So, as we know, Ken Paxton defeated John Cornyn for the right to face James Talarico in the coming general election for US Senator. The contest was not close. Via the Texas Tribune:
Via Ballotpedia, we can see that Cornyn lost ground since March.
While I am sure that Trump’s endorsement helped boost the final numbers, the reality is that he was a Donny-Come-Lately, as Paxton has been leading in the polls pretty handily the whole time. Here’s FiftyPlusOne’s polling average of the race:
Regardless of the role the endorsement played, there is little doubt that this contest has affected the evolution of the Republican Party. This is just another data point in its MAGAfication. There is an unfortunate (in my view) faction of the GOP electorate who value a certain kind of politician whose obvious ethical foibles are not deal-breakers.
I do not have a deeply thought-out theory as to why primary voters preferred Paxton. My back-of-the-envelope guess is that his relative youth played a part (Paxton is 63 and Coryn in 74). I think, too, that Paxton is perceived as a disruptive fighter (as per his lawsuits against the Biden administration). He just seems to tick a lot of the MAGA boxes.
This result has also been seen to be favorable to the Democrats. As The Hill reported: Cook Political Report shifts Texas Senate race toward Democrats after Paxton runoff victory. Note that the shift is from “likely Republican” to “leans Republican” before anyone reads too much into this. The only polling on Talarico-Paxton that I could find was The Texas Political Project: Senate Race Polling Reveals Republican Turnout Challenges – and the Trajectory of the Texas GOP.
The April 2026 University of Texas/Texas Politics Project Poll was the latest in a handful of surveys that included hypothetical two-party, head-to-head matchups between either John Cornyn or Ken Paxton as the the Republican candidate and Democrat James Talarico. In each matchup in the Texas Politics Project Poll, fielded April 10-20, Talarico led – by 7 points against Cornyn (40% to 33%) and by an indistinguishable 8 points against Paxton (42% to 34%).
The most important takeaway for me is that those numbers clearly include a lot of undecideds, and that in a deeply red state, a lot of those undecideds will revert to their default, which is Republican.
For the moment, however, I will indulge in something I try to avoid, which is a bit of wishful thinking, if not outright fantasy.
While, as a general matter, I would prefer that Democrats take the Senate in November as a bulwark against the authoritarianism and corruption that gushes from this White House, I also have a specific interest in the Talarico-Paxton contest.
Specifically, I would love to see someone as odious as Ken Paxton lose just on moral grounds (here is a list to consider). Losing would be just desserts for Paxton. Moreover, it would be just desserts for the moral cowards in the Texas State Senate who voted to acquit him during his impeachment trial. I would also like to see the voters, at least in small measure, repudiate Trump by having his endorsed candidate lose.
Having said all of that, I am not going to hold my breath. Ted Cruz, who isn’t exactly beloved, won re-election in 2024, 53.1 to 44.6 in 2024. Worse, Trump was +13.64 in 2024. Granted, turnout in a presidential contest and in a midterm are not the same.
Yes, in my fantasies, there will be a Blue wave sufficient to sweep Paxton away, but realistically, I fear that we will end up with Senator Paxton, which is worse than Senator Cornyn–perhaps not in terms of how they vote, but definitely in terms of corruption and what it means for the further devolution of the GOP.
