Trump-Backed Ken Paxton Ousts Incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in Texas Runoff

After months of intense party infighting and a last-second endorsement by Donald Trump, Texas Republicans have selected Ken Paxton as their candidate in November’s Senate race. The Associated Press announced the victory on Tuesday evening.

Paxton will face off against Democratic candidate James Talarico, a Texas state House representative, former schoolteacher, and Presbyterian seminarian who has built his campaign on a platform of Christian progressivism. 

While Democrats haven’t won a statewide elected office in Texas in over three decades, the state’s Republican dynasty looks vulnerable this election cycle. Trump’s immigration crackdown has made critiquing the federal handling of border security — a key issue for the state GOP — a no-go zone for Republicans. At the same time, the president’s hardline crackdown on immigration has cratered Trump and Republicans’ support among Hispanic voters in the state, a critical constituency in his 2024 reelection victory. 

With the president’s approval rating seemingly in freefall amid the war in Iran and a series of corruption scandals, the MAGA-aligned Texas Republican machine may be staring down the barrel of a trouncing in November. 

Last week, with early voting already underway in the critical runoff election, President Trump put his thumb on the scales, endorsing Paxton over Cornyn in a lengthy Truth Social post. Cornyn, a mainstay in the Senate for over 20 years, was dismissed as a “good man,” who was “not supportive” enough of Trump “when times were tough.” 

Paxton — the politically rabid state attorney general whose history of scandal and corruption has alienated members of his own party — was described by the president as “a true MAGA Warrior who has ALWAYS delivered for Texas,” and a “Strong Supporter of TERMINATING THE FILIBUSTER and, very importantly, THE SAVE AMERICA ACT,” Trump’s legislative attempt at requiring documentary proof of citizenship for all voter registrations. 
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It didn’t matter to the president that Paxton was underperforming when compared to Cornyn in a matchup against Talarico, or that the national Republican establishment is warning that rehabbing Paxton’s image for skeptical GOP voters, moderates, and independents could cost millions in what is already the most expensive Senate privacy in the nation’s history. 

Paxton, who has served as the state’s attorney general since 2015, has had a personal trajectory and political career that is unnervingly comparable to Trump’s. Affairs and a tabloid divorce, allegations of corruption and misuse of office, and even an impeachment trial. Unlike Trump, however, Paxton was impeached by members of his own party on 20 articles related to abuse of office, the acceptance of bribes, making false statements to the State Securities Board, and violating his oath of office — to name a few. 

He was impeached by the Texas House — including by 60 Republican members — but acquitted in his Senate trial amid a rift between the party fomented by Paxton’s national supporters, including Trump, White House deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, and Texas Senator Ted Cruz. 
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Why would the national Republican party jump to the defence of a state attorney general tried by his own party? Paxton was one of the lead state-level officials pushing to help Trump overturn the results of the 2020 election, masterminding the Texas v. Pennsylvania lawsuit, which attempted to have the Supreme Court throw out the voting results of Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. It was ultimately unsuccessful, but Paxton has become an expert at weaponizing Texas’ legal system to further the MAGA movement’s culture war agenda.

Paxton has a taken a hardline approach to the enforcement of Texas’ near-total abortion ban, targeted left-leaning nonprofits, sued Texas cities that decriminalized marijuana, opposed legislation supporting LGBTQ+ individuals, and endorsed anti-trans, anti-LGBTQ+ state policies, and supported legal efforts to politically and racially gerrymander the state. 
He’s as Trumpian as they come, but Republican pollsters in Texas say that the base’s most committed voters are lagging in their midterm enthusiasm.  The GOP’s prospects may worsen as the economic fallout of Trump’s war with Iran continues to creep into the car-happy, trade and transportation giant, the uncritical support Paxton has given the president may become a liability, and the Senate majority could hang in the balance.