Ken Paxton easily defeated Senator John Cornyn on Tuesday night in a Republican runoff primary in Texas, ending a bruising intraparty fight that became the most expensive Senate primary campaign in US history. Paxton will now face Democratic state legislator James Talarico in November.
The result closes the book on a campaign that turned one of the Republican Party’s best-known Senate incumbents into a casualty of his own base. Cornyn, 74, had led Paxton in March’s first round of balloting, 42.5% to 40.8%, but he fell short of the 50% needed to avoid a runoff and never recovered.
Trump helped settle the race in its final stretch. Last week, as it became more likely Paxton would beat Cornyn, the president endorsed Paxton, and after the runoff win he praised him on Truth Social as someone who would become a “fantastic, common sense senator.” Trump said Cornyn had run a strong and powerful race, had a truly great career and would “remain my friend for a long time to come.”
For Cornyn, the defeat ends 23 years in Congress, including 12 years as a high-ranking member of the Senate Republican leadership team. For Republicans, it leaves them with a candidate who is far more closely tied to the party’s base but also widely seen by Democrats as more vulnerable in a state that has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1988. Paxton was outspent by a 9-to-1 margin, but that did not stop him from winning a contest now being watched well beyond Texas because of what it could mean for control of the Senate in the final two years of Trump’s presidency.
The broader picture is stark. It has been 46 years since at least two incumbent senators were defeated by voters in their own party in the same election cycle, and Cornyn’s loss puts him in that rare company. The question now is not whether Paxton can win the nomination; he already has. It is whether Texas Republicans have chosen a nominee strong enough to hold a seat they have not seen turn blue in 37 years, or whether they have handed Democrats their best chance in a generation.
