The primary elections on Tuesday offered an early warning to incumbents about the serious risks of losing to upstart challengers this year, as a host of state and federal lawmakers encountered headwinds across the political landscape.
With an anti-establishment sentiment coursing through both parties, some were forced into runoffs, while others fell to insurgent opponents. Although several showed resilience in the face of tough challenges, and each race had its own distinct contours, it was, on the whole, far from a banner night for officeholders in both parties:
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Senator John Cornyn, a 23-year lawmaker who helped shape the modern Republican Party in Texas, was forced into a runoff by Ken Paxton, the scandal-plagued attorney general. While Mr. Cornyn outperformed some early expectations, a majority of G.O.P. primary voters still opted for another candidate.
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Representative Dan Crenshaw of Texas, a four-term incumbent, a Navy SEAL veteran and a former rising star, was ousted by a hard-line conservative in a test of MAGA loyalty.
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Representative Tony Gonzales of Texas, facing allegations that he coerced a staff member, who later killed herself, into having an affair, trailed a gun rights activist and YouTuber heading into a Republican runoff.
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Phil Berger, the Republican leader of the State Senate in North Carolina, trailed Sam Page, a small-town sheriff challenger, by two votes, despite having President Trump’s endorsement and the backing of conservative allies who spent millions to re-elect him. (Mr. Page declared victory on Tuesday night, proclaiming that “we’re going to beat Goliath.” The Associated Press has not declared a winner.)
Landon Wall, a Republican pollster, said the results demonstrated that alignment with the MAGA base and Mr. Trump’s brand was paramount in the party, even more so than incumbency.
“The candidates who struggled were almost exclusively the ones without his support,” Mr. Wall said, suggesting that even the perception that Mr. Cornyn was “insufficiently close to the president” had hurt him.
Several Democratic House incumbents were fighting for political survival, hanging on by their fingertips in races that were headed into overtime, while some state lawmakers were eliminated:
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Representative Al Green, 78, who does not usually face primary opposition, was headed to a May runoff in Texas against Representative Christian Menefee, 37, in a race that was seen as a test of whether the party was ready to move on from its aging incumbents. Mr. Green appears in real danger of losing to an opponent several decades his junior who had just taken office a month earlier after filling a vacant seat. Their race is unfolding on a redrawn congressional map forcing their districts together.
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In North Carolina, Representative Valerie Foushee, 69, was leading her progressive challenger, Nida Allam, 32, by just 1,202 votes, out of more than 125,000 cast — less than 1 percent. Ms. Allam conceded the race on Wednesday evening, though it has not yet been called by The Associated Press.
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Down the ballot in North Carolina, three Democrats in the State House who became targets of progressives after voting with Republicans and helping override the vetoes of a Democratic governor lost handily.
Anti-establishment Democrats cheered the results as evidence that the base appeared hungry for change and ready to oust its older members. For more than a year, Democrats had been warning that veteran politicians had strayed from everyday people and grown beholden to corporate interests., They insisted it was time to purge the ranks of senior politicians who did not seem to be meeting the moment of aggressive opposition to Mr. Trump.
“It is really hard to beat an incumbent in a primary,” said Amanda Litman, the president of Run for Something, a progressive group that recruits candidates to run for office and has backed Mr. Menefee and Ms. Allam. “The fact that these primaries are happening at all is an indication that the old guard doesn’t have the juice.”
Still, no Democratic House members lost outright on Tuesday, and their advantages in name recognition and longtime relationships could keep the anti-establishment movement facing an uphill battle this year.
Tim Persico, a Democratic strategist who worked with groups aligned with Ms. Foushee and was unaffiliated in the Texas races, said he did not see the results on Tuesday as an incumbent-versus-challenger divide.
Instead, Mr. Persico said, he thought an array of candidates who spoke to voters’ desires about fighting Mr. Trump performed well, no matter whether they were in office or not.
“It’s not clear that it’s a generational thing or an intraparty warfare thing,” said Mr. Persico, the former executive director of the Democratic Congressional Committee.
The quirks of individual races might have been bigger factors in some places. Representative Sylvia Garcia of Texas easily fended off Jarvis Johnson, a former state legislator, in a Democratic primary, showing the power of incumbency but also the impact of redistricting after Texas Republicans redrew district boundaries to hamper Democrats.
In Dallas, Representative Julie Johnson was forced into a runoff, but her opponent, former Representative Colin Allred, was hardly an upstart challenger bucking the status quo.
However, in Houston, Mr. Green’s challenger was already gearing up to draw sharp contrasts in the next phase of the campaign.
“Al Green, you can tear us down, but I’m going to build us up,” Mr. Menefee said on Tuesday. “I’m focused on taking this district to the future.”
Kellen Browning is a Times political reporter based in San Francisco.
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