Controversial Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton won the Texas Republican Senate runoff, ousting incumbent GOP Senator John Cornyn and setting up what will be a nasty race for the seat come November.
The race was called with just 49 percent of the votes counted, as Paxton secured 62.6 percent, while Cornyn got just 37.4 percent.
Paxton’s victory came after President Donald Trump endorsed him last week over Cornyn in what has been an ongoing revenge tour by the president against those whom he believes have not been loyal enough to him.
Cornyn was seeking his fifth term in the Senate when he was challenged by Paxton, who has been running as a diehard MAGA loyalist in what turned into a battle over who was more aligned with Trump.
It led to the most expensive Senate primary in U.S. history before neither candidate reached the necessary majority of the vote to avoid the runoff. Including the runoff, more than $165 million was spent on ads in the primary, according to tracking by AdImpact. More than $92 million of it was spent by Cornyn.
The runoff alone was also the most expensive on record, with $25 million spent on advertising. Some $19 million of it was spent in support of Cornyn as polls repeatedly showed him trailing Paxton for much of the race.
While Trump backed the Texas attorney general in the final stretch, Republicans in Washington have warned that Paxton’s toxic baggage could be problematic in the general election.
He was accused of infidelity by his wife in divorce proceedings. He was also investigated for bribery and impeached by the Republican Texas House in 2023 before being acquitted by the Texas Senate.
The Republican Senate campaign arm spent millions attempting to defend Cornyn’s seat in the primary as they sounded the alarms that a Paxton win raised a greater chance for Democrats flipping the Texas seat blue in November.
Cornyn spent months trying to twist himself up in knots to prove he was supportive enough of Trump, but it only served as a humiliation in the end as Trump blasted him in the final stretch.
“Ken’s opponent was VERY disloyal to me, as President, and didn’t fight hard enough for the desperately needed SAVE AMERICA ACT,” Trump posted on Truth Social over the holiday weekend ahead of the runoff.
Cornyn voted for all of Trump’s nominees in Congress, backed his legislative priorities—including reversing his longtime past stance on the filibuster to align with Trump—and never backed impeachment efforts, but it was not enough to ensure Trump would back him in return.
However, Senate Majority Leader John Thune refused to back Paxton in the end, despite the president’s endorsement, and said he was sticking with Cornyn—showing the dramatic rift over this particular race within the GOP.
Paxton will now go up against Texas state representative and Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico in November.
Recent polling showed Talarico with a slight edge in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup with Paxton. The Texas Southern University polls showed a tie earlier this month, while the University of Texas poll last month showed Talarico up eight points.
Responding to the news of Paxton’s win, Talarico took to X to make a pitch to Cornyn’s supporters.
“I want to thank Senator John Cornyn for his years representing our state. We don’t agree on everything, but we both still believe in public service. To Senator Cornyn’s supporters: you have a place in our campaign,” he wrote.
Republican groups have already begun spending money on attacks against Talarico ahead of what is expected to be an expensive general election.
Democrats have not won a Senate race in Texas since 1988, but they had their closest race in 2018 when Beto O’Rourke attempted to unseat Sen. Ted Cruz. Cruz won by just over 2.5 percent, but analysts have observed that Paxton’s approval is much lower at this stage in his Senate race than Cruz’s approval was during his close re-election bid.
