HAYS COUNTY, Texas \u2014 With just days until the polls close on the primary election in Texas, polling data shows the Republican nomination for Texas Attorney General lacks a clear frontrunner.<\/p>\n
New polling from the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin shows U.S. Congressman Chip Roy, who represents parts of Austin and the Hill Country, is virtually tied for the nomination with Galveston-area State Sen. Mayes Middleton. Neither candidate is polling with enough support to avoid a runoff election in May.<\/p>\n
The Republican nominee will go on to face off in a general election in November to replace outgoing Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is running for a U.S. Senate nomination.<\/p>\n
2026 Republican Attorney General Primary Vote Choice<\/p>\n
(Texas Politics Project, Feb. 2-16, 2026, Margin of error +\/-5.7%)<\/p>\n
Chip Roy \u2013 40%Mays Middleton \u2013 38%Joan Huffman \u2013 9%Aaron Reitz \u2013 5%<\/p>\n
State Sen. Joan Huffman and former attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice Aaron Reitz trail the top two candidates, both failing to reach 10% in the polling data.<\/p>\n
Despite several policy overlaps, the candidates have faced questions about their support for President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
Rep. Roy, who formerly worked as a Deputy Attorney General under Ken Paxton, is known for his strongly fiscally conservative policies, has broken with Trump several times in recent years.<\/p>\n
Notably, Roy said Trump deserved <\/a>\u201cuniversal condemnation\u201d<\/a> following the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. He also expressed reservations about the fiscal impact of the \u201cBig Beautiful Bill\u201d before voting in favor of its passage.<\/p>\n Roy has also praised Trump, however, including this week, following his State of the Union Address.<\/p>\n \u201cThe State of the Union is strong under President Trump. The southern border is secure, illegal crossings have dropped sharply, and law enforcement, including the patriotic men and women of ICE, have restored order,\u201d Roy said in a statement this week.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Sen. Middleton has dubbed himself \u201cMAGA Mayes Middleton\u201d in campaign ads, touting former praise from the president.<\/p>\n CBS Austin spoke with voters in Hays County on Thursday about the race.<\/p>\n While many declined to reveal which candidate they preferred, many expressed that the race was important to them.<\/p>\n “All of the state races that are challenged, I’ll be paying close attention to those,” said Vicki Rubsam, a voter from Kyle.<\/p>\n Hays County voter Paula Ojeda explained what she was looking for in a candidate.<\/p>\n “Integrity. Honesty. Someone who supports our country and our communities,” she said.<\/p>\n If no candidate receives at least 50% of the vote in the primary election, a runoff election will be held on May 26.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HAYS COUNTY, Texas \u2014 With just days until the polls close on the primary election in Texas, polling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":182427,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":{"0":"post-182426","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-austin","8":"tag-austin","9":"tag-austin-headlines","10":"tag-austin-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}