Paxton's Texas upset puts GOP Senate seat in play

Ken Paxton’s defeat of John Cornyn on Tuesday did more than topple a four-term incumbent. It exposed a Republican Party in which loyalty to Donald Trump, ideological combativeness and grievance politics can outrun warnings about electability, scandal and establishment backing.

The Texas attorney general, who has held the office since 2014, won the Republican Senate runoff on May 26 after Trump endorsed him in mid-May. The result set up a November general election against Democrat James Talarico and immediately raised the prospect that a seat Republicans had viewed as relatively safe could become one of the cycle’s most expensive and consequential fights.

The race had already consumed about 13 months and roughly $135 million in spending. It went to a runoff after neither candidate cleared 50% in the March 3 primary, when Cornyn led Paxton 42.0% to 40.5%. By the end, the runoff was less about one Senate seat than about what kind of Republican Party is being rewarded by its voters heading toward the midterms.

Paxton’s victory showed that scandal no longer carries the same weight it once did inside the GOP. The Texas House of Representatives impeached him in 2023 in a 121-23 vote, but the Texas Senate later acquitted him on all 16 articles of impeachment. That history did not stop Republican primary voters from sending him past Cornyn, a longtime fixture in Texas and national Republican politics who had the support of many party insiders and national strategists looking for the safer general-election option.

Cornyn conceded after the loss and said he would support the Republican ticket, but the warning for his party was already clear. Republicans just handed a nomination to a candidate whose personal baggage was extensive, and in doing so they signaled that closeness to Trump and a harder-edged political identity can matter more than a record of winning broad November coalitions.

Trump’s own comments the next day only sharpened that picture. At a White House Cabinet meeting on May 27, he said Iran was wrongly assuming it could outwait him politically and added that he did not care about the midterms. The remarks landed as Republicans weighed the risk that a prolonged Iran conflict and higher fuel prices could worsen their position in November.

Democrats moved quickly to turn Paxton’s win into a warning sign. Talarico’s team reported a sharp fundraising surge after the runoff, and Talarico attacked Paxton as corrupt in a new campaign video. The general election is now a test of whether Texas Republicans chose their most loyal nominee, or one that could put a once-secure seat within Democratic reach.