After weeks of speculation over increased Democratic early voting turnout in the Texas primaries, polls in the state finally closed on the evening of Tuesday, March 6. The results reported by The New York Times reveal how Texas fits into ambitions for a national political trend to the left. Democrats hope that Texas could finally be starting to turn into a purple — or even blue — state, a possibility speculated about since the 2016 election, as NBC News reported. Here are the key takeaways from yesterday’s primaries in the Lone Star State:

The Senate race between Ted Cruz and Beto O'Rourke will be interesting.

The Senate race is probably the most watched race of these midterms in Texas, and on March 6, Congressman Beto O’Rourke handily won the Democratic nomination and will face off against incumbent Senator Ted Cruz. As The New York Times reported, both candidates won their primaries handily, but Cruz maintains an upper hand in terms of turnout.

Almost immediately after O’Rourke’s win was announced, Cruz launched a radio ad attacking the fact that O’Rourke’s first name isn’t legally Beto, but is in fact Robert. It was a bold move from a man named Rafael Edward Cruz who goes by a nickname for his middle name, Edward, and who objected to disparaging nicknames like "Lyin' Ted" from then-candidate Donald Trump during the 2016 the GOP presidential primary. The ads were met with incredulity during a series of media appearances by the sitting Texas senator, especially by CNN's Chris Cuomo, who confronted Cruz about the ad on air.

O'Rourke responded in his own CNN interview. When asked if he would release a punk rock rebuttal song, he pledged to keep working on big issues like immigration reform. On Wednesday, March 7, he shared a photo of himself as young child with his nickname emblazoned on his chest.

Women — and especially women of color — are running for U.S. Congress and winning.

As The Texas Tribune reported, Texas could elect two Latinx women to the U.S. Congress for the first time in state history. Veronica Escobar and Sylvia Garcia both won their respective Democratic primaries in districts that typically vote blue. Escobar is running for the seat O'Rourke is vacating and Garcia is running in Houston with the support of the incumbent, per an ABC 13 report. The Texas Tribune reported that the Houston-based Escobar was keeping an eye on Garcia’s race across the state in El Paso throughout election night.

In another potential first, Gina Ortiz Jones’s quest to become the first openly gay woman of color to be elected to U.S. Congress continued. As The New York Times reported, she was the top Dem vote-getter in the 23rd District, easily qualifying her for the upcoming run-off election on May 22. She’s running to unseat two-term Republican incumbent Will Hurd in the hotly contest district.

The Texas Tribune reported that it's been 22 years since the state elected a woman to a full term in the U.S. Congress.

The progressive and establishment wings of the Democratic party are still going toe-to-toe.

Perhaps no other Texas primary typified the ongoing tensions within the Democratic party better than the five-person race in the state's 7th House district, where progressive candidate Laura Moser succeeded despite a February 22 memo from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) that attacked her as a "Washington insider." That attack sparked national backlash and sent progressive groups like the Working Families Party and Our Revolution flocking to Moser's campaign, as documented by Vox.

As The New York Times reported, Moser ended election night with 24.4% of the vote, putting her neck and neck in a race with fellow Democrat Lizzie Panill Fletcher. Moser qualified for the runoff election on May 22nd, which means that the party split in the district could continue and possibly turn uglier before it’s settled.

It’s all about turnout.

Perhaps the largest takeaway from the race is, as Politico reported, that the March 6 primary saw highest Democratic turnout in a midterm primary since 2002 and almost double the turnout of the 2014 primaries. PolitiFact has done its best to document the string of nearly 40 positions that have flipped from Republicans to Democrats since President Trump's election, including Doug Jones’s Senate victory in Alabama. It seems enthusiasm among Dems for this year’s election runs as high in Texas as anywhere else. It remains to be seen however, if that enthusiasm will be able to carry the Lone Star State in November.

Despite an unprecedented early voting advantage, and a near record high midterm primary turnout, Democrats still trailed Republicans in overall turnout in the state. According to The New York Times, just over a million Dems voted on March 6, but over a million and a half Republicans did. If the current trend continues come this fall, Democrats may find themselves holding more elected offices than they have in a long time, but it's questionable whether Texas will turn blue—or even purple—anytime soon.

Related: This Woman Could Be Texas's First Openly Gay Congresswoman of Color

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