Updated at 11:59 p.m.: to include state GOP spokesman’s comment as well as remarks by Hegar, Cornyn, West and Tzintzún Ramirez

AUSTIN — Military veteran and self-styled “disrupter” MJ Hegar appeared headed for a Democratic runoff for U.S. Senate late Tuesday, though against whom was unclear.

In early statewide returns, Hegar was far short of a majority. State Sen. Royce West of Dallas and labor organizer Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez of Austin were fighting for second place.

Hegar, the lead plaintiff in a 2012 lawsuit that spurred the Pentagon to lift a ban on women in ground combat, has vowed to fight for blue-collar Texans if she can cinch her party’s nomination and go on to unseat three-term Republican Sen. John Cornyn this fall.

“My last message is for you John Cornyn,” she told supporters in Austin late Tuesday. “Your time is done because you’ve sold us out. .. It’s over. You’re fired. Pack it up buttercup because I am coming for your seat.”

"PACK IT UP BUTTERCUP": @mjhegar had a special message for @JohnCornyn tonight. MJ Hegar is expected to be in a special run-off election race to face off against Senator John Cornyn for the #Texas Senate seat. For complete election results, visit https://t.co/6IFdacXTEh pic.twitter.com/5VD0IqxtQl — FOX 7 Austin (@fox7austin) March 4, 2020

West tweeted, “We will issue a statement in the morning as final results become more clear.”

Tzintzún Ramirez told supporters she is “best positioned to defeat John Cornyn -- and end the politics of hate.”

On Tuesday, Cornyn easily won renomination, against four lightly funded challengers.

“The stage is now set for the greatest referendum of our lifetimes,” he told supporters in Austin. “Will Texans abandon the principles that have made our state the envy of the nation in order to live under the stranglehold of socialism?”

He didn’t mention Hegar or any other Democratic senatorial hopefuls by name.

In 2018, Hegar (pronounced hey-GARR) nearly knocked off entrenched Central Texas GOP congressman John Carter.

A former manager for Seton Healthcare and Dell computers, the Round Rock resident has promised to represent the middle of the state’s electorate, rather than take cues from party leaders and big donors.

‘Lap dog’ vs. ‘Hollywood’

Hegar insists Cornyn does the opposite: He’s beholden to special interests such as pharmaceutical companies, and is a “lap dog” for Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, she has claimed.

Hegar, 43, a mother of two young boys, is sure to cast herself as more in touch with ordinary Texans and more energetic than Cornyn, 68, a former state attorney general and Texas Supreme Court justice from San Antonio.

Cornyn, though, already has assailed her as “Hollywood Hegar,” someone too liberal for the state.

Whichever Democrat emerges, he’s all but certain to try to link that person to “government-run socialism,” saying Democratic presidential hopefuls such as Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders are radicals — and their views have seeped down-ballot.

Complicating Hegar’s effort to become the first Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate from Texas since 1988 is her runoff.

Fighting history

However eager she is to get at Cornyn, she first must dispatch Tuesday’s second-place finisher in a May 26 runoff.

West, Tzintzún Ramirez, former Houston City Council member Amanda Edwards and former U.S. Rep. Chris Bell of Houston rounded out the top five candidates in fundraising among the crowded, 12-person Democratic primary.

In some public polls, Houston lawyer Annie “Mamá” Garcia and Houston activist Sema Hernandez, who garnered 24% of the vote against Beto O’Rourke in the Senate Democratic primary two years ago, were within the margin of error of finishing second behind Hegar.

If Hegar goes to a runoff against West, Edwards or Bell, there may be a clash of styles but all four are moderately liberal, opposing some of the key planks in the platforms of presidential hopefuls Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

If the other May finalist is Tzintzún Ramirez, though, Democrats can expect an ideologically charged – and possibly, vitriolic -- runoff battle.

Tzintzún Ramirez supports Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All bill and the Green New Deal proposed by New York freshman U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who last month endorsed her.

Hegar, however, opposes Sanders’ health care plan, though she has supported creating subsidies for a Medicare-like “public option” health plan. Hegar also backs “aggressive goals for expansion of renewable, clean energy,” while stopping short of embracing the Green New Deal.

As the primary’s front-running candidate, Hegar largely ignored her Democratic rivals. She also skipped several candidate forums. Throughout, Hegar said she needed the entire year to focus on defeating Cornyn.

A potentially rancorous runoff

Still, Hegar and Tzintzún Ramirez have sniped at one another over PACs and hypocrisy, health care policy, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s recruitment of Hegar and Hegar’s casting a vote in the 2016 GOP primary.

In the GOP’s Senate primary, Cornyn easily dispatched four foes. They included bridge construction company owner and Cleveland school board member Dwayne Stovall from southeast Texas, software developer Virgil Bierschwale of Junction, lawyer and entrepreneur John Anthony Castro and mergers and acquisitions firm executive Mark Yancey, both of Dallas.

Stovall called Cornyn “a senior member of the establishment swamp.” He also accused state Republican Chairman James Dickey of sending out fundraising letters praising Cornyn and “pretending like there are no challengers in the race.”

On social media in late January, Dickey apologized for a letter, saying it “crossed the line” and was generated in a way that “did not follow our normal communications process.”

A Texas Democratic Party spokesman has claimed Cornyn is so desperate to avoid a runoff, he’s run digital ads aimed at Trump supporters.

“Despite being in office for nearly 20 years, Cornyn can't consolidate his Republican base,” Abhi Rahman said in a written statement. “Cornyn has the lowest approval of any incumbent statewide elected official in Texas.”

Cornyn spokeswoman Krista Piferrer dismissed Rahman's remarks. She noted that in early returns, Cornyn drew nearly 78% of the vote.

“The country has a front row seat to the Biden/Bernie/Warren dumpster fire while Republicans are united up and down the ballot,” Piferrer said in a written statement.

“Needless to say, we look forward to debating the Democratic visions of socialist medicine and big government vs. innovation and prosperity.”

State GOP spokesman Sam Pohl said Democrats are projecting their own problems onto Cornyn.

“Entering today, poll after poll showed the leading candidate for Texas Democrats was ‘unsure,'" he noted. "Their leading candidate is so weak that D.C. Democrats had to bail her out with $3.5 million in dark money TV ads just to drag her into the runoff.”

Hegar, allies have most ads

While Cornyn has $12 million in the bank, he was content to unload just about $280,000 on digital ads this year, according to a Dallas Morning News analysis of data from ad-tracking service Advertising Analytics LLC.

On the Democratic side, the winner of the ad war was Hegar, hands down, the analysis showed.

Of nearly $4.7 million worth of ads by Democratic hopefuls and their allies, Hegar — and especially the VoteVets.org super PAC backing her — accounted for $4.1 million.

That equaled 88% of the Democratic spending. Virtually all of the Democrats' ads ran in the past four weeks.

Tzintzún Ramirez and Lone Star Forward PAC, a new group supporting her, together spent about $353,000 — or 7% of the Democrats’ total ad buy. The pro-Tzintzún Ramirez TV commercials ran in San Antonio, El Paso, Corpus Christi and Laredo — and on cable, in Harlingen.

The News’ analysis found about $118,000 of cable and digital ad buys by West and nearly $70,000 of radio and digital ads by Edwards. Bell bought $3,200 of digital ads.

None of the seven other candidates bought ads, according to Advertising Analytics.