Texas 2022 primary election

The Texas Democratic primary for attorney general will proceed to a runoff, CNN projects.

Rochelle Garza will advance to the runoff, but the second spot is too early to call.

The Texas Republican primary for attorney general will proceed to a runoff, CNN projects.

Incumbent Ken Paxton will advance to the runoff, but the second spot is too early to call.

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Comptroller Glenn Hegar will win their respective primaries, CNN projected on Tuesday. The Republicans were both backed by former President Donald Trump.

Their projected wins came alongside Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s projected victory in the Republican gubernatorial primary. Abbott, too, was endorsed by Trump.

While none of these primaries were particularly competitive, they still highlight Trump’s influence over the Republican Party. Trump has sought to play GOP kingmaker since leaving office, and his endorsement is coveted in Republican primaries across the country.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott will win the Republican gubernatorial primary, CNN projects.

Seeking his third-term as Texas’ top executive, Abbott fended off a primary challenge from seven Republican candidates including Don Huffines, a former state senator, and Allen West, a former Florida congressman and former chairman of the Texas Republican Party.

Buoyed by name recognition, a massive campaign war chest, and the backing of former President Donald Trump, Abbott – who got his start in Texas politics as a state district judge before serving on the Texas Supreme Court and as state attorney general – was the heavy favorite to secure the GOP nomination.

He spent most of his primary campaign attacking, Beto O'Rourke – the former Texas congressman who ran unsuccessfully for the US Senate in 2018 and the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020. O’Rourke also will win his party’s nomination, CNN projected on Tuesday night.

Beto O’Rourke will win the Democratic gubernatorial primary in Texas, CNN projects.

O’Rourke, the former Texas congressman who ran unsuccessfully for the US Senate in 2018 and the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, was heavily favored to come out on top Tuesday. In doing so, he defeated candidates Inocencio Barrientez, Michael Cooper, Joy Diaz and Rich Wakeland to secure the Democratic nomination.

O'Rourke shot to stardom with a near-miss Senate campaign in 2018 against GOP Sen. Ted Cruz. But his failed 2020 Democratic presidential primary run left his national brand badly dented in the eyes of many within the party.

Still, O'Rourke remains popular among Democrats on his home turf — building a following in Texas much larger than any other Democrat in a generation. In between his campaigns, he has remained active, campaigning for state legislative candidates and activating his volunteers when the state's power grid failed last winter.

Yet, Republicans argue that many of the positions he took during that run, including advocating for mandatory assault weapon buybacks, will hurt him in Texas.

Anticipating the likely match up, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott – who was projected by CNN to win his party’s primary on Tuesday night  – spent most of his primary campaign attacking O’Rourke, using the Democratic politician’s left-leaning policy proposals as campaign fodder.

Abbott's campaign has accused O'Rourke of flip-flopping and backtracking on comments he made about the southern border, guns and the Green New Deal while running for president in 2020.

A poll of registered Texas voters conducted in late January and early February by the University of Texas/Texas Politics Project found Abbott leading O'Rourke by 10 percentage points in a likely match-up, 47% to 37%.

And even though O'Rourke has largely kept pace in fundraising since entering the race in November, Abbott, a two-term governor, currently has a massive financial advantage, with about $50 million in the bank to O'Rourke's $6.8 million as of Feb. 20, campaign finance records show.

Polls are now closing statewide in Texas.

Two big-name Republicans, Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton, are seeking to beat back challenges from the right. In South Texas, the most conservative Democrat in the US House, Rep. Henry Cuellar, is attempting to survive a rematch against Jessica Cisneros, the progressive who nearly ousted him in the primary two years ago.

The contests will be the first test of how the restrictive new voting law enacted by Texas Republicans last year will reshape the electorate.

One important wrinkle in Texas: To win the primary, candidates don't just have to beat their rivals but must win more than 50% of the vote. Otherwise, the top two finishers advance to a head-to-head runoff election on May 24. That threshold could play an important role in several House primaries.

CNN is monitoring results as they come in.

CNN's Eric Bradner and Gregory Krieg contributed reporting to this post.

Results from Harris County, home to Houston, could be delayed.

County officials have informed the Secretary of State’s office that they are dealing with damaged ballot sheets that must be duplicated before they can be scanned and tabulated, according to a release from state election officials. As a result, county election officials have indicated they won’t be able to count and report results for early votes and Election Day votes by 7 p.m. local time Wednesday, as required by Texas law.

A Harris County election spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for more information. Harris County is the most populous county in Texas and a Democratic stronghold.

It is now 8 p.m. ET (7 p.m. local time) and most polls across Texas are beginning to close.

The majority of Texas is on Central Time, but the western tip of the state around El Paso is on Mountain Time.

Polls statewide will be closing at 9 p.m. ET.

Today's primary races set the scene for several key races up and down the Texas ballot this year, including the Lone Star State's gubernatorial and attorney general elections.

Tuesday's primary was also the first election to be held under Texas' new elections law, which made significant changes to voting procedures in the state.

The law limited early voting hours, eliminated drive-through voting and added new ID requirements for mail voting, among other changes.

These are the key races we are tracking tonight:

CNN is monitoring race results as they come in.

CNN's Rachel Janfaza, Ethan Cohen and Melissa DePalo contributed reporting to this post. 

The midterm election season kicked off Tuesday in Texas — with election workers, voters and voting rights activists reporting several glitches, including poll worker shortages, as Texans cast their ballots in person.

But election officials in the Lone Star State say the biggest challenge still looms: The scramble to fix the higher-than-usual number of mail-in ballots flagged for potential rejection under the state's restrictive new voting law.

Officials in Harris County — home to Houston — had flagged as faulty nearly 30% of the more than 38,000 mail-in ballots received as of Monday because voters did not include identifying information on the return envelope, the county's election chief Isabel Longoria told reporters Tuesday morning.

That means voters likely will cast more provisional ballots than typical on Election Day, she added.

Tuesday marks the first primaries of year. In Texas, the results will determine general election matchups for governor and a slew of statewide and legislative offices. If no candidate achieves more than 50% support, a runoff election is slated for May.

Tuesday also marks the first test of a new voting law passed by the Republican-controlled legislature last year. The law imposes new ID requirements to vote by mail, empowers partisan poll watchers and bans practices used by Harris County in 2020, such as 24-hour and drive-thru voting.

Texans who qualify to vote by mail felt the first consequences of the new law. It requires them to include identification numbers both when applying for a mail-in ballot and again on the inside flap of the envelope they use to return the ballot -- a process that tripped up many in recent weeks.

Those problems surfaced again at polling places on Tuesday.

Joseph Egbon said he voted in person Tuesday because election officials rejected his mail-in ballot a few days ago.

"It was just last week they sent me the letter," Egbon told CNN. "I didn't want to argue so I said, 'Let me just go ahead'" and vote in person.

Egbon said it was relatively easy to do so. It took just 15 minutes him to vote at the Bayland Park Community Center in southwestern Houston.

Only a subset of Texas voters are eligible to cast ballots by mail. They include those 65 and older, people who will be out of the county and voters who are disabled or ill.

Read the full story here.