Are the Texas primary results a sign that American voters are finally fed up with hyper-partisanship?

With the first primary elections in Texas, Arkansas, and North Carolina, March 3rd was Opening Day for the 2026 election cycle.

Brace yourself for 243 more days of talking heads analyzing every scrap of data and whiff of sentiment to predict the mid-term congressional races that will seat the 120th Congress in January 2027.

Episode One of “Election Season ‘26” opened the season with a banger in Texas, as both parties jockey in a high-stakes game to win Sen. John Cornyn’s Senate seat which is up for grabs.

The spending was extraordinary with both parties fully engaged in competitive and expensive dogfights and a total of $125m spent across both races. On a primary!

On the Republican side, it was already unusual for a sitting Senator to face a primary challenger, but in November 2025, MAGA firebrand Ken Paxton entered the race to challenge incumbent Sen. John Cornyn—accusing Sen. Cornyn (Bridge Grade: A | 87.0) of not being devout enough in his loyalism to Trump and weaponizing his collaborative governance against him.

While the base of Texan Republican voters who reliably vote in such low-participation elections prefer Paxton’s ideological positions and bare-knuckle tactics, GOP strategists worried that if Paxton beats the more mainstream-friendly Cornyn in the primary, he’d match up poorly against the popular up-and-comer Democratic Texas state representative James Talarico and risk flipping a precious Senate seat to the Democrats.

Plot twist. In December, progressive firebrand Rep. Jasmine Crockett (Bridge Grade: F | 8.6) entered the Democratic race, representing an easier adversary than Talarico whose appeal had grown amongst non-partisan independents and even ambivalent Republicans. So much so, that partisan heavies allegedly pressured CBS into not airing Stephen Colbert’s interview with Talarico just a couple of weeks before the election — a maneuver that some consider a tell of how much Republican insiders feared facing Talarico in the general election.

Despite preferences amongst the voting base for the stronger ideologue in Paxton, the party rallied behind Cornyn—as the safer path to defend its seat, with supporters spending $70m on advertising for Cornyn compared to just $4m for Paxton.

Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, a similar game was in play with House Rep. and progressive firebrand Jasmine Crockett matched up against Texas state representative James Talarico’s more unifying and pragmatic platform.

The big Democratic money flowed to Talarico, who spent $24.5m on advertisements compared to Crockett whose supporters spent just $4m on ads.

Just like the Republican side, while the most progressive and vocal Democratic voters prefer Crockett’s aggressive partisanship, the party strategists (as evidenced by the money) liked Talarico’s chances more than Crockett’s to win the middle and flip the seat in November.

From a game-theory perspective, each party wanted the other to elect their most partisan candidate, while working hard to elect their own least partisan candidate. This is healthy.

In the Democratic primary, Talarico beat Crockett 52-46 in a massive voter turnout by Democrats. Crockett, a divider with an F grade, underperformed in the ballot box.

In the Republican primary, neither Cornyn (42%) nor Paxton (41%) earned a 50% majority, with third candidate Wesley Hunt capturing 13.5% of the vote. The result is in another costly and potentially bruising runoff in late May. Polymarket punters consider Cornyn an 88% likely chance as the eventual Republican nominee, at the time of this writing. Cornyn, a bridger with an A grade, overperformed in the ballot box.

At a glance, we at Bridge Grades are delighted by this Opening Day result. While avoiding endorsing specific candidates, our ambition is to recognize and reward collaborative legislators and educate the electorate and inspire citizens to re-elect bridgers (As and Bs) and vote out dividers (Cs and Fs) from both parties. On Tuesday, this is exactly what happened.

Are the results due to partisan gamesmanship and well-funded strategies to annoint the least partisan candidate who stands the best chance in November’s statewide beauty pageant?

Or, is this also a signal that voters are finally tiring of the partisan tug-of-war and zero-sum game that keeps getting us nowhere?

We sure hope it’s some of the former, but mostly the latter.

Opening Day was an exciting opening episode to “Election Season ‘26." As the rest of the season drops, we’ll watch to see how voter trends evolve throughout the primary season and into the general elections. Will Texas prove to be a microcosm of the nation at large?

Across the country, bridgers are mathematically more often under competitive threat than their divisive peers, and we’ll break that down in a future post. Can these bridgers survive close midterm elections?

Non-partisan citizens who prioritize collaborative governance over partisan politics should systematically protect and defend A-graded lawmakers from both parties, while proactively voting out F-graded legislators who’ve had their shot.

Partisan strategists in Texas seem to have figured out where the swing votes are. Will the citizens figure it out next?

Next time on…. Election Season ‘26…

Bridge Grades is a non-ideological report card for politicians. Using 3rd party data, we grade politicians on their ability to collaborate and build consensus solutions for the common interests. Like a polarization score. In aggregating data from multiple non-partisan 3rd party sources, Bridge Grade is like Rotten Tomatoes for politicians.