Election Day updates: Ken Paxton and Sid Miller join Donald Trump’s Florida watch party

Republican state Rep. Craig Goldman, Republican political neophyte Brandon Gill and Democratic former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner have won their races to the U.S. House, the Associated Press called. The three members-elect will replace longtime U.S. Reps. Kay Granger of Fort Worth, Michael Burgess of Lewisville and Sheila Jackson Lee of Houston.

Granger announced this year she would not seek reelection after nearly three decades representing her city in Congress. She was the chair of the House Appropriations Committee until stepping down earlier this year and is the longest serving Republican in the Texas delegation. Goldman, a business-minded Republican who is close to state House Speaker Dade Phelan, was expected to win the race in the Republican-leaning district after beating far-right businessman John O’Shea in the primary.

Burgess, who has served in Congress since 2003 replacing former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, also announced he would not seek reelection this year. The primary to succeed him in his ruby-red district attracted a crowded field, but Gill shot ahead with endorsements from former President Donald Trump and his allies. Gill ran a pro-Trump news site and helped in the production of 2000 Mules, a since-debunked conspiracy theory documentary alleging the 2020 election was rife with fraud.

Jackson Lee represented her Houston-based community from 1995 until her death from pancreatic cancer this summer. She was one of the best-connected Democrats in Washington, using her ties across the party to advance progressive priorities, including racial justice, gender equality and LGBTQ rights. Turner defeated a crowded field of Democrats for the party’s nomination to replace her. He was selected by county party officials since Jackson Lee died long after the state’s primaries and promised to serve no more than a couple of terms to allow a more open primary in the future.

— Matthew Choi

Republicans are poised to hold onto a pair of Texas House seats in Dallas County, according to early voting results that show GOP state Reps. Morgan Meyer and Angie Chen Button leading by sizable margins.

Democrats targeted both seats this year, reasoning that they were in play because under their current boundaries, Donald Trump would have carried each district by less than 1 percentage point. But through early voting, Meyer, R-University Park, led his Democratic challenger, Elizabeth Ginsberg, by nearly 18 points. Button, R-Richardson, was ahead of Democrat Averie Bishop by almost 9 points.

Republicans control both chambers of the Legislature and faced little danger Tuesday of losing their majorities. But Democrats hope to flip enough House seats to reassemble a bipartisan coalition that could defeat a push led by Gov. Greg Abbott to pass school vouchers, or programs that allow public money to be used to pay for private education.

Republicans were also leading early Tuesday in several other key state House districts that could decide the future of school vouchers. In San Antonio, Republican state Rep. John Lujan led Democratic challenger Kristian Carranza by about 4 percentage points, a similar margin by which Republican Marc LaHood led Democrat Laurel Jordan Swift in a nearby battleground district.

In North Texas’ Collin County, meanwhile, Democratic state Rep. Mihaela Plesa was narrowly leading Republican challenger Steve Kinard, with a 3-point advantage through early voting.

— Jasper Scherer

At the busiest voting site in Cameron County, where voters will decide the highly competitive race for Texas Congressional District 34, a college student was just seconds too late to cast his ballot.

Israel Lozano, 24, sprinted to the front doors of the Brownsville Public Library but was still feet away when the clock turned to 7:01 p.m. He was turned away.

He had just gotten out of class at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley where he's majoring in history. The burden of his studies and work had prompted him to put off voting until Election Day.

Lozano had hoped to vote for former President Donald Trump in addition to voting in several down-ballot races to bring about change in his community.

"I feel OK that I, at least, made the intent," Lozano said.

–– Berenice Garcia

It’s still early, but in the U.S. Senate race, Sen. Ted Cruz is running a few points ahead of his 2018 margin in the largest counties that have posted results from early and absentee voting.

In Tarrant County, Cruz was leading his Democratic challenger, U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, by about 2 percentage points. The county, a longtime GOP stronghold that is home to Fort Worth, has trended increasingly purple in recent years and was carried by Cruz’s 2018 opponent, Beto O’Rourke, by less than a percentage point.

Allred is winning Texas’ big urban counties, as expected, but he doesn’t appear to be driving up the margins he would need to overcome Cruz’s advantage in the rest of the state, barring a major Election Day surge. In Allred’s hometown Dallas County, he was up by 28 points through early and absentee results — down from O’Rourke’s 33-point edge there six years ago.

A similar picture emerged in Travis County, home to Austin: Allred led 45 points through early voting, compared to O’Rourke’s 50-point win there. Cruz was also running about four points ahead of his 2018 margin in San Antonio’s Bexar County.

O’Rourke went on to lose statewide in 2018 by 2.6 points, the narrowest loss for statewide Democrats in years.

—Jasper Scherer

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller are at Mar-a-Lago for Donald Trump’s watch party on Election Night, according to a social media post from Paxton’s account.

“Great to be here at Mar-a-Lago tonight with [Miller] to support [Trump] for the win,” Paxton said, posing for a picture with the agriculture commissioner.

Paxton and Miller are among Trump’s biggest supporters in the state, frequently greeting him at airport tarmacs during his visits to Texas. The two were present 11 days ago when Trump visited Austin during a stop in the state to appear on The Joe Rogan Experience, a podcast popular with men under 45 who are crucial to Trump’s campaign strategy. Rogan endorsed Trump Monday night.

— James Barragán

Polls closed at 7 p.m. across most of Texas.

Voters waiting in line to vote at 7 p.m. will still be able to cast their ballots.

Polls remain open for another hour in El Paso, Hudspeth and Culberson counties. El Paso, Hudspeth and parts of Culberson are in Mountain Standard Time.

Counties typically report early voting results first, followed by Election Day results. County election workers must drive voting machines to their local election headquarters to have votes counted. It will likely take hours for winners to be named in most races.

Follow live results here.

— Kate McGee

How does Trump perform in Texas?

All eyes are at the top of the ticket where Trump is trying to return to the White House after his loss to Democrat Joe Biden four years ago. The race is neck and neck in key swing states but Trump is expected to carry Texas, which last voted for a Democrat for president in 1976 when the state went for Jimmy Carter.

But Democrats looking for a silver lining will be watching the margin of victory and hoping that a good performance by Vice President Kamala Harris will give them enough fuel to put Texas squarely in the battleground state conversation next cycle.

Since 2012, the margin of victory for the Republican presidential candidates has been steadily dropping in Texas. Romney won the state by 16 percentage points that year. Four years later, Trump won the state by 9 points. In 2020, Trump won again, but by 5.6 points.

If the margin of victory narrows further, Texas Democrats could have more fuel to demand greater investment from the national party, which has refused to spend big in the state citing its expensive media market and an unfavorable electoral map.

If national Democrats began investing money in Texas, state officials say, the party could run more competitive campaigns.

Secondly, a good performance by Harris could give down-ballot Democrats a boost, most notably for Dallas Congressman Colin Allred who is in an uphill battle to unseat Republican Sen. Ted Cruz. Allred’s strategy has always been to ride the momentum of presidential voters and then hope he can persuade enough moderate Republican and independent voters to make the race competitive.

Cruz v. Allred

Cruz is once again in the hot seat as he seeks reelection for a third term.

Allred is running a spirited challenge that has raised record-breaking amounts of money, pitching himself as a more moderate alternative to Cruz. Democrats are hopeful that Allred will end the party’s 30-year drought of Texas Democrats holding statewide office. A win by Allred could determine whether Democrats maintain their 51-seat majority in the U.S. Senate.

Senate Democrats are struggling to defend several incumbents in red states, making any flip opportunity valuable. Control of the Senate is crucial for whoever wins the presidency. The chamber has confirmation power over a future presidential cabinet and will determine the next president’s ability to pass meaningful legislation.

Democrats are more bullish about their ability to beat Cruz since former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke came within three points of unseating him in 2018. That race, which similarly broke fundraising records and was one of the most expensive Senate races in history, revealed Cruz’s vulnerabilities among moderate voters. Cruz has spent his career making a name for himself as one of the right’s most vocal fighters in Congress.

Both Cruz and Allred have a lot on the line. Allred gave up his safe Dallas-based U.S. House seat to run for Senate. He is well liked within the Democratic Caucus and was seen as having a promising career in the lower chamber. Cruz, meanwhile, hopes to one day run for president again, and his position in the Senate was a major platform for his 2016 presidential run.

South Texas congressional races

Texas' two most competitive congressional races this year are rematches from 2022, both centered in South Texas.

In the 15th Congressional District, freshman Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz is trying to fend off Democrat Michelle Vallejo for the second straight cycle. Two years ago, De La Cruz became the first Republican to ever represent the district, which was left open by Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez's decision to seek reelection in a neighboring district.

The district is anchored in Hidalgo County and its biggest city, McAllen, along the U.S.-Mexico border. It runs through rural South Texas up to Guadalupe County east of San Antonio.

De La Cruz won by a comfortable 8.5-point margin two years ago, but Vallejo thinks conditions are more favorable this time: Trump would have carried the district by just 3 percentage points under the redrawn boundaries in 2020, and national Democrats are putting more money into the race than they did two years ago. Still, De La Cruz has staked out a huge financial advantage, raising more than $7 million to Vallejo's roughly $2 million.

Gonzalez, meanwhile, is seeking reelection in the adjacent 34th Congressional District, where he ran in 2022 after his old district was redrawn to favor Republicans. The McAllen Democrat again faces former U.S. Rep. Mayra Flores, the Republican he unseated two years ago, in a district that runs from the Mexican border along the Gulf of Mexico to just south of Corpus Christi.

The race is an uphill climb for Flores, who finished 8.5 percentage points behind Gonzalez in 2022. Biden would have carried the district by over 15 points in 2020 under the current boundaries. Still, Flores has raised around $6 million this cycle, more than double Gonzalez's haul, and national Republicans have touted internal polling that shows the race is close.

In both contests, Republicans are looking to continue their recent momentum in predominantly Latino South Texas, while Democrats are trying to assert themselves in a region they had long dominated — until recent cycles.

The Legislature

Given the state’s electoral maps, it’s a given that Republicans will retain control of both chambers of the Legislature this November. The real question is whether the legislative branch will continue its right-ward lurch, which will have an impact on everything from public school funding to transgender rights and abortion access.

A number of Republican incumbents in the House were ousted by right-wing challengers in the primaries earlier this year. The challengers rode a wave of discontent over the incumbents’ decision to buck Gov. Greg Abbott’s plan for school voucher legislation and to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton, a polarizing figure in the party. Those challengers promised to support Abbott’s push for voucher legislation and to take the lower chamber in a more conservative direction after accusing current House Speaker Dade Phelan of being too liberal and siding with Democrats.

The insurgent wing of the Republican Party in the House has already coalesced around Mansfield Rep. David Cook as its choice to replace Phelan in January and he has pledged to do away with the long-standing bipartisan tradition of naming Democrats as committee chairs.

Republicans are even bullish about picking up seats where long-serving moderate or conservative Democrats are retiring.

But Democrats are holding out hope that they can cut into the GOP advantage and once again make a stand against school vouchers. Though many of the rural Republicans who aligned with Democrats to beat back the voucher push have now been replaced, the minority party is trying to convince moderate Republican voters that the GOP has overreached.

Will Texas high courts stay red?

Three seats on the all-GOP Texas Supreme Court will be decided this year — the first statewide judicial election since the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022. Democrats this year, are targeting the three incumbents — justices John Devine, Jane Bland and Jimmy Blacklock — hoping bipartisan backlash over abortion rulings will give them their first win on the bench since 1994.

Polling has found that Texas voters are broadly dissatisfied with the strictness of the state’s abortion laws. But experts say that Democrats face hurdles on Tuesday given the lack of attention paid by voters to the Texas Supreme Court, the state’s highest civil body. Since Jan. 1, Bland and Blacklock have also raised and spent more than three times as much as their opponents, judges Bonnie Lee Goldstein and DaSean Jones.

There are signs that Devine could be more vulnerable than his Republican colleagues in his race against Harris County District Court Judge Christine Weems. He was the only justice with a primary challenger this year, and narrowly survived a heated campaign that focused on, among other ethical concerns, his absence from half of oral arguments before the court last year. Devine has trailed Weems in both fundraising and spending this cycle.

Devine is a longtime fixture in conservative Christian legal causes who has called church-state separation a “myth” and, as a Supreme Court candidate in 2011, claimed to have been arrested 37 times at anti-abortion protests in the 1980s. Earlier this year, the Tribune reported that Devine did not recuse himself from a high-profile sex abuse lawsuit against Southern Baptist leader Paul Pressler despite working for Pressler’s law firm at the time of the alleged molestations. Last month, the Tribune also reported that Devine has for years overseen the trust of an elderly millionaire with dementia — despite prohibitions on Texas judges serving in such fiduciary roles for non-family members. Devine has denied any wrongdoing, saying the woman considered him like a son for decades.

Texas’ Court of Appeals has traditionally been overshadowed by the state Supreme Court, its civil counterpart in Texas’ bifurcated judicial system. But this year, a series of political fights over the death penalty and voter fraud investigations have thrust the all-Republican judicial body into an unexpected spotlight — and created a fork-in-the-road moment for voters, who will decide Tuesday between three judges backed by Attorney General Ken Paxton, or their Democratic challengers.

The surprise drama of this year’s race traces back to 2021, when the court ruled that Paxton’s office must get permission from county prosecutors to pursue cases of alleged voter fraud.Furious, Paxton vowed revenge and launched a full-on electoral blitz that decisively ousted three incumbent judges during the GOP primary in March.

On the ballot Tuesday are the three Paxton-endorsed candidates — David Schenck, Gina Parker and Lee Finley — and their respective Democratic challengers, Holly Taylor, Nancy Mulder and Chika Anyiam.

Separately, the Court of Criminal Appeals has faced recent scrutiny for its role in the high-profile political fight over Robert Roberson, a death row inmate whose scheduled execution was halted earlier this month by a bipartisan group of Texas House members. All three of the court’s outgoing judges voted to allow Roberson’s execution to move forward. But if even one of the court’s new judges seems likely to take a different stance, it could open the door to a rehearing. Those chances are likely to diminish if Republican candidates sweep next week.

— James Barragán, Jasper Scherer, Matthew Choi, Robert Downen

Texas deployed election monitors across the state during Tuesday’s blockbuster election, including undercover inspectors out of the attorney general’s office, according to Gov. Greg Abbott.

“Texas is not taking any chances,” Abbott posted on social media, adding that Attorney General Ken Paxton deployed inspectors “monitoring election law compliance in major counties” and that the Texas Secretary of State has also dispatched election monitors across the state.

The Texan News reported that the attorney general’s office has stationed undercover inspectors at central ballot counting stations in every major Texas county.

Paxton sued on Monday to stop the U.S. Justice Department from monitoring compliance with federal voting laws in eight Texas counties, arguing that the federal agency had no authority to send its staff and enter Texas polling sites and counting stations under state law.

The Justice Department affirmed that its staff would stay outside of Texas polling sites.

Sixty Texas Democrats had asked the federal agency in October to send election monitors to some of the state’s most populous counties, expressing concerns that Texas’ top Republicans were targeting Democratic voters and blue counties.

The Justice Department announced on Friday that it was sending election monitors to 86 jurisdictions across 27 states. The agency regularly deploys monitors to watch out for potential voting rights violations.

— Kayla Guo

For weeks, Tracey Mason has been on edge.

Every day, she would wait for her son Dillan Russell to let her know he had finally received the mail ballot he requested from Harris County in September. A freshman at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Russell was eager to vote for the first time.

According to the Texas Secretary of State’s online ballot tracker, Harris County sent Russell’s ballot to his college mailbox on Oct. 18. But as the sun rose on Election Day, it still had not arrived.

“It’s very disheartening,” Mason said. “And others are in the same predicament.”

Russell’s roommate, Joseph Patterson, did not receive his mail ballot from Harris County, either.

Mason considered buying a plane ticket so her son could fly home and cast a ballot in Harris County, something she said a few other moms in the same situation did. But she decided against it after weighing the cost and the coursework Russell would miss.

The Texas Tribune spoke to several individuals from counties across the state who say they applied for a mail-in ballot well ahead of the Oct. 25 deadline but have yet to receive one. Texas allows people to vote by mail if they are 65 years or older, sick or disabled, out of their county on Election Day and during early voting, expected to give birth within three weeks of Election Day, or confined in jail.

The deadline for mail-in ballots to be returned to a county is on Election Day, Nov. 5. If a ballot is postmarked by 7 p.m. locally that day, it’ll be counted if the county receives it by 5 p.m. on Nov. 6.

Luke Laibo, a college student at Auburn University in Alabama, breathed a sigh of relief when he received his mail-in ballot from Travis County on Monday. He decided to mail his ballot overnight to ensure it would get delivered on time.

“It was definitely a stressful situation,” Laibo said. “The county kept assuring me it was coming when it hadn’t.”

Sarah Xiyi Che, supervising attorney for the voting rights program at the Texas Civil Rights Project, said there are issues with mailed ballots arriving too late during every election cycle. It is unclear how many people who applied for mail-in ballots have not received them this election cycle.

A Harris County Clerk spokesperson said the county has no control over how quickly the U.S. Postal Service delivers ballots. In September, state and local election officials from all 50 states sent a letter to the postmaster general expressing concerns with USPS’ ability to deliver election mail on time. The letter specifically pointed to USPS staff’s inconsistent training and an increase in mail returned as undeliverable.

USPS said in a press release last month that it added extra deliveries and collections to accelerate ballot delivery this year. On average, the agency said, ballots are delivered from election officials to voters in 2.1 days and from voters to election officials in 1.6 days.

If someone does not receive their mail-in ballot in time to vote, they can show up to their polling place in person and cast a provisional ballot. That ballot will be counted so long as the mailed ballot is not cast.

Ruth Robbins, a Collin County voter, decided to take her 78-year-old dad to the polls after he did not receive the mail-in ballot he requested. Robbins’ dad is immunocompromised and has not voted in person in a decade, Robbins said.

“In October my dad called the office and said, ‘Where is my ballot?’” Robbins said. “They said they were swamped and understaffed but working through the backlog.”

— Pooja Salhotra

For those wondering: Texans who did not register to vote by the Oct. 7 deadline cannot vote in Tuesday’s presidential and general election. However, there are some options for registered voters who run into issues at the polls.

Voters whose registration is flagged as in “suspense” can still vote as normal if they fill out a “statement of residence” when voting.

If you believe you should be registered but don’t appear on the voter registration list at the polls, you can cast a provisional ballot. There’s no guarantee that a provisional ballot will ultimately be counted. Your local voter registrar must review the provisional ballot and verify your registration or that other outstanding issues were resolved within six days of the election.

The registrar then passes that information to the local ballot board, which decides whether the provisional ballot is eligible to be counted under election laws, according to the Texas Secretary of State’s voter education website.

Provisional voters must be sent a notice if their ballot was rejected no later than 10 days after the election. This year, that deadline is Nov. 15, according to the state’s election law calendar.

— María Méndez

Texas has withdrawn its request to have a federal judge block the U.S. Justice Department from monitoring the state’s election.

The move follows an agreement reached late Monday between the federal agency and the Texas attorney general’s office. The DOJ agreed their monitors in eight Texas counties will remain outside and at least 100 feet away from polling and central count locations. It also agreed to refrain from interfering with any voters attempting to cast ballots, following its usual practice.

The Justice Department regularly sends monitors across the country to keep an eye out for potential voting rights violations during major elections. The agency said on Friday that monitors would be on the ground in 86 jurisdictions in 27 states. The Texas counties are Atascosa, Bexar, Dallas, Frio, Harris, Hays, Palo Pinto and Waller counties.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton argued in a lawsuit filed Monday that the Justice Department did not have any authority to dispatch election monitors, and that federal election monitors are not among those allowed inside Texas polling places or in central locations where ballots are counted under state law. Paxton asked a federal court to block the federal agency from monitoring voting in Texas this election and beyond. Texas’ lawsuit against the DOJ will remain pending until after the election to ensure DOJ’s compliance, Paxton's office said Tuesday.

For decades, the Justice Department has dispersed election monitors across the country to observe procedures in polling sites and at places where ballots are counted. That was a power granted to the federal government under the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which outlawed discriminatory voting practices and sought to equalize voting access. After the U.S. Supreme Court gutted parts of the law years ago, the agency now must get permission from state and local jurisdictions to be present or get a court order.

Read more about Texas' lawsuit here.

— Terri Langford, Joshua Fechter and Kayla Guo

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was not among 51 members of the National Association of Attorneys General who signed a letter on Monday calling for a peaceful transfer of power and condemning violent acts relating to the election results.

Paxton was one of only three state attorneys general who didn’t sign the letter, along with his counterparts in Indiana and Montana.

The letter states that “regardless of the outcome of Tuesday’s election,” they expect Americans to respect the peaceful transfer of power and called on citizens to vote and to respect the democratic process.

Paxton did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Three years ago, the NAAG released a letter condemning the violence on Jan. 6, 2021 at the U.S. Capitol. Although Paxton did not sign that letter, he issued his own statement: “I stand for election integrity and the democratic process,” he wrote in an X post. “I will not tolerate violence and civil disorder.”

– Xiomara Moore

Federal elections regulators have asked U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz’s campaign to explain or return almost $1 million worth of contributions that appear to exceed a limit capping individual contributions at $3,300.

The San Antonio Current reported Monday that a letter sent by the Federal Election Commission to Cruz’s campaign on Sunday raised questions about nearly 200 contributions, some of which exceeded the cap by thousands of dollars. Cruz’s campaign must respond or return the money by Dec. 9 or face an audit or enforcement action.

Cruz’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In April, the campaign received a formal campaign finance complaint regarding money sent from a company that syndicates his podcast to a political action committee backing Cruz. The complaint alleged that Cruz’s campaign might have improperly directed radio distribution and marketing firm iHeartMedia to send more than $630,000 to the Truth and Courage PAC. That would exceed a $5,000 limit that an officeholder is permitted under federal regulations to solicit for a super PAC.

Cruz faces Democratic challenger U.S. Rep. Colin Allred in Tuesday’s election.

— Alejandro Serrano