Menefee, Green Head to Runoff in Texas Democratic Primary

Democratic Party Reps. Christian Menefee and Al Green of Texas will advance to a May 26 runoff election after neither candidate secured enough votes to win the party’s nomination outright in the March 3 primary for the state’s redrawn 18th Congressional District.

With all 254 counties reporting and 92 percent of polling locations tallied, unofficial results from the Texas Secretary of State showed Menefee leading with 43,597 votes, or about 46 percent. Green trailed closely with 41,822 votes, or about 44 percent. Amanda Edwards, a former Houston city council member, received 7,320 votes, about 8 percent, and Gretchen Brown collected 1,936 votes, about 2 percent. The race total stood at 94,675 votes.

The race pitted two sitting Democratic members of Congress against each other—a consequence of the mid-cycle congressional redistricting that President Donald Trump urged Texas to undertake last year. At the time, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott called the GOP-controlled Legislature into session to redraw the state’s maps in a bid to pick up additional Republican seats in the 2026 midterms.

Green, 78, has served in the House since 2004. He moved into the redrawn 18th District contest after the new maps turned his existing seat into a Republican-leaning district. Green has been one of the Democratic Party’s most vocal critics of Trump in Congress and introduced articles of impeachment against him during the president’s first term.

Menefee, 37, took office just last month after a Jan. 31 special election victory to serve out the remainder of the term held by the late Rep. Sylvester Turner (D-Texas), who died on March 5, 2025.

March 3 marked the third trip to the polls in roughly four months for some Houston-area voters who also participated in the special election and its preceding runoff.

Menefee previously served for five years as the county attorney of Harris County, Texas, the chief non-felony state attorney in the Houston metropolitan area.

In that role, he sued Abbott and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to challenge conservative statewide policies. His campaign for Congress focused on opposition to Trump’s policies, immigration reform, and criminal justice measures, including banning for-profit prisons and expanding job training and reentry programs.

The 18th District includes most of Houston’s inner city and surrounding areas. It is a solid seat for the Democratic Party. Former Vice President Kamala Harris won the district by about 40 percentage points over Trump in the 2024 presidential election.

The Texas redistricting was part of a broader multi-state battle over congressional maps ahead of the November midterms. General elections to the 120th Congress are scheduled for Nov. 3.

Menefee’s entry to the House after the special election brought the Democratic Caucus to 214 members, giving the Republican Conference of 218 members a one-seat majority. Three additional House vacancies in Georgia, New Jersey, and California have special elections scheduled in March, April, and August.

Elsewhere in Texas on March 3, state Rep. Steve Toth ousted Rep. Dan Crenshaw in a Republican primary in the state’s Second Congressional District.

Crenshaw, a former Navy SEAL who had served four terms, was the lone House Republican in Texas without a Trump endorsement heading into the primary cycle. Toth secured a late backing from Sen. Ted Cruz.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.