Politics
Top manager of California's largest water supplier accused of sexism and harassment
The board of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California voted to place General Manager Adel Hagekhalil on leave Thursday while the agency investigates accusations of harassment against him by the agency’s chief financial officer.
Chief Financial Officer Katano Kasaine made the allegations in a confidential letter to the board, which was leaked and published by Politico. She said Hagekhalil has harassed, demeaned and sidelined her and created a hostile work environment.
MWD Board Chair Adán Ortega Jr. announced the decision after a closed-door meeting, saying the board voted to immediately place Hagekhalil on administrative leave and to temporarily appoint Deven Upadhyay, an assistant general manager, as interim general manager.
“This board is determined to act with unity and swiftness in order to protect everybody,” Ortega said. “My hope is that under Deven’s leadership in the coming months, that we will find some common purpose, that we will realize the urgency of the policies and the tasks that confront us.”
Ortega said in an interview after the meeting that there are “several investigations” underway. He declined to comment on the other investigations, and said Hagekhalil will be on administrative leave for up to 90 days.
“We’re calculating that that’s the amount of time it will take to complete the investigations,” Ortega told The Times.
Ortega began the meeting by announcing that the board had decided earlier this week to open an investigation. He called a vote allowing him to publicly discuss confidential matters discussed during that Tuesday meeting, and he criticized the release of the letter.
“The person who released this sensitive document knows that we as a board and as individuals are constrained by law not to reveal closed-session proceedings and related documents,” Ortega said. “They were trying to take advantage of that. But I’m not letting them. At minimum, by releasing the document, that person has tried to set a narrative that is potentially harmful to the general manager, the chief financial officer, this board and this agency, and they know it.”
Ortega said the board acted to start the investigation “in order to avoid the leak that happened anyway.” He said he and other board members believe that both Hagekhalil and Kasaine “deserve the due process prescribed by law.”
Thursday’s special meeting was scheduled while Hagekhalil was traveling in Singapore for a water conference. According to the board meeting agenda, the closed session included a review of Hagekhalil’s performance as well as a discussion of potential discipline or dismissal. On those two items, Ortega said, there were “no reportable actions” during the closed meeting.
Board members voted unanimously to place Hagekhalil on administrative leave, with one abstention and several board members absent.
Kasaine said in her letter that throughout 30 years of government work, “I have encountered toxic work environments, but none as hostile and dysfunctional as Metropolitan.”
“Despite my tireless dedication and outstanding performance ratings, it has become incredibly stressful to even show up for work. I am constantly scrutinized, sidelined, and demeaned for standing up against issues that are not in Metropolitan’s best interest,” Kasaine said in the May 27 letter, which following the leak was released by the district.
Hagekhalil responded to the accusations in a text message, denying any wrongdoing.
“I’ve always treated our MWD staff with complete respect, professionalism and kindness. Always,” Hagekhalil said. “I stand by my record of reforming the agency’s workforce policies and creating a healthy, supportive and inclusive work environment. Any investigation of these unsubstantiated claims will reveal that they are false, and I look forward to returning to my work at MWD to serve our staff and our community as soon as possible.”
He said the claims are “disagreements on management decisions.”
“When I started at MWD, I increased Katano’s responsibilities on an interim basis, and as CFO, she has had an important leadership role in recent MWD actions, including overseeing the agency’s adoption of a two-year budget and development of a long-range financial plan,” Hagekhalil said.
MWD is the nation’s largest wholesale supplier of drinking water, serving cities and agencies that supply 19 million people across Southern California.
Ortega lamented that with the release of the letter, “the confidentiality that they were to enjoy in order to correct matters, has now been compromised for the benefit of an undeclared individual who, depending on our silence, thought that they could deceive the press.”
“Thus, the person who released the document should not be considered a whistleblower, but should be questioned by those listening to him or her about their motives and the personal gain they would like to achieve by violating the rights of others and trying to taint our agency,” Ortega said, reading from a prepared statement. “While I can’t reveal the extent of our continuing deliberations today, or guarantee outcomes, on behalf of the board, I want to assure our workforce that we will continue to act in a transparent way to bring security, harmony and protection of rights for everyone who works here so we can do the work of bringing water to Southern California.”
Several people spoke at the meeting, expressing support for Hagekhalil and calling for a fair and impartial investigation.
“Due process has been tainted in a major, major way,” said Mark Gold, director of water scarcity solutions for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “It’s a personnel issue that you need to investigate and keep private as much as possible.”
Gold also said Hagekhalil “lives and breathes water in this agency more than anyone I’ve ever seen.”
Hagekhalil has led the agency at a time of major challenges, including negotiations aimed at addressing shortages of Colorado River water, plans for building the country’s largest wastewater recycling facility, and the MWD board’s consideration of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to build a $20-billion water tunnel in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
Hagekhalil previously worked for the city of Los Angeles leading programs focusing on sewers and streets. He was appointed MWD’s general manager in 2021 after a bitter power struggle among board members. He earns $503,942 a year as general manager and chief executive, leading more than 1,900 employees and overseeing more than $2.2 billion in annual spending.
Hagekhalil has said he is seeking to transform the district to make the region’s water supplies resilient to the effects of climate change.
“This is at a time when MWD is at a crossroads,” said Bruce Reznik, executive director of Los Angeles Waterkeeper, who has supported Hagekhalil’s efforts at MWD. “The old way of doing business, the old model for water, doesn’t work in our climate change reality, and I know MWD is wrestling with these very challenging issues. And I think Adel and his team have done an amazing job of starting to tackle that.”
Some of Hagekhalil’s supporters questioned why the matter was brought to the board while he was traveling, and suggested the public airing of grievances appeared to be a calculated ambush.
Kasaine wrote in the letter that she has been “maligned, harassed, bullied, and sidelined from my core responsibilities.” She said Hagekhalil’s “preference for male colleagues/staff over me has continued to sow the seeds of sexism and belittling.”
She also criticized Hagekhalil’s hiring of a team of trusted, highly paid consultants, calling it “an entire shadow leadership team, wielding more power than those holding official titles.”
Kasaine said Hagekhalil has told her that she will no longer have oversight responsibilities leading the district’s human resources and diversity, equity and inclusion offices.
“Taking these core services from me without any justification or reason is highly suspect and leads me to believe it is retaliation for speaking up on key concerns,” Kasaine wrote in the letter.
During Thursday’s meeting, many speakers said the matter demands a thorough and impartial investigation.
Ellen Mackey, chair of the employee union’s women’s caucus, told the board that as the situation stands, “we don’t have facts, just accusations.”
Some environmental advocates said they suspect a link between the surfacing of allegations against Hagekhalil and his work leading efforts to take the district in a new direction by developing a climate adaptation plan, investing in local water sources and revamping MWD’s financial model.
Charming Evelyn, who chairs the Sierra Club’s water committee in Southern California, said Hagekhalil has brought positive changes to the MWD, and that has put him in conflict with the district’s “old guard.”
The California Water Impact Network, an advocacy group, said in a press release that the possibility that Hagekhalil’s efforts might lead the board to eventually vote against the proposed Delta Conveyance Project “has led to an attempted mutiny” by supporters of the tunnel among the district’s board members and staff.
The group noted that Kasaine currently serves as treasurer of the Delta Conveyance Design and Construction Authority, the entity that was created to finance the tunnel project.
Max Gomberg, a board member of the California Water Impact Network, charged that the move against Hagekhalil appears to be a “political power play” designed to push through the tunnel project.
Leaders of Indigenous tribes and other environmental groups also voiced concerns.
Krystal Moreno of the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians said that while the accusations should be independently investigated, “we also ask that the investigation include the questionable and concerning timing of these allegations and the board’s swift attempt to remove Adel without any investigation while he has been out of the country.”
Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, executive director of the group Restore the Delta, which opposes the tunnel project, said the allegations and the timing of the claims are “equally problematic.”
“Both deserve a thorough and fact based investigation with transparent findings and due process,” she said.
WASHINGTON — Last June 16, armed immigration agents broke the locks to forcibly enter an Oxnard auto body shop. Juan Carlos Ramirez, a U.S. citizen, filmed as they arrested his father.
Then the agents pepper-sprayed Ramirez, slammed him onto the hoods of two vehicles, punched his face and kneed him in the side, according to a legal claim he later filed against the federal government.
Local attorney Vanessa Valdez denounced Ramirez’s arrest at an Oxnard City Council meeting the next day. The following month, Valdez found herself in a similar situation when agents raided the cannabis company Glass House Farms.
Despite identifying herself as a legal observer, she said, agents — or possibly National Guard — deployed tear gas and shot her six times with rubber bullets. She ran and then, unable to see, crawled on all fours to escape.
Vanessa Valdez, a Ventura-based attorney, has filed a claim against the federal government, alleging she was hit with tear gas and six rubber bullets during the Glass House Farms raid last July.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
“They were just shooting aimlessly, it seemed like,” she said. “I thought maybe they had fractured a rib because that’s how painful it was. I couldn’t sleep face down for three weeks.”
Ramirez and Valdez are among the dozens of U.S. citizens and immigrants who are seeking financial compensation for damages they say they suffered during President Trump’s immigration dragnet. For Valdez, that includes the cost of hospital visits, lost wages as she recovered, anxiety medication and seeing a therapist.
After reviewing public accounts and legal documents and interviews with more than a dozen lawyers and immigrants, The Times found that claimants from across the country are seeking at least $260 million.
In a statement, Homeland Security spokesperson Lauren Bis wrote that ICE officers are held to the highest professional standard and receive regular training. Bis said that when agents are faced with danger, they use their training to protect themselves and the public.
“The pattern is NOT of law enforcement using force. It’s a pattern of violent agitators attacking our law enforcement,” she wrote.
Asked about Valdez, Bis said law enforcement deployed chemical irritants including pepper balls, but not rubber bullets, after agitators attempted to breach the perimeter at Glass House Farms. She said Ramirez refused officer’s commands and physically attacked them, so they pepper-sprayed him in self-defense.
Lawyers who are experts in tort claims said the bureaucratic process is lengthy and complex, and any damage award would likely be lower than what a claimant is seeking.
Still, seeking redress through the Federal Tort Claims Act is one of the few legal remedies available for those seeking financial compensation for deaths, physical injuries, emotional trauma, unlawful detention or property damage caused by federal employees.
The number of claims is expected to rise.
Federal agents, some wearing street clothes and some wearing uniforms and protective gear, form a defensive line against hundreds of protesters outside the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles on Jan. 30.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
In recent months, advocacy organizations have prepared practice advisories for attorneys interested in filing tort claims, and law groups across the country have begun holding training sessions on the process.
“There is no question in my mind that a lot of people — hundreds, thousands — have been harmed significantly and will be legally entitled to large damages payouts, which are going to come from the federal government,” said Jonathan Feinberg, a Philadelphia-based attorney.
Feinberg, who specializes in cases involving excessive use of force by police and abuses of detained immigrants, is president of the board of directors for the National Police Accountability Project, which focuses on law enforcement misconduct.
“We’re going to be talking about Minneapolis in 2030,” he added.
Before they can sue in federal court, individuals must first request a review by the agency that they say is responsible, such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Customs and Border Protection. The agency has six months to respond and deny the claim or offer a settlement.
If the agency doesn’t respond or denies a claim, the claimant can then file suit.
Unlike civil rights lawsuits, in which juries decide the verdict, in tort cases, judges make that call. Only the agencies are named as defendants, not individuals.
The Times reviewed the claims of nearly 80 people filed since the start of 2025. The vast majority remain in the review stage. Lawyers anticipate most will not be settled, unleashing a flood of lawsuits starting this summer.
Federal law since 1871 has established that people can sue state and local officials for violating their constitutional rights. But the law left out federal actors.
One hundred years later, the Supreme Court allowed for damages lawsuits against federal officials who violate a person’s civil rights, though decisions in recent years have substantially narrowed that ability.
Democrats in California are pursuing legislation that would make it easier for residents to seek financial damages for constitutional violations committed by federal agents. Similar laws were already enacted in Maryland, Illinois and Connecticut, though the Trump administration has sued to block the latter two.
But there is a different route — tort claims.
Tort cases can be difficult to win, in part because the government can claim a “discretionary function exception,” which shields the agency from liability when the situation involves a policy-driven judgment call.
“So that’s what a lot of plaintiff’s lawyers are really anxious about, that the Trump administration is going to say, ‘Well, we’ve got our own immigration policies. Of course a lot of people disagree with them, but the statute is designed to give us the right to make those policy judgments,’” said Benjamin Zipursky, a Fordham University law professor who studies torts.
“Now, if I were the plaintiff’s lawyer, I would say, ‘Yeah, but shooting somebody in cold blood because you’re just mad about their political views, and they’re not really threatening your life at all — that’s not a policy judgment,’” he said.
The law office of John Burris, an Oakland-based attorney who represented Rodney King after he was severely beaten by Los Angeles police officers in 1991, has taken on damages clients in Minnesota. He said he anticipates filing around 80 tort claims stemming from the immigration enforcement actions there.
A memorial for Renee Good at the location where she was fatally shot in Minneapolis.
(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)
Burris said the experience has given him flashbacks to the period before King’s beating and the subsequent protests over police brutality, when officers felt they could act with impunity.
“There’s 1779825246 a more fundamental understanding that bad stuff does happen,” he said. “Everyday people are not as willing as they once were to just accept a police officer’s perspective.”
Public disapproval over immigration enforcement rose after federal immigration agents in Minneapolis shot and killed two 37-year-old U.S. citizens, Renee Good, a mother of three, and Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse, in separate incidents.
Other deaths took place before the Minnesota operation: 23-year-old Ruben Ray Martinez, who was killed by an ICE agent in Texas who fired repeatedly through the open window of his car; Keith Porter, 43, who was killed in Los Angeles by an off-duty ICE agent after shooting his gun into the air on New Year’s Eve; and Jaime Alanis Garcia, 57, who fell 30 feet from atop a greenhouse while fleeing agents at the Glass House Farms site in Camarillo.
Lawyers for the families of Good, Martinez and Garcia confirmed they are pursuing tort claims. Lawyers for the other families did not respond to requests for comment.
Additional highly publicized cases have also resulted in tort claims: Marimar Martinez, who was shot five times by a Border Patrol agent in Chicago; Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University student and Palestinian rights activist who spent 104 days detained after the administration labeled him a national security threat; Aliya Rahman, a disabled woman on her way to a doctor’s appointment in Minneapolis who blacked out at a detention facility after ICE agents detained her.
New claims appear to be filed weekly. Seventeen men, women and children who were detained in a military-style raid at a Chicago apartment complex filed claims this month seeking about $5 million each.
In many of the cases, Bis said, the claimants impeded or assaulted agents. Pretti’s death remains under investigation, she said.
Willy Wender Aceituno stands in the parking lot where he was arrested last November by ICE agents in Charlotte, N.C.
(Jesse Barber / For The Times)
Willy Wender Aceituno was already a plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit filed by the ACLU of North Carolina challenging the policy allowing warrantless immigration arrests after he was stopped twice in a span of minutes by immigration agents last November. In March, he also submitted a tort claim.
Aceituno is a Honduran-born U.S. citizen who voted for Trump. On the day he was arrested, a group of masked agents checked his identification and left. Aceituno then filmed as a second group surrounded his red truck.
“If you break it, you will pay for it,” he tells them in Spanish seconds before one agent smashes the window with a baton. “Why did you do that, sir?”
Aceituno suffered cuts when agents threw him to the ground, which was covered in shattered glass. They placed him in an SUV with other detainees and drove him around Charlotte, N.C., before releasing him, still bleeding, more than 2 miles from his vehicle.
The moment brought back Aceituno’s childhood memory of watching his father be arrested by the Honduran military and disappeared.
“I remember they broke down the door, entered, put him in handcuffs and threw him to the ground,” he said. “I thought, ‘It’s happening again.’ To see the other Hispanics in the car made it feel like this is racial persecution. This is about skin, not criminality.”
Bis, the Homeland Security spokesperson, said Aceituno acted erratically, escalated the situation and refused to comply with officers’ commands.
Lawyers said many people, especially immigrants, who have viable claims have chosen not to pursue them out of fear of being targeted for deportation. Some were deported before they could sue.
“Even now, our clients wake up some days thinking, ‘What am I doing suing the federal government?’” said Iván Espinoza-Madrigal, executive director of the Massachusetts-based Lawyers for Civil Rights. “You have to have a lot of courage to be able to stand up against an administration that has put a bull’s-eye on you and that has targeted you based on your identity.”
Others have turned to mutual aid or online fundraisers to pay for medical bills or to repair property damage. On the website GoFundMe, donation campaigns describe shattered car windows, broken limbs, head trauma and mounting bills.
Some damage can’t be fully recompensated, Espinoza-Madrigal added.
Members of the Haitian community hold signs in support for the extension of Temporary Protected Status during a rally last month in Miami.
(Carl Juste / Miami Herald / Getty Images)
One of the organization’s clients is Jose Pineda, a Salvadoran man with Temporary Protected Status. A year ago, Pineda was stopped by ICE officers on his way to work in East Boston as a landscaper. They wouldn’t accept his Social Security and work authorization cards as proof enough that he was not deportable, and detained him without explanation, according to his tort claim.
So Pineda spent nearly two days in a holding cell at the ICE Boston Field Office with around 50 other people. He couldn’t sit or sleep and received minimal water and food.
Bis said agents “briefly questioned” Pineda because he matched the description of the subject of an operation, and that he was released after being identified.
When he was released, the claim alleges, his documents were returned but $600 in cash that he was saving to pay rent was not. The incident left him with frequent headaches, anxiety and memory loss, and exacerbated his gastritis. His absence from work resulted in a demotion from lead foreman to an assistant role.
“Whenever I drive, if someone stays behind me for three, four or five minutes, I start to imagine that it’s them again,” he said in an interview.
Pineda’s arrest also caused recurring nightmares that leave him shouting and thrashing around in bed. Out of fear that he could inadvertently harm his wife, they now sleep in separate beds.
Senator John Cornyn, the senior Texas senator, is fighting for his political life in a two-way runoff on Tuesday after President Trump endorsed his right-wing challenger, Ken Paxton, in the marquee matchup.
Mr. Paxton, a scandal-plagued state attorney general, narrowly finished behind Mr. Cornyn in the Republican primary in March, even with record-setting spending from pro-Cornyn forces and before Mr. Trump endorsed him.
Mr. Paxton is hoping to become the second Trump-endorsed challenger to oust a sitting senator this year, after Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana didn’t even make the runoff in his state earlier this month. Mr. Trump’s backing has proved formidable in the House, too, where he helped a G.O.P. challenger defeat Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky last week.
The Senate race is the highest-profile contest on Tuesday, as Texas has emerged as a surprise addition to the map of competitive Senate races and the fight for the majority this fall. Mr. Cornyn and several of his Republican colleagues in the Senate decried the Paxton endorsement, arguing that Mr. Paxton is more vulnerable to an upset by James Talarico, a Democrat, than the incumbent is.
A number of intriguing and consequential runoffs are also appearing on the ballot. They include two representatives facing off against each other, one of whom will become the first Democratic incumbent to lose this year; and a border-district seat that pits a Democratic sex therapist accused of antisemitism who has been boosted by a secretive super PAC linked to Republicans against a sheriff’s deputy from Bexar County.
What else to watch on Tuesday:
Can Cornyn sell an electability pitch?
Mr. Cornyn has argued that Mr. Paxton would put the senior senator’s seat needlessly at risk this fall against Mr. Talarico in a state where Republicans haven’t lost statewide in three decades.
Mr. Talarico, a state legislator from Austin, has captured the attention of small Democratic donors who were drawn to his embrace of a religious message as a salve to the party’s generation-long struggles in the state. He raised $27 million in the first quarter, nearly four times what Mr. Paxton has raised in the entire race.
Mr. Trump’s endorsement last week of Mr. Paxton makes Mr. Cornyn the underdog: He rolled out a hashtag of “#stillwithCornyn,” which underscored the uphill nature of his re-election bid.
The race has broken primary advertising records, but Republicans warned that taking down Mr. Talarico could force the party to spend money in Texas in the general election.
A generational clash in Houston
No Democratic member of Congress has lost a primary so far in 2026, despite a groundswell of voter antipathy toward party leadership and the old guard.
That will change on Tuesday, when two incumbents will seek the same Houston-area seat in a test of the appetite of voters for generational change.
The race for the state’s 18th Congressional District pits Representative Christian Menefee, 38, against Representative Al Green, a 78-year old, 11-term incumbent. Mr. Menefee is an incumbent but only barely: He first won his seat in a special election earlier this year. Mr. Green currently represents the Ninth District, which was gerrymandered to elect a Republican, and is seeking renomination in the 18th, which includes portions of his current district.
A wave of crypto spending on behalf of Mr. Menefee and against Mr. Green has influenced the race. Mr. Green has been a critic of the industry and sits on the powerful House Financial Services Committee.
Can national Democrats stop one of their own they say is antisemitic?
In yet another Democratic face-off, Johnny Garcia, a Bexar County sheriff’s deputy, has the look, on paper at least, of a candidate who should be coasting to victory in his runoff in the 35th Congressional District on Tuesday.
The Democratic candidate has been endorsed by the national party’s House campaign arm, by Mr. Talarico and by the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of moderate Democrats in the House.
His rival, Maureen Galindo, is a sex therapist and left-wing activist who has suggested an immigration detention center be turned into “a prison for American Zionists,” which Democrats have denounced as “straight out of the Nazi playbook.”
Yet Ms. Galindo has been lifted by nearly $900,000 in spending from a secretive super PAC that has reported no donors but has loose ties to Republicans and has been meddling in Democratic races.
Ms. Galindo finished first in the initial election in March. Democrats believe Mr. Garcia could compete for the seat in November, even though Republicans drew it to elect a Republican in their redistricting gambit last year.
A Democratic showdown in Dallas
When Colin Allred vacated his congressional seat in 2024 to run for Senate — he lost to incumbent Ted Cruz — his career in the House of Representatives seemed over. But after he initially tried running for Senate again this cycle, he decided his chances of serving again would be stronger if he ran for the House.
That decision has put him on a collision course with his successor, Representative Julie Johnson.
The race has been marked by some of the same racial dynamics of the Senate primary that Mr. Allred exited. Mr. Allred is Black and Ms. Johnson is white. Mr. Allred supported Representative Jasmine Crockett, who is Black, in the Senate race; Ms. Johnson endorsed Mr. Talarico, who is white, before Ms. Crockett entered the race. Mr. Talarico defeated Ms. Crockett by a six-point margin.
Adding to the tension was recent audio of Ms. Johnson dismissing another Black member of the delegation, Representative Marc Veasey, as a lawmaker holding a safe Democratic seat and “not doing a damn thing.”
Two conservatives vie to be Texas’s top cop
One of the other key races on Tuesday is a runoff for the Republican nomination to replace Mr. Paxton as the state attorney general, a powerful post that he used to raise his national profile.
The contest pits Mayes Middleton, a conservative state senator, against Representative Chip Roy, who has carved a reputation as a hard-liner on Capitol Hill but who at times has split with Mr. Trump, including in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot.
Mr. Roy is a former top aide for Senator Ted Cruz, who has backed his candidacy.
Mr. Middleton contributed $3 million to his own campaign; Mr. Roy was supported by $2.75 million from Alex Fairly, an Amarillo businessman.
The Democrats will also hold a runoff Tuesday between Nathan Johnson, a state senator, and Joe Jaworski, a former mayor of Galveston. Republicans are heavily favored in November.
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
AUSTIN, TX – President Donald Trump has a new target this week as he takes aim at Republican critics — longtime GOP Sen. John Cornyn of Texas.
Trump is targeting Cornyn as “VERY disloyal” as he backs Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a major Trump ally and MAGA firebrand, in Tuesday’s combustible and expensive runoff election for the GOP Senate nomination in the right-leaning state. The ballot box showdown serves as the latest tests of Trump’s immense grip over the Republican Party and the strength of his endorsements in GOP nomination races.
The winner of the runoff will face off against rising Democratic Party star state Rep. James Talarico in the general election in a race that is among a handful that may decide if the Republicans hold their slim 53-47 majority in the Senate. Talarico, who topped progressive star Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a vocal Trump critic, in the March primary, is trying to become the first Democrat in nearly four decades to win a Senate election in Texas.
The Senate contest is the most high-profile showdown on a ballot that also includes Democratic and Republican runoffs for Texas Attorney General, as well as key primary battles for four U.S. House seats, including a Democratic Party runoff in the 35th Congressional District where one of the two candidates in a social media post proposed converting an ICE detention center into a prison for American supporters of Israel.
TRUMP BACKS MAGA ALLY PAXTON IN TEXAS SHOWDOWN WITH CORNYN
Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, center, campaigns at a meet and greet in Corpus Christi, Texas, on May 22, 2026, days ahead of the runoff election for the GOP Senate nomination. (Luke Travisan/Fox News)
Trump’s targeting of Cornyn comes three weeks after the purging five state senators in Indiana’s primary who had opposed his push for congressional redistricting, a week and a half after helping to oust Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana — who five and a half years ago voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial – and one week after defeating vocal GOP critic Rep. Tom Massie of Kentucky.
The Texas runoff is also being held one week after Trump endorsed Paxton, after sitting on the sidelines in the race for months.
“Ken is a true MAGA Warrior who has ALWAYS delivered for Texas, and will continue to do so in the United States Senate,” Trump wrote in a social media post last Tuesday.
The two heated rivals topped a crowded field of contenders in the early March primary, with Cornyn edging Paxton. But since neither cleared the 50% threshold, the nomination race headed into overtime.
Trump, in backing Paxton, said that “John Cornyn is a good man, and I worked well with him, but he was not supportive of me when times were tough.”
DEMOCRACY ’26: STAY UP TO DATE WITH THE FOX NEWS ELECTION HUB
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton landed President Donald Trump’s endorsement one week ahead of his runoff election against Republican Sen. John Cornyn for the GOP Senate nomination. (Julio Cortez/AP Photo)
Pointing to the senator’s past criticism of him, Trump added, “John was very late in backing me in what turned out to be a Historic Run for the Republican Nomination, and then, the Presidency.”
Cornyn, in a Fox News Digital interview on the eve of the runoff, emphasized his support for the president and his agenda.
“President Trump has called me a friend and a good man, and we’ve worked with him closely for both terms of office,” the senator said.
Paxton, who grabbed significant national attention the past dozen years by filing lawsuits against the Obama and Biden administrations, disagreed.
“John Cornyn fought Trump on the border. And you can go back over about a decade and see that he was not for the border wall,” Paxton charged in an interview on Fox News’ “The Big Weekend Show.”
CONTENTIOUS REPUBLICAN SENATE PRIMARY IN TEXAS HEADED INTO OVERTIME
Paxton also argued that the senator “fought the president’s reelection. He fought him in 2024, said his time had passed, and he fought him in 2016. So this is not a pro-Trump guy. I don’t know if we could be more different on the Republican issues than John Cornyn and me. So there is a vast difference between the two of us.”
Cornyn pushed back.
“I don’t know how much more with him I could be than 99.3% of the time,” the senator told Fox News Digital.
“I want him to be successful. I want America to be successful, and I want Republicans to be successful. But you know, in the end, as I said, Texans are the only ones going to be able to make a choice, and I think Texans can be pretty independent,” Cornyn added.
Paxton has faced a slew of scandals and legal problems that have battered him over the past decade. In 2023, the Texas House of Representatives voted to impeach Paxton, but he was eventually acquitted of all charges by the state senate.
And Paxton is dealing with a very messy divorce, with his wife citing “biblical grounds” based on “recent discoveries” in filing last year to end their marriage.
Cornyn, who is supported by Senate Majority Leader Sen. John Thune and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, has repeatedly argued that if Paxton is the GOP’s nominee, the party will be forced to spend millions of dollars to keep the seat from flipping and that Republicans down-ballot will suffer.
“He’s gotten more and more emboldened as he’s gotten away with all the scandal and mischief that now is very well known, but were he to be the nominee and be exposed to general election voters, especially independents, I think it’s going to be a very rocky time,” the senator predicted.
TRUMP OWNS THE GOP – BUT WILL REPUBLICANS PAY A PRICE IN THE MIDTERMS?
Texas Senate candidate James Talarico, the Democratic Party’s nominee, speaks at a campaign rally in Houston on March 2, 2026. (Danielle Villasana/Getty Images)
And pointing to Talarico, who hauled in an eye-popping $27 million in fundraising during the first three months of this year, Cornyn said “there will be an incredible tsunami of Democratic funds coming in against Paxton, were he the nominee. Conversely…if I am the nominee…we’ll be able to shoulder the burden pretty much on our own. I won my last general election by 10 points. I think I can do similarly against somebody who’s as far left and radical as James Talarico.”
While Paxton has shifted his ads to target Talarico in the wake of the Trump endorsement, Cornyn and allied groups continue to blast Paxton.
“I don’t think anybody could honestly argue that we haven’t fought hard to make the case here,” Cornyn said of his campaign.
And he emphatically said he’s “worked too long and too hard to help build the Republican Party in Texas, and in the United States Senate, and to keep Texas the envy of the nation when it comes to opportunities and pursuing the American dream, to let that go, to squander it, and let it go without a fight. So I’m still optimistic on the outcome, but obviously it depends on who shows up.”
The other statewide runoff in Texas is for attorney general, in the race to succeed Paxton.
In the expensive GOP showdown, four-term Rep. Chip Roy is battling state Sen. Mayes Middleton, the president of an independent oil and gas company.
State Senator Mayes Middleton, a Republican candidate for Texas Attorney General, speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Grapevine, Texas, on Thursday, March 26, 2026. (Shelby Tauber/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Middleton, who edged Roy in the March primary, has dished out roughly $17 million of his own money to back his campaign. But Roy, a former Texas assistant attorney general and former chief of staff to conservative Sen. Ted Cruz, received a late surge in fundraising from major backers.
“We’ve gotten the financial support necessary to compete with my self-funder opponent, who’s got his inheritance money that he can just spend,” Roy highlighted in a Fox News Digital interview on the eve of the runoff.
Roy has argued that Middleton’s lack of courtroom experience would make him a poor attorney general.
“Having been the first assistant attorney general makes me ready on day one, but it’s also that I’ve been a prosecutor, I’ve been in court, I’ve sat in front of a judge, stood in front of a judge, argued cases, and he has never done any of those things. And we think those things should matter,” Roy emphasized.
Middleton has pushed back, questioning Roy’s conservative credentials and run ads claiming Roy’s “betrayed MAGA” as he’s pointed to the times the congressman has broken with Trump over policy.
“Chip Roy has someone that has spent a decade fighting the president. He actually said President Trump committed impeachable conduct on the House floor,” Middleton told Fox News Digital. “Instead of spending 10 years fighting President Trump, what have I done? I’ve spent 10 years, fighting to defeat the left, which is what matters the most in this race.”
But Roy, responding, said “everyone knows that I’m a longtime defender and supporter of the president’s agenda, of the America First agenda, the MAGA agenda, but I’m also an independent thinker who will stand up and make the case. And pointing to Middleton, Roy charged, “MAGA is not something you just buy. My opponent thinks you can buy the brand.”
Middleton returned fire, arguing “Chip Roy is putting out there that he is a top ally to President Trump when the exact opposite is the case.”
Roy, showcasing his electability, said “I beat Democrats before in a tough race” and that he “knows how to win.”
The winner of the GOP runoff will likely face Democratic state Sen. Nathan Johnson, who came close to clinching his party’s nomination in the primary. Johnson is facing off against former Galveston Mayor Joe Jaworski.
Also in the spotlight are Democratic and GOP runoffs in the redrawn majority-Latino 35th Congressional District,
Democratic Party leaders are slamming housing activist and sex therapist Maureen Galindo for her Instagram post on imprisoning American Zionists at an ICE detention center. She added that the prison would have a castration facility for pedophiles, which she claimed would likely include “most of the Zionists.
Maureen Galindo speaks at a League of Women Voters meeting in Texas. (Katina Zentz/Getty Images)
She also said that her rival in the runoff, Bexar County Sheriff’s Deputy Johnny Garcia, should be tried for treason over his support for Israel.
The comments have spurred support for Garcia, who’s running as a moderate. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Texas Democratic Party, Talarico, and even progressive champion Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have backed Garcia.
The winner of the Democratic primary will face off against either Republican state Rep. John Lujan or Carlos De La Cruz, an Air Force veteran and brother of Rep. Monica De La Cruz of Texas.
In the solidly blue, Houston-based 18th Congressional District, 78-year-old Democratic Rep. Al Green will face off with recently-elected 38-year-old Rep. Christian Menefee, for a seat redrawn last year by Republicans as part of their congressional redistricting push.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
Democratic Rep. Julie Johnson is running against former Rep. Colin Allred in the Democratic-dominated, Dallas-based, 33rd Congressional District.
And in the newly drawn 9th Congressional District, a right-tilting seat in the Houston area, Trump-endorsed Army veteran Alex Mealer faces Abbott-endorsed state Rep. Briscoe Cain.
-
Sports5 seconds ago2026 World Series Odds: Dodgers Favored; Rays Continue to Rise
-
Technology6 minutes agoAre Apple devices spying? What your iPhone tracks
-
Business12 minutes agoChild safety groups want FTC to investigate Roblox
-
Entertainment18 minutes agoParamount, pushing to buy Warner Bros., girds for legal challenges
-
Lifestyle24 minutes agoA Route 66 road trip is all about the people you’ll meet. Start with these legends.
-
Politics30 minutes ago
After raids, U.S. citizens and immigrants seek millions for shootings, injuries, trauma
-
Sports42 minutes agoEx-MLB star Wander Franco granted judicial pardon despite being found guilty of sexual assault
-
World54 minutes agoRussia slams US for not granting visa to diplomat for UN meeting
