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Texas Democrats selected state Rep. James Talarico over U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett in their primary on Tuesday after a well-publicized, frequently ugly, and unusually competitive race. Talarico was widely viewed, including by the GOP, as the more electable candidate in November. His message focuses more on inclusivity relative to Crockett’s projection of partisan confrontation, and in a state where there are simply more Republicans than Democrats, crossover appeal matters.

But if that’s the welcome news for Democrats’ long-sought-but-never-realized quest to turn Texas and the Senate majority blue, Republicans got welcome news in their primary too: Sen. John Cornyn, the party’s most electable candidate, may not be as dead as previously reported.

As expected, Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton will head to a runoff for the Republican Senate nomination in late May, while Rep. Wesley Hunt finished in third. It was the margins between the candidates, though, that were modestly surprising.

While polling heading into the primary showed a lot of variance, the average converged on Paxton leading........

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