Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast for Tuesday, February 10th, 2026.
I'm Miles Parks, and I cover voting.
And I'm Ashley Lopez.
I cover politics.
And Andrew Schneider of Houston Public Media is also here with us today.
Hi, Andrew.
Hello.
And today on the show, we are talking Texas,
where early voting and the primary elections for this year's midterms starts next week.
And we're going to start today with the Senate race,
because primary races for both parties are shaping up to be really interesting.
And Andrew, I want to start with Republicans.
This is John Cornyn's seat.
He's been in office for more than 20 years.
Who's challenging him?
Right, so he's actually being challenged by two candidates.
One is Ken Paxton, who's been the state attorney general for 11 years.
Then there's Wesley Hunt, who's a two-term Houston area congressman and West Point graduate.
Both of them have been making the arguments that they are the true conservatives in this race and that Cornyn is out of step with the party and the country.
And Cornyn is sort of a more old school Republican.