Analysis: Winning their primaries, Abbott and O’Rourke offer a preview of their march toward November

The candidates who survived Tuesday’s primary elections — and won’t face runoff elections in May — now start all over again, raising money, researching their opponents and trying to build up the organizations and support that will get them through the November general election.

The race at the top of the ticket was all but a foregone conclusion, with well-known and well-financed candidates on both the Republican side, in Gov. Greg Abbott, and the Democratic side, in Beto O’Rourke.

Abbott and O’Rourke have had their eyes on November from the start, attacking and critiquing each other and ignoring their primary opponents throughout this first round.

Both won their primaries easily, in the process previewing some of the themes other candidates in their parties will probably adopt for the general election: immigration/border security, the electric grid, gun laws, abortion, environmental regulations and a handful of cultural issues including how race and history should be taught in schools and the rights of transgender children and their parents.

Voters and the media aren’t the only Texans fixated on that. The outcome in that top contest could send a wave down the ballot. Even though Texas no longer has one-punch, straight-ticket voting that allows voters to select all of the candidates in one party at once, a hard-fought top race can draw voters who keep their party hats on as they go down the ballot.