House Dem Who Repeatedly Tried to Impeach Trump Loses Primary Race

Texas redistricting claimed a major Democratic incumbent Tuesday night after Rep. Christian Menefee defeated longtime Rep. Al Green in a Houston-area runoff that forced two sitting House Democrats into a bruising intra-party fight.

Green, one of Congress’s loudest and most persistent critics of President Donald Trump, lost the Democratic runoff to Menefee after newly drawn congressional lines reshaped the political map around Houston.

The race for Texas’s heavily Democratic 18th Congressional District became a rare member-versus-member contest after redistricting disrupted existing boundaries and left both Green and Menefee battling to preserve their seats in Congress.

Under Texas law, a primary moves to a runoff when no candidate wins a majority of the vote. In the early-March primary, Menefee led with 46 percent, while Green followed closely behind with 44.2 percent.

Green’s defeat marks the end of a long congressional chapter for one of the left’s most aggressive anti-Trump voices. During both of President Trump’s tenures, Green repeatedly pushed impeachment efforts and made opposition to Trump a defining feature of his political identity.

Green has also drawn attention for disrupting Trump’s State of the Union addresses, repeatedly standing up in protest during the president’s remarks and being removed from the chamber.

After the March primary, Green told Fox News Digital on Capitol Hill that outside spending from the crypto industry played a major role in making the race so close. Green pointed to roughly $1.5 million spent against his campaign as a key factor.

The criticism also appeared aimed at Menefee, whom Green accused of lacking experience and missing votes early in his congressional career after previously working as an attorney.

Menefee will now face Republican Ronald Whitfield in the November general election. However, he is expected to be heavily favored in the deep-blue Houston-area district.

The result came on the same night another major Texas race was decided, this time on the Republican side.

The high-stakes Republican Senate primary between incumbent Sen. John Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was called Tuesday night, delivering a major win for President Trump’s endorsement power.

Trump backed Paxton, the outspoken Texas attorney general who has become one of the president’s closest allies in the Lone Star State.

Paxton went on to win the race in a landslide, dealing a serious blow to the Republican establishment and setting up a nationally watched general election battle.

In November, Paxton will face left-wing Democratic state Rep. James Talarico in what is expected to become one of the most important Senate races in the country. Republicans are fighting to defend their narrow 53-47 Senate majority, and Texas could become one of the central battlegrounds.

Talarico secured the Democratic nomination after defeating Rep. Jasmine Crockett, another outspoken Trump critic, during the March primary.

But while Talarico’s progressive rhetoric helped him gain traction with liberal activists, Republicans believe it could become a serious liability in a statewide Texas race.

GOP groups have already begun resurfacing Talarico’s past statements, speeches, and X posts from recent years, portraying him as far outside the mainstream for Texas voters.

Talarico has made comments such as “poverty is violence,” claimed the Bible supports abortion, suggested there are six biological sexes, and embraced other left-wing positions Republicans are eager to highlight.

In another previous speech, Talarico said “people don’t belong in cages” and appeared to compare prisons to “domestic abuse.”

The Republican National Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee have seized on those remarks, betting that they will not appeal to voters in a historically red state.

The NRSC also launched a deepfake-style attack ad portraying Talarico as reading his own prior “extreme statements praising transgenderism, twisting Christian beliefs, and advocating for open borders.”

One of the GOP’s main lines of attack is Talarico’s use of religious language to advance progressive social policies.

“In my faith, God is non-binary,” Talarico said in a 2021 speech opposing a Republican bill requiring K-12 athletes to compete in sports according to their biological sex.

Earlier that same year, Talarico suggested that biological sex is not limited to male and female.

Together, Tuesday’s results show just how dramatically Texas politics is being reshaped by redistricting, ideological fights inside both parties, and President Trump’s continued influence over the Republican electorate.

For Democrats, the loss of Al Green removes one of their most recognizable anti-Trump firebrands from Congress. For Republicans, Paxton’s victory gives conservatives a Trump-backed nominee heading into a Senate race that could help determine control of Washington.