Texas House Primary Rankings Start with 2
that Feature Top Price Tags, AI and Gaffes

Capitol Inside
February 15, 2026

The two hottest Texas House primaries have provided glaring examples this month of the ways candidates who have more money than they could ever spend wisely in districts with 150,000 people who are old enough to vote. The GOP primary fights that feature incumbents in the San Antonio area and north Central Texas have been a pageantry of falsehoods and bumbling extraordinaire thanks in large part to high-dollar operation research efforts that the candidates who've had record sums of cash could afford.

The most competitive races for the House in the first round have been battlefields for perennial warring between big insurance and trial lawyers in some cases like the top-ranked contest that pits rookie Republican State Rep. Marc LaHood against Texans for Lawsuit Reform recruit David McArthur in the San Antonio area.

Other GOP primaries for House seats have blossomed into referendums on Islam, gambling, Governor Greg Abbott's property tax relief plan and which of the contenders is the most like President Donald Trump. The only Texas Senate primary that's been seriously competitive is taking place in the East Texas Piney Woods where the overriding issue in the past week has been whether the Republican who's appeared to be the favorite was soft on Muslims as a state representative.

The top 10 fights in the Capitol Inside rankings for the March 3 primary election for seats in the west wing in Austin have seven Republican incumbents and one Democratic colleague squaring off with challengers along with a pair of open races for seats in the Fort Worth area and deep East Texas.

Texas House District 121

The HD 121 battle has been the ultimate proxy fight between plaintiffs lawyers and TLR - and it's crowned the list of most competitive House races in round one since its inception last fall as a consequence. A trial lawyer by trade, LaHood proved to be a wrecking ball for the TLR agenda at the Capitol last year. He appeared to have the inside track after raising more money for the primary than any other contender for the House heading into the last week in January.

But the LaHood campaign suffered a self-inflicted wound for the ages earlier this month when it took at the wrong David McArthur in advertising that claimed the challenger with the same name had been sued in the past for copyright infringement. LaHood's camp blamed the bizarre case of mistaken identity on a firm that it hired to dig up dirt on the challenger in HD 121. LaHood pulled the ads and pledged to get it right in the future.

The LaHood campaign may be remembered for one of the all-time gaffes for a legislative campaign in the history of the Lone Star State as a result of the McArthurs mix-up. But the incumbent in HD 121 still appears to be the betting favorite with the primary election just two weeks away in a district where he's had GOP Speaker Dustin Burrows as a key fundraiser and historic support in the campaign cash chase from the plaintiffs bar of which he's been a successful member. LaHood compiled a relatively conservative record in his first year in the House outside of the positions and actions he took on TLR priorities while in positions to which Burrows appointed him in the regular session in 2025.

LaHood's biggest threat may be on the road ahead in one of the House districts that Democrats will target and have the best shots to flip in November. HD 121 is anchored on the southern end by the affluent inner-city enclaves of Alamo Heights, Olmos Park and Terrell Hills. But the district stretches to the north across Bexar County to the edge of Bulverde in Comal County. HD 121's population in 2020 was 48 percent white, 38 percent Hispanic, 8 percent Black and 6 percent Asian. The winner of the GOP primary election there will face Zack Dunn in November as the only Democrat in the race.

Texas House District 13

Waco Republican Kat Wall's campaign has ventured into unplowed territory after turning to artificial intelligence for advertising attacks in a bid to oust State Rep. Angelia Orr of Itasca from the House District 13 seat at the polls next month.

The Republican duel in HD 13 is a close second to the brawl in the Alamo City in the rankings of House races for round one in 2026. Wall has had almost as much to spend on the HD 13 contest as LaHood has had for a re-election race this year in the nation's seventh largest city. Wall has loaned her campaign most of nearly $1.7 million that she's had in her war chest for a debut as a legislative candidate after unsuccessful campaigns for Congress in different districts in the Houston area in 2018 and 2020.

Wall had three or four times more than the Republicans who defeated her in primaries - U.S. Reps. Dan Crenshaw of Houston and Troy Nehls of Sugar Land. But Wall has tried to be more creative with her money this time around - having enlisted help from AI in the production of an attack package that's anchored by a web site called Democrats for Orr complete with social media pages for reinforcement.

As the name implies, the attack sites portrayed as a lawmaker who Democratic colleagues cherish because she votes with them every time somebody blinks. The X page @democratsfororr published a video on January 21 that accused Orr of voting with Democrats to elect the House speaker in her "very first act of business" as a representative in a line that ends with a picture of Burrows, the current leader of the House. Orr - for the record - voted for Republican Dade Phelan in the speaker's election on her first day in office in 2023. The Wall attack site fails to mention that all but three of the House Republicans who were on the floor voted for Phelan in the leadership election that year. Orr supported Burrows in his first winning race for speaker in 2025 when 52 of 88 GOP members backed a different candidate who'd been the party caucus nominee.

The Dems for Orr web site has an AI-generated image of four prominent House Democrats giving thumbs-up signs above a quote. "When Angelia crossed the aisle on Day One, we knew we had an ally in HD-13," the site attributed to a "Progressive Action Alert" for which there's no link. Anyone who knows the House can tell the picture is a deep-fake when they see that Austin State Rep. James Talarico is just as tall in the photo as State Rep. Gene Wu, who towers over him in real life.

Wall's fake Democrats praise Orr for standing "strong despite pressure from her own party" for voting with them to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton in 2023. Orr was one of 60 House Republicans who backed the AG's impeachment, which set the stage for his acquittal in a Senate trial. The attack site, which has made it possible for Wall to stay positive on Facebook and X, calls the HD 13 incumbent out for her vote on an amendment that weakened Texas land purchase ban for foreign adversaries in a move that all but 19 of the House Republicans opposed. The parody portal also features a thank you note from Democrats for Orr's vote on a film incentives bill that the House passed with overwhelming support on both sides of the aisle in 2023.

The most entertaining segment on the anti-Orr mockumentary site can be found near the bottom of the first and only page with a slot machine that shows three decked in red and blue above a line that says viewers can bet on a Republican and get a Democrat when they hit the Spin tag and Orr's photo pops up in the windows where the donkeys appeared. This is where the site notes that Orr received $14,000 from casino gambling interests that fund the Texas Sands PAC. "When the gaming industry needed a champion, Angelia answered the call," the Dems for Orr site says at the bottom of the bullet item with a quote that appears to be a fabrication.

HD 13 contains 23 percent of McLennan County where more than 60,000 residents lived in 2020. Orr's district also includes all of six rural counties in north Central Texas - with her home base of Hill County as the second largest. The victor in the March 3 vote will face Democrat Albert Hunter of Meridian in the general election in a district where Trump won by more 50 percentage points in 2024.

Coming this week: Highlights and lowlights from the other Texas House races that are ranked among the top 25 with battles that have incumbents on the defensive and candidates in the most competitive open contests on the primary ballot in 2026.