Updated at 8:55 a.m Wednesday with West’s concession.

MJ Hegar defeated state Sen. Royce West on Tuesday for the Democratic nomination for a Texas seat in the U.S. Senate.

Shortly after 11:20 p.m., Hegar declared victory. West gave her a scare, though.

The veteran state senator ran strongly in his home base of Dallas County, and did well enough in Harris County to offset some of Hegar’s strong performances in South and Central Texas, as well as many rural counties. He conceded at 8:45 a.m. Wednesday, throwing his support to Hegar. “I have been working to elect Democrats for decades, and I look forward to turning Texas blue in November,” West said in a statement.

“I am humbled by the support we have received from all across the state, and am confident we have a decisive victory,” Hegar said in a statement late Tuesday night. She ended up with 4-point margin of victory.

“While we may be celebrating tonight, we have to get right back down to work tomorrow,” she said shortly after 10 p.m. “That’s when the real work is going to start. We’re going to kick this career politician to the curb.”

Hegar said the Democratic turnout was so large it’s “going to cause John Cornyn to have a hard time sleeping tonight.”

She then issued a message to Cornyn.

“Pack it up, buttercup, because your time has ended and we’re coming back to take our seat back for Texas,” she said.

In only her second run for public office, Hegar hopes now to rally base Democrats and disaffected Republicans to an upset victory over three-term GOP U.S. Sen. John Cornyn this fall.

The Cornyn campaign immediately pounced on Hegar’s narrow win.

“It took millions of dollars in outside money to help Hollywood Hegar clinch the Democratic nomination,” said Cornyn campaign spokesman Travis Considine. “In reality -- and without the special effects -- her candidacy isn’t very impressive.”

For West, it was a race of frustration, and he said he would issue a statement on Wednesday.

“Every time I turned on television, I saw MJ Hegar,” West said, while refusing to concede the race because of unreported precincts in Dallas and Harris counties. “A lot of people in the [Rio Grande] Valley didn’t know who Royce West is.”

West, first elected to the state Senate in 1993, struggled to raise money. His duties as a legislator after the coronavirus outbreak were another hurdle, he said. He cast himself as a battle-scarred warrior for women’s rights, gun control, public schools and foster children who could ride the nation’s new urgency about racial inequality and policing to win over Cornyn.

Hegar, a Purple Heart recipient, turns to the Nov. 3 matchup with Cornyn after selling herself as a political disrupter eager to stand apart from political parties and fight for working families – and capable of cutting into Texas Republicans’ margins in both rural areas and the suburbs.

Cornyn, 68, is a team player and the former No. 2 official in the Senate Republican leadership. Democrats howl that Cornyn and others in the GOP’s Senate majority are chief enablers of President Donald Trump’s unconventional and divisive leadership.

Cornyn’s challenge

Cornyn has said he’ll stand against “socialism” and has successfully advanced the state’s interests, such as securing federal aid after Hurricane Harvey.

While the state’s three decades of red leanings provide some comfort, Cornyn has been unable to break through 40% support in public polls. His fate may be tied to that of Trump. The incumbent GOP president’s popularity in Texas, which never reached levels Republicans grew accustomed to, has sagged amid pushback over his handling of COVID-19 and protests.

A Dallas Morning News/University of Texas at Tyler poll conducted June 29 to July 7 showed Cornyn with an 11-point lead over Hegar, 37% to 26%; and ahead of West by just a tad more, 37% to 25%.

In both matchups, nearly one-third of registered voters were undecided – and an additional 6% named someone else. The margin of error was plus or minus 2.24 percentage points.

While West, 67, a Black lawyer from southern Dallas, has greater backing among African Americans than Hegar, she was able in the poll’s hypothetical matchup with Cornyn to fight him essentially to a draw among independents. She had 24% to Cornyn’s 25%. In the West-Cornyn pairing, Cornyn took independents, 28% to 20%.

Since leaving the Air Force, Hegar, 44, has worked as a manager for Seton Healthcare and Dell computers. She lives in Round Rock, where she made her first stab for elective office in 2018.

She challenged GOP U.S. Rep. John Carter of Georgetown, losing by only 3 points.

But Hegar caught the eye of Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer of New York and other Democratic strategists with a viral ad. It recounted how even though she survived a 2009 firefight with Taliban forces who shot down her medevac helicopter in Afghanistan, a few years later, after leaving the military, she couldn’t get into the offices of members of Congress to press the case for lifting a ban on women in ground combat.

She wasn’t a campaign contributor, she explained. But as lead plaintiff in an ACLU suit against the Defense Department, Hegar ultimately succeeded in backing down the Pentagon.

That feisty, won’t-take-no-for-an-answer mien is as central to Hegar’s persona as the cherry blossom tattoo on her shrapnel-pocked right arm and shoulder, or her love of Harley Davidsons.

“John Cornyn, I know that you’re watching,” Hegar said in a debate last month. “I’ve got bad news for you: This relationship is not working out, honey. Let me tell you, we’re just not that into you.”

West, though, has dismissed Hegar’s schtick as 1 part real, 3 parts bravado.

“I like MJ as a person; she’s a good person,” West told the Austin American-Statesman earlier this month. “And I applaud her service, I really do. But you know the reality comes down to, who is best qualified to lead.”

West described himself as the experienced legislator, ready to shape consensus, pass bills and end Washington gridlock as soon as he lands on the Senate floor.

As their runoff contest, constrained by coronavirus to virtual appearances, drew to a close, West hammered the contrast home. He called himself the “true Democrat” in the race and criticized Hegar for once giving a campaign donation to Cornyn and voting in the 2016 GOP presidential primary.

Hegar said she gave money to Cornyn because he only paid attention to donors. She described her vote in the 2016 GOP primary as an effort to stop Trump from getting his party’s presidential nomination.

Then Hegar blasted West for being a “career politician” and for becoming rich while in public office.

West countered that there’s nothing wrong with an experienced Black lawyer making money, suggesting that Hegar was being racially insensitive.

On issues, neither Democrat actually veered as far to the left as Cornyn hoped back in February, when it looked as if the party’s presidential nominee could be Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Though Cornyn may gloss over the nuances, Hegar and West both stopped shy of endorsing Medicare for All or the Green New Deal.

Like their party’s putative nominee for president, Joe Biden, they’re both for a “public option” to be added to a strengthened version of Obamacare, to serve as a check on private insurers. Hegar especially was leery of consumer price hikes that could be triggered by the Green New Deal, a progressive plan to end use of fossil fuels and ameliorate income inequality.

Both Democrats endorsed legalization of marijuana and at least would consider removing funds from police departments if civil rights are violated.

In the runoff, Hegar enjoyed a sizable spending advantage over West. It was augmented by last-minute TV ads in her behalf paid for by Schumer’s Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in Washington and the national feminist group EMILY’s List.

As the race turns to November, Cornyn has an overwhelming fundraising advantage. He has $14.5 million in his campaign fund. Days before the runoff, Hegar had $1.6 million in the bank, while West trailed badly with about $160,000.

If Hegar emerges as the Democratic nominee, she is still largely unknown to most voters. She would have to improve her outreach with minority voters, while maintaining her support with white voters, most notably suburban women, experts have said.

If West shocks the party establishment with a come-from-behind win, he too would need to boost his name identification, from Houston to Austin and San Antonio to the Rio Grande Valley. That takes money, and he faces the bigger hill to climb on fundraising.

Austin bureau chief Robert T. Garrett reported from Austin; political writer Gromer Jeffers Jr., from Dallas.