Texas primaries: will pragmatism finally deliver Democrats a seat in the red state?

Democratic voters in Texas displayed a survival instinct in picking James Talarico as their US Senate candidate

• James Talarico wins Democratic primary for US Senate in Texas

Never write off the voter. It has been tempting to despair of an electorate that returned Donald Trump to power in 2024. But as the US midterm elections got under way on Tuesday, the big winner was pragmatism.

Democrats in Texas picked James Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian who preaches a political gospel of bridging divides, as their nominee for the Senate. He was widely seen as more electable than his primary opponent, Jasmine Crockett, a Texas congresswoman and unapologetic anti-Trump brawler, in a state where Democrats have gone decades without winning a statewide race.