How a U.S. Senate Race Is Shaping the Fight Over Redistricting in Texas

The standoff in Texas over redrawing the state’s U.S. House districts to a sharply tilted Republican advantage has played out before the backdrop of a contentious U.S. Senate race that may well be making the redistricting fight more contentious.

On the Republican side, the incumbent senator, John Cornyn, has set aside his often conciliatory demeanor, as he vies with his Senate primary opponent, Attorney General Ken Paxton, to see who can look tougher with runaway Democratic lawmakers.

On the Democratic side, State Representative James Talarico and former Representatives Beto O’Rourke and Colin Allred have used the standoff to gain publicity and rally the Democratic base around the notion that democracy itself is at stake. All three are potential rivals in the Senate race.

As the candidates position themselves, they’ve woven threats of prosecution and lawsuits with taunts and dares at the other party — and, in the case of Mr. Cornyn and Mr. Paxton, at each other — with few incentives for compromise.

Amid the posturing, the runaway Democrats have been left to make decisions on their own on when they will return to the Capitol to give the Legislature a quorum to proceed with a rare mid-decade redistricting. Now that Texas’ Republican leaders have said they would end their special legislative session on Friday — and immediately call another one — that resolve may be weakening.

“We want to stay unified,” State Representative Ron Reynolds, a Houston Democrat, said. “We made a decision to break quorum as a unit, and we’re going to make a decision to go back as a unit.”