Rep. Al Green (D-TX) was censured in March 2025 for heckling President Donald Trump during a joint address of Congress, in a moment that cemented the longtime congressman as a fighter for Democrats.
But despite his brawler reputation, Green lost an incumbent vs. incumbent primary runoff against Rep. Christian Menefee (D-TX) Tuesday night. His loss comes as polling shows 58% of potential Democratic supporters are dissatisfied with how much Democrats are “fighting back” against Trump, according to a recent New York Times/Siena poll.
Recommended Stories
Green, 78, and Menefee, 38, were set on a collision course for Texas’s 18th Congressional District as a result of mid-decade redistricting pursued by Texas Republicans as the GOP looks to maintain control of the House in November.
That, combined with the Democratic Party’s push for generational change, as well as outside spending that saw Menefee receive millions from the crypto industry, created headwinds that Green could not overcome as he sought his 12th term in Congress.
“He represents an anti-Trump wing,” Democratic strategist Hyma Moore told the Washington Examiner. “The Democrats, and I think, quite frankly, America, is so ready to move past Donald Trump, and they’re looking for people, particularly Democrats, who can think about a vision beyond Donald Trump.”
Moore said Menefee, a first-term lawmaker who was elected to the 18th District in a special election to replace the late Rep. Sylvester Turner, “quite frankly, represented generational change.”
Texas’s 18th District has witnessed the deaths of two of its elected officials, both Democrats, in the last two years. Turner, who died on March 5, 2025, was elected to the seat after the death of Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee on July 19, 2024.
“There’s a lot of anxiety and hangover emotionally from Sheila Jackson Lee and Sylvester Turner,” Moore explained. “It may seem sorta asinine, but we can’t discount the fact that the people of Houston have just lost like two members of Congress in a very quick time, and so they’re thinking about their future.”
Texas-based Democratic pollster Nancy Zdunkewicz described the push for generational change as “very real,” saying that “you just can’t talk to voters now and not hear them say, ‘These guys got to step down, they got to move aside.’”
“It’s really meant something, like they’ve kept people from being seated, have delayed the elections to fill the seat, and so this is like a real sort of loss of power, and the threat of people leaving because of age-related issues is very real,” Zdunkewicz said.
Democrats have been strategizing on how to win back voters following the party’s sweeping 2024 election losses and amid low approval ratings from voters. But Moore, the Democratic strategist, rejected that the race was a reflection of a “fighter versus non-fighter,” instead asserting that Green and Menefee have different approaches to the Trump administration.
“I think people saw the opportunity to bring someone like Christian Menefee in, who’s 38, and who has been just a big fighter for Houston locally and statewide, and so they still get a fighter, but they get someone who is fresh, new, and young,” Moore said.
Democratic strategist Cliff Walker, who supported Menefee’s campaign, similarly argued that the candidates presented different models of “what a fighter looks like,” and that Menefee’s approach “was just one for the moment.”
In a Wednesday statement, Menefee thanked Green for his time in Congress, saying his opponent had “done what so few in public life are willing to do: He has spoken truth to power, directly to their faces, without flinching.”
Menefee continued, “He protested with his body, his voice, and his career on the line. He stood in the well of the U.S. House of Representatives and called President Trump out to his face, even when he stood alone. That is a legacy that will outlast any election.”
Green was ejected from the House chamber in 2025 after he interrupted Trump’s speech by waving his cane and shouting that the president had “no mandate.” He was removed from the chamber again in 2026 from Trump’s State of the Union speech after he displayed a sign that said “BLACK PEOPLE AREN’T APES!” in reference to a video Trump shared online of former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes.
CHRISTIAN MENEFEE BEATS LONGTIME DEMOCRAT AL GREEN IN RUNOFF
Trump celebrated Green’s loss in a Truth Social post on Wednesday morning, saying he would “miss that lunatic not screaming and violently waving his cane at me during my next State of the Union Speech.”
In response, Green wrote in a statement: “Sorry to disappoint you, Mr. President, but you will hear from me again. I have more than enough time left in Congress to continue calling out your corruption. Sincerely, your unbought, unbossed, unafraid, unelected, liberated democrat.”
