Al Green and Christian Menefee Head to Runoff for Texas House Seat

WASHINGTON – Democratic Reps. Al Green and Christian Menefee are headed to a runoff in their bids for Texas’ newly redrawn 18th Congressional District.

Neither man received more than 50% of the vote in Tuesday night’s primary election. Menefee led Green by about 2 percentage points, but he failed to win outright when two other Democratic contenders took votes away from him and Green. The two congressmen will now face each other in the second round of the elections on May 26.

This seat in Congress is with democratic securityso whoever wins the second round will almost certainly win the general election in November.

Green, 78, has been in Congress since 2005. He currently represents the 9th Congressional District, but after Republicans pushed for partisan redistricting last year, that brought him to the new 18th Congressional District.

Menefee, 37, won a special election in January in this district’s old boundaries to finish the term started by the late Democratic Rep. Sylvester Turner, who died in March 2025.

His career was proof of voters’ hunger for generational change in Congress.

AP

Menefee, who previously served as Harris County prosecutor, told NBC News Last week he did not focus “at all” on Green’s age and is willing to fight on issues such as affordability and defending democracy.

But he also introduced himself as “the person who will take this district into the future” and said he is “the only candidate in the race” who has taken on the Trump administration.

Green has campaigned his seniority in Congressand his record on civil rights and voting protections. And in case you didn’t think he had the chops to take on Trump, the Texas congressman was kicked out of the president’s State of the Union address last Tuesday for walking around with a large sign that read, “Blacks are not apes.”

Their sign was a protest of a racist, AI-generated video that Trump shared in early February on social media that showed former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as monkeys.

Heading into Tuesday’s election, Menefee had raised far more money than Green. It had raised more than $2.6 million and had about $130,000 in cash on hand as of Feb. 11, according to its FEC Filings. Green raised about $940,000 and had about $539,000 in cash on hand during the same period, according to his FEC Reports.