Toss-up by Inside Elections<\/a>, but it\u2019s a must-win for Democrats if they are going to gain the four seats necessary for a majority. If Democrats don\u2019t win the Tar Heel State, they\u2019ll need to win four of the five following Republican-held states: Alaska, Iowa, Ohio and Texas, all of which are more Republican than North Carolina, and Maine, a more Democratic state but where Susan Collins remains a tough out. President Donald Trump won North Carolina over former Vice President Kamala Harris by 3 points, but it looks like Democrats have a slight advantage in an open seat in a swing state with a popular former statewide officeholder in a national political environment that favors Democrats. If Republicans hold North Carolina in November, it will be a very long night for Democrats.\u00a0<\/p>\nPrimaries matter?<\/p>\n
Both parties treat primaries like the plague. Republicans and Democrats believe primaries are almost always negative, serving as a drain on resources that should be saved for the general election. But time will tell whether Republicans would have been served by a competitive primary in North Carolina rather than the coronation of Whatley. Whatley has never been a candidate before, so the jump to a top battleground Senate race can be significant. A competitive primary would have been an opportunity to hone his skills earlier. But only time will tell whether the lack of a primary will matter.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Trump watch<\/p>\n
Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn overperformed the pre-primary polls, but 43 percent is still underwhelming for a longtime incumbent. But finishing ahead of state Attorney General Ken Paxton could be enough to convince Trump to endorse him for the runoff. That would boost the senator\u2019s chances in a situation where incumbents typically struggle to dramatically improve their standing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Campaigns matter <\/p>\n
Texas Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett\u2019s loss will likely be attributed to all of the wrong things. Folks will say she\u2019s too liberal, Black or that she\u2019s a woman. In reality, she might have won with a better campaign. State Rep. James Talarico was better at the fundamentals. He raised more money, aired more TV ads and was in the race longer. Crockett got in at the last moment and eschewed traditional ads.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not an anti-incumbent election<\/p>\n
State Rep. Steve Toth defeated Rep. Dan Crenshaw in the GOP primary in Texas\u2019 2nd District, but that doesn\u2019t mean incumbents around the country are on the verge of following suit. Crenshaw was a rare Texas Republican incumbent who did not have Trump\u2019s endorsement, but he was also a partial victim of the Republican redistricting effort. Toth\u2019s legislative district was added to the 2nd while Crenshaw\u2019s Harris County base was dropped. Other incumbents could lose because of age or ideology, but this loss had some unique circumstances.<\/p>\n
Preview of chaos? <\/p>\n
The confusion over voting and tabulating in Texas\u2019 Dallas County could be an unfortunate preview of November. It doesn\u2019t take widespread confusion to cast doubt on the midterm elections. But a few selected problems and legal challenges in key states with key Senate or Houses could delay the results and continue to cultivate seeds of distrust in the electoral system. None of that is healthy for either party or the country.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Practice, patience<\/p>\n
Tuesday was the first reminder about the need to wait for votes to be counted. Cornyn jumped out to an early lead, only for that lead to erode as more votes were counted. Votes counted first count just as much as votes counted last. It\u2019s OK to wait for a critical mass of votes to be counted before declaring winners.<\/p>\n
Democratic momentum remains<\/p>\n
Democrat Alex Holladay defeated Republican Bryan Renshaw In Arkansas\u2019 House District 70 to flip a Republican seat. Even though the seat was held by a Republican, Harris actually finished ahead of Trump by 2 points in 2024. But on Tuesday, the Democratic nominee won by more than 30 points. Yes, it was a race with about 11,000 total votes, but it fits into the larger pattern of Democrats overperforming 2024 results in races all across the country over the last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ANALYSIS \u2014 And we\u2019re off. Voters in Texas, Arkansas and North Carolina went to the polls on Tuesday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":190770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[9589,3127,132,134,133,10738,2671,2133,7810,145,409,288,2327,10740,10741,3685,3309,1910,21759,4491,3133,1688,75739,7398,59873,2424,13164,54322,27,58535,2558,2279],"class_list":{"0":"post-190769","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-austin","8":"tag-alaska","9":"tag-arkansas","10":"tag-austin","11":"tag-austin-headlines","12":"tag-austin-news","13":"tag-campaigns","14":"tag-congress","15":"tag-democrats","16":"tag-donald-j-trump","17":"tag-donald-trump","18":"tag-election","19":"tag-elections","20":"tag-environment","21":"tag-executive-branch","22":"tag-house","23":"tag-iowa","24":"tag-john-cornyn","25":"tag-leadership","26":"tag-maine","27":"tag-national","28":"tag-north-carolina","29":"tag-ohio","30":"tag-open-seat","31":"tag-polling","32":"tag-primaries","33":"tag-republicans","34":"tag-senate","35":"tag-susan-collins","36":"tag-texas","37":"tag-thom-tillis","38":"tag-trump","39":"tag-voting"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190769","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=190769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}