Texas Legislature elections, 2006

Texas Senate

Fifteen of the sixteen elections for the Texas Senate were contested to some extent. In the District 3 race, Robert Nichols won his Republican primary and was unopposed in the fall election.

Five Senators chose to not run or were defeated in their local primary.

Senate race summary

District 1

District 2

District 3 Race uncontested after Nichols’ win in the Republican primary.

District 5

District 7

District 8

District 12

District 13

District 14

District 15

District 17

District 18

District 19

Incumbent Frank Madla was ousted by Uresti in contentious Democratic primary race. Madla was the only incumbent senator to lose a primary race in 2006.

District 22

District 25

District 29

This was considered by some to be an extremely important Texas Senate election race. Thought to potentially add to the competitiveness of this Senate race was District 29's historically low-voter turnout and Republican "Dee" Margo's close connections to President George W. Bush via First Lady Laura Bush's close friendship to "Dee" Margo's spouse, El Pasoan Adair Margo. As it turned out, Shapleigh won reelection in a race that was not that close.

House of Representatives

In the Texas House of Representatives, 117 of the 150 seats were contested in the November 2006 election. Thirty-two races were uncontested after the primary elections on 7 March 2006, while the remaining two were determined in the primary runoffs on 11 April 2006. One previously uncontested race came back into play with the withdrawal of the incumbent, thus allowing a new nomination process by both major parties.

There will be at least 21 new members of the House of Representatives. Two Democratic and five Republican incumbents were defeated in the primaries. These current representatives will not be back:

House race summary, Districts 26–50

District 33

Incumbent Vilma Luna was unopposed in Democratic primary and was to be unopposed in the fall, but she withdrew from the race, allowing the Democratic Party a new nomination process and giving the Republican Party the chance to make its own nomination.

District 48

Ben Bentzin, unopposed in the Republican primary, withdrew from the race for House District 48 on August 21, 2006. Under the Texas Election Code, when a party nominee withdraws from a contested race, the party does not have the option to replace the candidate unless the candidate has been declared ineligible.