Jim Bunning threw a perfect game in 1964 and spent 24 years in Congress.
Now Texas Republicans have their own champion – and this one came with a Trump endorsement.
Mark Teixeira just crushed a 12-candidate Republican primary in TX-21 and heads to November as the heavy favorite.
Mark Teixeira Wins Texas Primary With 61 Percent of the Vote
Teixeira is not a career politician who happened to play catch on weekends. He is a five-tool first baseman who spent 14 seasons in the majors, won five Gold Gloves, three Silver Sluggers, and stood on the field at Yankee Stadium when the confetti fell in 2009. Texas Rangers fans remember him from his first five seasons – the ones that planted the roots that eventually pulled him back to the Lone Star State for good in 2021.
He beat his 11 opponents Tuesday with over 61% of the vote, avoiding a runoff entirely in a district that runs from northwest San Antonio deep into the Hill Country – some of the most reliably Republican turf in the state.
Trump did not accidentally back this guy. The Club for Growth poured more than $250,000 into Teixeira's campaign. The National Border Patrol Council endorsed him. Former Bexar County GOP Chair Kyle Sinclair dropped out of the race entirely and threw his support to Teixeira. "This race is at an inflection point," Sinclair said. "The right move now is unite behind Mark so we can win TX21 and start governing effectively."
"This is a huge victory," Teixeira said Tuesday night. "We're going to run a strong race and win big in November, then hit the ground running to fight for Texas families."
Why Trump Endorsed Teixeira for Border Security and School Choice Over Career Politicians
Chip Roy spent years working for Ted Cruz and John Cornyn before running for TX-21 in 2018. He was a policy machine – and not always an easy one for Trump to work with. Roy clashed with the White House enough that Trump withheld his endorsement when Roy jumped into the attorney general race this cycle.
Teixeira is something different. He is the son of a Navy veteran and a schoolteacher. He wrote a personal check for $2,800 – the legal maximum – to Roy's 2021 campaign just as a private citizen who believed in the cause. He worked with the Texas Public Policy Foundation on school choice before it was a primary issue. When ICE agent Renée Good was killed, Teixeira did not hedge. He said three words: "I stand with ICE."
That is the profile Trump is building his congressional bench around. The Washington Examiner reported this week that Trump has made athlete and celebrity recruitment a core midterm strategy – not just for name recognition, but because sports figures reach voters who tune out political media entirely. GOP operative Erin Maguire called it "cultural alignment." When a World Series champion shows up at a rally in the Hill Country and talks about border security and school choice, people who haven't thought about politics since November 2024 start paying attention.
Club for Growth PAC President David McIntosh put it plainly after Tuesday's result: "On the campaign trail, Mark Teixeira outlined his plan to lower taxes, cut red tape, and expand school freedom for every family in Texas. Voters believed in his vision, and rewarded him with the Republican nomination."
Athletes have made this journey before. Steve Largent earned a 100% rating from the American Conservative Union after trading Seattle for Oklahoma's 1st Congressional District in 1994. Jim Bunning went from throwing a perfect game to becoming one of the Senate's most reliably conservative voices for over a decade. Champions who have spent careers competing under pressure tend to arrive in Washington ready to work, not ready to be managed.
What Teixeira's Win Means for the 2026 Midterms and the Texas Congressional Map
Texas is ground zero for the Republican strategy to protect their narrow House majority in November. Trump backed over 130 candidates in Tuesday's Texas primaries alone. Five new congressional districts were drawn after Trump pushed the state legislature to redistrict – a move designed to give Republicans a structural firewall before a midterm environment that historically punishes the party in power.
Teixeira fits that strategy perfectly. He cannot be painted as a Beltway insider. He has name recognition that money cannot buy – a decade of ESPN highlights in a state where both the Rangers and Yankees have passionate fan bases. He has three kids, a Christian faith, a wife he met at Georgia Tech, and a campaign platform built on the issues that move conservative voters most right now.
His general election opponent is Dr. Kristin Hook, a former NIH scientist who secured the Democratic nomination Tuesday. She is running in a district Trump carried by 23 points in 2024. The math is brutal for Democrats in TX-21.
Teixeira built his career as a first baseman – the anchor of the infield, the guy who catches everything thrown his way and never lets it drop. Texas conservatives are betting he brings the same to Washington.
Sources:
- Bradford Betz, "Former MLB star Mark Teixeira wins GOP primary in Texas congressional race," Fox News, March 4, 2026.
- "Republicans pick former MLB player Mark Teixeira in TX21," San Antonio Report, March 4, 2026.
- Marijke Friedman, "Former MLB player Mark Teixeira announces run for 21st Congressional District," The Texas Tribune, August 28, 2025.
- "Donald Trump floods 2026 Texas primaries with his endorsements," The Texas Tribune, March 3, 2026.
- "Trump leans on athlete star power for midterm boost," Washington Examiner, March 2026.
- "Mark Teixeira," Ballotpedia, accessed March 4, 2026.
- "Factbox: Ten US House races to watch in 2026," Reuters/SRN News, March 2, 2026.
- "A History of Athletes Turned Politicians," Deadspin, accessed March 4, 2026.
