Trump-backed Paxton ousts Cornyn, turning Texas Senate seat competitive

Ken Paxton’s defeat of John Cornyn on May 26 turned a Texas Senate seat long treated as safely Republican into one of the party’s most vulnerable general-election races. The win ended Cornyn’s bid for a fifth term and made him the first Republican senator from Texas to lose his party’s nomination for reelection.

Cornyn, first elected to the U.S. Senate in 2002 and now in his fourth term, had spent years as one of Texas Republicans’ most durable statewide figures. He also served as Texas attorney general and later as Republican whip in the Senate, giving him the résumé of an establishment candidate built for a broader electorate. Paxton, by contrast, won after running as the Trump-aligned insurgent in a bitter and expensive race that tested how much the Republican Party still values loyalty over general-election strength.

Donald Trump’s endorsement of Paxton on May 19, just one week before the runoff, proved decisive in a primary electorate already moving toward the state attorney general. Trump called Paxton a “true MAGA warrior” and criticized Cornyn for being too late and insufficiently loyal, a message that reinforced the broader shift inside the party. Cornyn conceded after the runoff and said he would support the Republican ticket.

That decision may carry the biggest consequences in November. Democratic state Rep. James Talarico will face Paxton in the general election, and Democrats see an opening in a state that has not elected a Democrat to statewide office since 1994. Paxton’s record gives them a clear target. The Texas House of Representatives impeached him in 2023 over allegations of abuse of office, bribery and obstruction, and the Texas Senate acquitted him on all 16 articles of impeachment in September 2023.

For Republicans, the result suggests a sharper tradeoff than a normal primary upset. Cornyn represented the kind of battle-tested, fundraising-friendly statewide figure who could appeal beyond the GOP base, including suburban and crossover voters who have drifted away from the party in recent cycles. Paxton offers Trump’s blessing and maximum ideological clarity, but also the kind of baggage that can make a once-secure seat competitive. In Texas, that choice has turned a routine reelection race into a national test of what Republican electability now means.