Republicans have long controlled every statewide office in Texas. Cornyn routs Stockman in Texas

Two pillars of the Republican establishment crushed their tea party-inspired primary challengers in Texas on Tuesday, while a candidate from the Bush clan was catapulted toward statewide office. But the kickoff to the 2014 primary season was not a complete victory for the establishment GOP, as two incumbents, 90-year-old Rep. Ralph Hall and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, were forced into runoffs.

Sen. John Cornyn, the former chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, easily defeated firebrand challenger Rep. Steve Stockman. And Rep. Pete Sessions, who touted his 2010 successes as chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee in a commercial, also handily dispatched a challenger who had support from national tea party groups.


Hall, who is the oldest member of the House in U.S. history , faced a well-financed challenge from John Ratcliffe, 48, a former U.S. attorney who says Hall has been in Washington too long and doesn’t deserve an 18th term. Ratcliffe, who is not running under the tea party banner, was one of five Republicans taking on the incumbent, who received the most votes but couldn’t break the 50 percent mark in Tuesday’s vote. Ratcliffe now hopes to consolidate the opposition votes against Hall in a May 27 runoff.

( POLITICO's coverage of the Texas primary results)

Dewhurst also will face a competitive runoff that day. The lieutenant governor of Texas arguably has more power than the governor, and Dewhurst has held the office since 2003.

He was the strong front-runner for a Senate seat in 2012 and received the most votes in the GOP primary, only to lose to tea party favorite Ted Cruz in a runoff. On Tuesday, with about two-thirds of the vote in, he actually trailed state Sen. Dan Patrick by more than 10 percentage points in a four-way GOP primary.

The Texas races did not all shape up into the test of the GOP establishment that some activists hoped for, partly because of the overall weakness of the tea party challengers.

( DRIVING THE DAY: What to watch post-primaries)

Cornyn now faces only token Democratic opposition for a third term in the Senate. Stockman, who jumped into the race just before the filing deadline but never ran an aggressive campaign and alienated many in the tea party, conceded quickly.

“We wish Sen. Cornyn [the] best of luck in November and urge everyone to vote for, volunteer for and support the whole Texas GOP ticket,” Stockman tweeted just after The Associated Press called the race for Cornyn.

Cornyn geared up early and built one of the largest war chests of any incumbent. His team said the race was as much about a good candidate versus a bad candidate as any kind of referendum on the establishment.

( Also on POLITICO: Ralph Hall, oldest rep, in toughest fight yet)

“Sometimes people will lie about your record,” Cornyn told local reporters, according to The Dallas Morning News. “It does happen and not everything on the Internet or on Twitter is factual.”

The results of Tuesday’s vote came after cold weather in parts of the state led to lower-than-expected turnout.

Sessions won his primary against challenger Katrina Pierson, another tea party favorite.

The race for the seat from the 32nd Congressional District north of Dallas could have been a classic tea party-vs.-establishment matchup. Pierson was backed by outside groups such as FreedomWorks, and Texas tea party leaders were energized about her. But Pierson lagged far behind Sessions in the fundraising game, and she stumbled amid revelations of an old shoplifting incident.

Rick Perry, who succeeded George W. Bush in 2000 to become the longest-serving governor in state history, set off a cascade of statewide contests when he announced he wouldn’t seek reelection. In the battle to succeed him, neither Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott nor Democrat Wendy Davis faced genuine primary fights, and each has already been attacking the other, raising millions of dollars in a megastate with expensive media markets.

Republicans have long controlled every statewide office in Texas, and many races are effectively decided in the GOP primaries and not the general election.

There were several other notable races Tuesday:

— The Bush dynasty appears set to continue, as George P. Bush, appearing on a ballot for the first time, won his primary race to be the next Texas land commissioner — a powerful statewide position that could launch a bigger career. He is likely to easily win the November general election.

Bush, the nephew of former President George W. Bush, is the son of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Columba Bush, who is from Mexico. Texas Republicans view the polished younger Bush — who is fluent in Spanish — as a pillar of the party’s future in an increasingly diverse state.

— Incumbent Democratic Rep. Marc Veasey fended off primary challenger Tom Sanchez, an attorney who spent more than $1 million of his own cash on the contest for the Fort Worth-area 33rd District seat.

The race in the heavily Hispanic district was an expensive effort, but Veasey was backed by many big-name Democrats, including President Barack Obama. Sanchez also had recently contributed to Republicans — a point of drama in the contest.

— When Stockman filed for the Senate race at the last minute in December, the floodgates opened for his seat in the 36th District, which stretches east from the Houston area and is solidly conservative. That race is heading to a runoff as well, featuring Brian Babin, an East Texas dentist and former mayor, and Ben Streusand, a mortgage banking mogul.

— The 23rd Congressional District, which includes parts of San Antonio and a swath to the west out to El Paso, is the rare competitive district in the state and is currently represented in the House by Democrat Pete Gallego.

Two Republicans hoping to challenge Gallego will compete in a runoff for their party’s nomination: Quico Canseco, who lost to Gallego in 2012 after one term, will square off against William Hurd, a former CIA official. Each has far less cash than Gallego, though Hurd has more than Canseco. They have faced each other in a primary before: Canseco beat Hurd in a 2010 runoff.

“Both candidates have proven they have the ability to compete,” the NRCC said in a late-night memo. “Canseco and Hurd have the experience and resources necessary to challenge Gallego’s record of supporting higher taxes, more government spending, and Obamacare’s failures in Washington.”

— The agriculture commissioner’s race on the Democratic side will be colorful: satirist and musician Kinky Friedman has made the runoff, where he will face cattle farmer Jim Hogan. Friedman has unsuccessfully run for office in Texas several times before, and the statewide job will likely ultimately go to a Republican.

— In the Democratic race to take on Cornyn, wealthy Dallas dentist David Alameel, who has been endorsed by Wendy Davis, failed to avoid a runoff in a five-candidate pack. He’ll face off with Kesha Rogers, a follower of Lyndon LaRouche who wants to impeach the president. The AP initially reported that Alameel had secured the necessary votes to avoid the runoff, but the wire service later withdrew the call when he slipped back below the 50 percent threshold.

The Tuesday primaries are deeply important to the future of Texas, but they have limited national implications, and the first truly competitive Senate primaries will be in North Carolina and Nebraska.

North Carolina votes on May 6. There, Republican House Speaker Thom Tillis is trying to fend off challenges from his right by tea partier Greg Brannon and social conservative Mark Harris. The next week in Nebraska, Republican establishment-linked Shane Osborn tries to hold off tea party-linked Ben Sasse.

The next major primary featuring a Republican Senate incumbent happens on May 20 in Kentucky, where Minority Leader Mitch McConnell faces conservative businessman Matt Bevin — just one week before Texas’s May 27 runoff.