Texas Reps. Christian Menefee and Al Green have advanced to a runoff in a Democratic primary for U.S. House.
Neither candidate won enough of the vote in the Houston-area district to win the nomination outright, forcing a May 26 runoff.
The unusual primary between two sitting Democratic congressmen was the result of redrawn voting maps that Trump ordered ahead of November’s midterm elections. Green, 78, switched to run in the newly redrawn 18th Congressional
District after his current district was redrawn to favor Republicans.
Menefee, 37, was sworn in to Congress only a month ago after winning a special election to fill the remaining term of Rep. Sylvester Turner, who died last year. For some Houston voters, Tuesday's primary was their third time casting ballots in a congressional race in four months, sowing confusion.
Green, who was first elected to the U.S. House in 2004, is one of his party’s most outspoken Trump critics and filed articles of impeachment during the president’s first term.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
Republican challenger Steve Toth defeated U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw on Tuesday night, ousting the only House Republican in Texas whom President Donald Trump didn't endorse heading into the nation's first big primary of 2026.
Crenshaw, a former Navy SEAL whose independent streak sometimes clashed with fellow Republicans, spent the primary trying to fend off attacks from the party's hard right that he was not in step with Trump's agenda.
Toth, a state representative and member of the GOP’s hard-right caucus in the Legislature, picked up a big endorsement late in the primary from Republican Sen. Ted Cruz.
“This campaign has been a referendum on representatives who campaign one way and govern another, and the people have spoken,” Toth said in a statement after his victory.
Crenshaw, who lost his right eye when he was wounded by an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan in 2012, had clashed with Cruz over the senator's support of Trump's unfounded claim that he won the 2020 presidential election.
He was one of the few Texas Republican candidates for Congress in 2022 who acknowledged that President Joe Biden's victory in 2020 was legitimate — a position that occasionally found him at odds with fellow Republicans.
Crenshaw also drew the ire of conservatives when a video clip went viral of him criticizing some Republican politicians as “grifters” and “performance artists” who simply tell conservative voters what they want to hear.
The 41-year-old Crenshaw was seeking his fifth term. His 2nd Congressional District spans the suburbs north and east of Houston.
