The Latest: Most polls close in Texas, North Carolina and Arkansas

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Most polls are closed in primary elections in three states, in a vote that marks the official beginning of the midterm elections. Voters cast ballots in North Carolina, Arkansas and Texas, where confusion at some polling locations prompted an extension in voting hours in three counties.

As war with Iran breaks out, Democrats and Republicans are figuring out who they want to lead their party into November’s general election, when control of Congress and statehouses around the country will be up for grabs. The results of Tuesday’s elections could offer a hint of broader voter sentiment. The most hotly contested races of the day are in Texas, with fierce competition on both sides of the aisle for U.S. Senate nominations. It’s possible that the Republican campaign will continue into a runoff.

Here's the latest:

Eric Flores, an Army veteran, carried Trump’s endorsement and won the Republican nomination for what is expected to be one of Texas’ most competitive House races in November.

He defeated Mayra Flores, who briefly held a U.S. House seat in the region after a surprising win in a 2022 special election that foreshadowed Republican gains along the Texas-Mexico border. Mayra Flores and Eric Flores are not related.

Eric Flores touted his experience as a federal prosecutor and as a National Guard officer during a 2018 border mission.

He will next face Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, one of five Democratic incumbents targeted by Texas Republicans when they redrew House district boundaries last year. Gonzalez is a moderate who has outperformed the top of the Democratic ticket.

During his 15 minute speech to supporters, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton took aim at Senate campaign leadership in Washington, D.C, and especially four-term Republican Sen. John Cornyn.

“We just sent a message, loud and clear, to Washington,” he told a few hundred supporters in a ballroom at a Dallas hotel. “We are not going to go quietly, and we are not going to let you buy the seat.”

Cornyn’s campaign and allied super PACs spent more than $68 million on television ads since October, much of it attacking Paxton. That was well over half of the record-setting $110 million spent supporting candidates in both major parties for Texas Senate.

“While the money may not be on our side, the people are on our side. And in Texas, the people always win,” Paxton said.

The race moves to a two-candidate runoff on May 26.

“We proved something they’ll never understand in Washington,” Paxton said. “Texas is not for sale.”

The onetime slugger for the Texas Rangers and New York Yankees beat out a crowded field vying to replace Republican Rep. Chip Roy, who isn’t seeking reelection.

In his first run for office, Teixeira received Trump’s endorsement over 11 others in the solidly Republican district that stretches from San Antonio to the Texas Hill Country. Roy has held the seat since 2019 but ran for Texas attorney general rather than seek a fifth term.

Teixeira was among a dozen GOP candidates running in Texas’ 21st Congressional District. He announced his campaign days after the Texas Legislature approved redrawn congressional maps that are engineered to help the GOP pick up additional seats in November’s midterm elections.

Teixeira played first base for four Major League Baseball teams over 14 years starting in 2003. He was a three-time American League All-Star, with 409 career home runs and a .268 lifetime batting average.

The Democratic congresswoman and U.S. Senate candidate told her supporters Tuesday night during her watch party in a downtown Dallas club that “people have been disenfranchised” because of their confusion over where to vote in Dallas County.

Her spokesperson, Karrol Rimal, confirmed that she plans to file a lawsuit but did not have details.

Crockett said the outcome of the race wouldn’t be known until Dallas County’s votes are counted.

Rimal also said Crockett hasn’t yet made plans for when she might speak to reporters or supporters Wednesday. Crockett left her watch party before 10 p.m., having told supporters she would not speak again.

Roy gave up his seat in the U.S. House to launch a bid to replace Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who’s running for U.S. Senate.

The congressman, whose brash style and hard-line fiscal politics sometimes clashed with other Republicans, advanced to a May 26 runoff against state Sen. Mayes Middleton as those two emerged from a crowded field that included two state lawmakers and a former Paxton aide.

In Texas, the attorney general’s office has become a driver of the conservative legal movement through Paxton’s staunch support of Trump and lawsuits backing his agenda.

Roy worked for Paxton before being elected to Congress but called on his former boss to resign in 2020 after aides reported him to the FBI over corruption allegations. Roy was the policy chair for the far right House Freedom Caucus.

The Tejano singer and songwriter, who was nominated for a Grammy this year, won the Democratic nomination in a South Texas district where the party is trying to reverse gains by the GOP.

Pulido defeated progressive Ada Cuellar. The seat is currently held by Rep. Monica De La Cruz, the only House Republican in the Rio Grande Valley, a heavily Hispanic region along the border with Mexico.

Democrats hope Pulido’s celebrity can help them overcome long odds in the district, which was made much safer for the GOP when Texas Republicans redrew House district boundaries last year.

Following in his father’s footsteps, Pulido built a flourishing career as a Tejano artist, winning Latin Grammy awards for Best Tejano Album in 2022 and 2025.

Cornyn says Paxton, a conservative firebrand, would be “a dead weight at the top of the ticket for Republicans” in his opening salvo of their runoff.

“I refuse to allow a flawed, self-centered and shameless candidate like Ken Paxton risk everything we’ve worked so hard to build over these many years,” Cornyn told reporters Tuesday night.

Cornyn, the four-term incumbent, warned Republicans that Paxton would be disastrous for the GOP and made an appeal to President Donald Trump, who has not endorsed in the race.

“There is simply too much at stake in this midterm election for our state and for our country,” Cornyn said. “The final two years of President Trump’s agenda hangs in the balance.”

Texas Sen. John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton will compete in a May runoff for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate.

Cornyn, who is seeking a fifth term, and Paxton were the top finishers in a three-way contest Tuesday with Rep. Wesley Hunt. No candidate hit the 50% vote threshold needed to win outright, sending the race to a May 26 runoff.

Cornyn’s campaign and allied super PACs spent heavily on television advertising, much of it criticizing Paxton. Senate Republican leaders, who are backing Cornyn, argue that it will cost more to defend the seat in a general election if Paxton is the nominee.

Paxton was acquitted in impeachment proceedings and has faced accusations of marital infidelity.

The Dallas-area congresswoman and Democratic Senate candidate told her supporters that she wouldn’t return again to speak at her watch party at a downtown Dallas club.

She said her primary race with James Talarico can’t be settled without the results from Dallas County, her home, where the vote in some polling places was marred by confusion.

“I can tell you, people were disenfranchised,” she said.

The state lawmaker from Austin has run on a message of lifting working-class residents and taking on billionaires in her first campaign for statewide office.

Hinojosa has helped lead Democrats’ biggest protests during her 10 years in the statehouse, including a walkout in 2021 over new voting restrictions. She is waging an underdog campaign against Abbott, who started the year with about $100 million to spend in his bid for a record fourth term.

Hinojosa’s rivals in a crowded Democratic field brought little statewide name recognition to the race. Other candidates included former one-term U.S. Rep. Chris Bell, who was the Democratic nominee for governor in 2006 when he lost to Rick Perry.

The Texas Supreme Court ruled that ballots in Dallas County cast after the official 7 p.m. CT close of polls had to be separated from other ballots. It was not clear when, or if, they would be counted.

Earlier, polling sites were ordered to stay open late in two major counties, including Dallas, because of rule changes related to primary voting that led to chaos on election day.

The initial court action seeking an extension to voting stemmed from the county Republican Party refusing to hold a joint primary with Democrats. That forced voters to go to local precincts to cast ballots rather than countywide facilities they usually use.

The same happened in Williamson County, north of Austin, where two precincts were allowed to stay open after the scheduled close of polls. It was not immediately clear whether the state attorney general, who had filed the challenge to the Dallas County extension, also planned to challenge ballots cast late in Williamson County.

The president is celebrating victories for his endorsed candidates on Truth Social.

Trump’s account has shared nearly two dozen graphics so far. Each shows photos of the president and the winning candidate and says, “ENDORSED BY PRESIDENT TRUMP!”

The head of the Senate Intelligence Committee faced two little-known challengers in the GOP primary. Democrats in Arkansas are not expected to mount a significant challenge for the seat in November.

The man was detained outside Republican Ken Paxton’s election night watch party and police say he was taken to headquarters for further investigation.

A brief police statement made no mention of Paxton’s event and it remained unclear whether the incident was linked to it.

Police said the vehicle had no license plate and officers found ammunition while searching it. The man was not identified.

Democratic polling locations in Dallas and Williamson counties stayed open late because of confusion caused by the county Republican parties refusing to hold a joint primary with Democrats. That forced voters to go to local precincts to cast ballots rather than countywide facilities they usually use.

The polls stayed open an extra two hours in Dallas. In Williamson, which includes the suburbs north of Austin, two precincts were allowed to stay open until 10 p.m. local time.

Voting also was extended for an additional hour in El Paso due to a problem with the county’s voter check-in system. — This post replaces a previous post that incorrectly stated that voting had not been extended in Williamson County.

Former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and ex-Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley each won their party’s U.S. Senate nominations in North Carolina, setting the bout for a fall campaign that could determine control of the chamber.

Both clinched their elections in crowded fields to replace retiring Sen. Thom Tillis. He isn’t seeking a third term.

Cooper’s entry lifted Democratic hopes for regaining Senate control of the chamber. Whatley ran after receiving the endorsement of President Donald Trump.

The man was detained outside Republican Ken Paxton’s watch party in Dallas and ammunition magazines and shotgun shells were removed from a car parked outside the venue.

The man was placed in the back of a Dallas police cruiser and later taken away. It was not immediately known whether the incident was connected to the Paxton event.

Paxton, who is running for U.S. Senate, is holding his primary night watch party at a Marriott hotel. Attendees were starting to arrive when the man was detained. The Dallas Police Department and the Paxton campaign did not immediately comment.

Alex Muse, one of the attendees, said a man wearing a camouflage hat, sunglasses and mask covering his mouth and nose entered the hotel and was immediately instructed to exit the property. Muse said the man was also carrying a camouflage rucksack.

“I think it alarmed everyone that he was all in camo, had a rucksack on, face covering,” Muse said.

She says irregularities in Dallas County, her home base, could be determinative in an extremely close election.

“If one person has the right to vote and they weren’t allowed to cast their vote, we should all be standing together — Democrats, Republicans — and we should all be raising hell,” she said at a news conference shortly after a judge extended voting hours in Dallas County.

“So I am asking you, I am begging you, to make sure that you go ahead and figure out where it is that you are supposed to vote,” she added. “Stand in line, wait in line.”

A Dallas judge ordered the polls to stay open an extra two hours until 9 pm local time.

The extension follows chaos in the county and a suburban one outside Austin because the local Republican parties refused to hold joint primaries with Democrats. That meant that rather than voting at countywide vote centers as has been done for years in Texas, voters in those two counties needed to find their own precincts to cast ballots.

Hundreds were unable to vote, Dallas Democrats said. Democrats asked a judge to extend poll hours. Rep. Jasmine Crockett said the extended hours only apply to Democratic primary sites because the GOP did not make the request as well.

North Carolina law says the voting sites close at 7:30 p.m. ET and that anyone in line at the time can still cast a ballot.

But one of the roughly 2,600 sites statewide is staying open for an hour longer. The State Board of Elections gave voters extra time in a rural Halifax County precinct because workers had a problem with electronic poll books and didn’t use any backup measures to let people vote.

The state board said the delay means it won’t be releasing vote totals publicly until 8:30 p.m., when the Halifax County precinct closes. During the delay, counties can count votes and report the results internally to the state.

North Carolina voters are choosing Democratic and Republican nominations for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Republican Thom Tillis and for U.S. House seats. Voters also are choosing primary winners for state legislative, judicial and local races.

The Talarico campaign says it’s “deeply concerned” about reports of voting troubles in two major Texas counties.

The campaign called for voting hours to be extended but did not say whether it would file a lawsuit asking a judge to intervene.

Some voters in Dallas and Williamson counties are being turned away at polling locations and directed to different voting precincts.

The head of the association for North Carolina county elections directors says she doesn’t believe colleagues elsewhere in the state will release their countywide primary election results until the State Board of Elections starts doing so at 8:30 p.m. ET.

Results usually start getting released by the state board shortly after polls close statewide at 7:30 p.m. But the state board delayed that because members agreed earlier Tuesday to extend voting by an hour at one Halifax County precinct.

Association president Leigh Anne Price, who is also the Johnston County elections director, said her office is “going to follow what the state board has directed us to do.”

Elections boards in the state’s three largest counties — Wake, Mecklenburg and Guilford — also plan to do the same, officials said.

The Democratic congresswoman and U.S. Senate candidate from Dallas blamed

local Republicans, as well as Republicans in the Austin area, for the confusion of voters who were being turned away from polling locations in Tuesday’s primaries.

The GOP in both Dallas County and Williamson County in the Austin area opted to have voters cast ballots only in their home precincts instead of countywide. Crockett’s campaign said that forced Democrats to do it, too.

Her campaign saw Republicans’ goal as suppressing the vote and said her campaign is working with Democratic officials on possible responses, including extended voting hours.

“Texans don’t appreciate having their votes suppressed and we won’t take it lying down,” her campaign said in a statement.

Tomas Sanchez was one of the voters in Dallas County who showed up at a voting location, ready to cast his ballot in the Democratic primary, and was turned away for being at the wrong precinct.

Sanchez, a student at Dallas College, planned to vote at a location on the campus. But instead was told he had to vote at a location closer to his neighborhood.

The 22-year-old said he was under the “mistaken impression” that he could vote anywhere in the county, which has been the case since 2019. But for this primary Election Day, the Dallas County Republican Party opted not to allow countywide voting locations. The decision affects all area voters, who now much cast ballots at their assigned precinct.

Hunt made his jump into politics after serving in the Army as an Apache helicopter pilot in Iraq and Saudi Arabia. He flew combat missions in Iraq.

The lifelong Houston resident and father of three lost his first race for Congress in 2020. However redistricting created a solidly Republican district two years later, and he won the seat easily.

He’s now positioning himself as an alternative to two older career politicians in the primary, four-term incumbent Sen. John Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Senate GOP leaders opposed Hunt’s run, believing it could prevent Cornyn from fending off Paxton’s challenge. But he argued that voters wary of Paxton needed a choice other than Cornyn.

The release of voting results in North Carolina will be delayed an hour Tuesday night because state officials agreed to keep a precinct in one county open late after workers couldn’t get some equipment working at the start of the day.

Workers at a precinct in rural Halifax County could not get the electronic poll books synchronized for 90 minutes and didn’t use any backup measures to let people vote, according to testimony at an emergency meeting Tuesday afternoon of the North Carolina State Board of Elections.

Election officials said counties can go ahead and count votes when their polls close and report the results internally to the state. But the state isn’t releasing vote totals publicly until 8:30 p.m. when the Halifax County precinct closes.

The precinct was in Littleton, a small community about 60 miles (96 kilometers) northeast of Raleigh.

In almost all cases, races can be called well before all votes have been counted. The AP’s team of election journalists and analysts will call a race as soon as a clear winner can be determined.

In competitive races, AP analysts may need to wait until additional votes are tallied or to confirm specific information about how many ballots are left to count.

Competitive races in which votes are actively being tabulated — for example, in states that count a large number of votes after election night — might be considered “too early to call.” A race may be “too close to call” if a race is so close that there’s no clear winner even once all ballots except for provisional and late-arriving absentee ballots have been counted.

The AP’s race calls are not predictions and are not based on speculation. They are declarations based on an analysis of vote results and other election data that one candidate has emerged as the winner and that no other candidate in the race will be able to overtake the winner once all the votes have been counted.

The AP’s vote count brings together information that otherwise might not be available online for days or weeks after an election or is scattered across hundreds of local websites. Without national standards or consistent expectations across states, it also ensures the data is in a standard format, uses standard terms and undergoes rigorous quality control.

The AP hires vote count reporters who work with local election officials to collect results directly from counties or precincts where votes are first counted. These reporters submit them, by phone or electronically, as soon as the results are available. If any of the results are available from state or county websites, the AP will gather the results from there, too.

In many cases, counties will update vote totals as they count ballots throughout the night. The AP is continually updating its count as these results are released. In a general election, the AP will make as many as 21,000 vote updates per hour.

The 2026 midterm season begins in earnest Tuesday with two of the nation’s most consequential Senate primaries playing out in Texas, a political behemoth Democrats have been fighting to flip for decades.

Is this the year? Republican leaders in Washington openly fret that a victory by conservative firebrand Ken Paxton over four-term incumbent Sen. John Cornyn would give Democrats a rare shot of winning the seat come November. The contest has already cost Republicans tens of millions of dollars, and there will be much more spent ahead of a May 26 runoff if no one gets 50% in the three-way primary that also includes Rep. Wesley Hunt.

Democrats, meanwhile, are picking between two rising stars with conflicting styles. There’s U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, who made a name for herself through confrontation, and state Rep. James Talarico, a former middle school teacher who’s working toward a divinity degree.

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The United States doesn’t have a nationwide body that collects and releases election results. Elections are administered locally, by thousands of offices, following standards set by the states. In many cases, the states themselves don’t even offer up-to-date tracking of election results.

The AP fills this gap by compiling vote results and declaring winners in elections, providing critical information in the period between Election Day and the official certification of results, which typically takes weeks.