nominee.”

Cornyn said he believes it is likely he and Paxton will face off in a runoff in May, with neither able to exceed the 50% threshold in the March primary.

Cornyn said he has been through runoffs successfully before as attorney general, and his campaign would do “things that have never been done before” to encourage Texans to get out and vote.

“We’ll continue to make our case in person, and we’ll continue to make it on the airwaves, mail and everything else. But, primarily what we’re going to be focused on is making sure people vote, and they understand the importance of this race,” Cornyn said. “We could do irreparable harm to Republican standing in our state and the direction of our state and country. We can’t risk somebody with a corruption record or corruption like Ken Paxton.”

Some Republicans are pushing President Trump to endorse someone in this primary. On Monday night, the president told reporters aboard Air Force One that he hasn’t made a decision, but he called Cornyn a good man and said he likes all three candidates.

“Those are the toughest races. They’ve all supported me. They’re all good, and you’re supposed to pick one,” President Trump said. “We’ll see what happens, but I support all three.”

Asked about those comments on Tuesday, Cornyn said he’d be proud to have President Trump’s endorsement.

”I appreciate his kind words referring to me as a friend and calling me a good man. I appreciate that,” Cornyn said. “I believe that my work with President Trump demonstrates my willingness and ability to help him pass his agenda.”

Cornyn then rattled off some of his accomplishments, like approving three Supreme Court justices during President Trump’s first term and the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, passed in 2017.

“It’s going to be up to him to make that call,” Cornyn said. “I think he’d kind of like a good fight, and he’s going to see one right here in Texas.”

Republicans have not lost a statewide election in Texas since 1994, but Democrats are hopeful that this could be the year if they get the right Republican at the top of the ticket.

On the Democratic side of the race for U.S. Senate, State Rep. James Talarico held a rally in Austin to launch a statewide bus tour. That rally took place at the Palacio Event Center in North Austin.

Talarico and his parents cast their primary ballot at a polling site in Austin on Tuesday evening. He said his campaign has recruited thousands of volunteers and is focusing on grassroots fundraising all with the goal of winning in November.

“This is truly a people-powered movement to take on this broken, corrupt political system. This is a campaign of by and for the people,” Talarico said. “It was a real honor to vote today. I look forward to winning this general election, and delivering for working people in our state in the United States Senate.”

In Dallas, Democratic Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, who is running against Talarico, spent Tuesday getting out the vote in the U.S. Senate race. She voted at her neighborhood library and said she’s a fighter who will stand up to the Trump administration.

“I know I’m a threat. I just need people to decide that they are going to show up today and vote for the fighter that they know that I am,” Crockett said. “Every single democrat has been saying we are failing when it comes to really opposing this government. I don’t think that this is about right or left. I absolutely believe this is about right or wrong.”


Additional details for voting in Williamson County

If you’re voting in Williamson County, you need to know about a significant change this primary season. For early voting, the county still has countywide polling. If you’re registered, you can go to any polling location within the county and cast your ballot.

But on March 3, Election Day, Williamson County voters must cast their ballots at their assigned precinct polling location.

Leaders of the Williamson County Republican Party decided to run their own election on Election Day rather than letting the county facilitate Voting. The parties will have separate voting locations, but again, this is only on Election Day.

Early voting runs through Feb. 27. Election Day is March 3.