In a defining shakeup of Texas Republican politics, scandal-plagued Attorney General Ken Paxton secured a lopsided victory over four-term incumbent Senator John Cornyn in this week’s Senate primary runoff, a win that former President Donald Trump quickly celebrated as a major validation of his enduring influence over the GOP.
Official vote tallies show Paxton claimed more than 63% of the vote, flipping a long-held Republican Senate seat away from the party’s establishment wing and handing Trump one of his most high-profile wins of the 2024 primary season. Paxton will now face Democratic state representative James Talarico in the November general election.
Cornyn, a well-connected institutional conservative who has represented Texas in the Senate since 2002 and previously served as Republican whip, entered the race as the clear favorite of the party’s Washington and donor establishment. But Trump’s late-game endorsement reshaped the contest overnight, turning Paxton from an underdog into a dominant frontrunner. Cornyn becomes the latest incumbent Republican to fall after falling out of alignment with Trump, joining a growing list of ousted lawmakers on the former president’s primary-season revenge tour.
On his Truth Social platform Wednesday morning, Trump congratulated Paxton on what he called a “tremendous win,” predicting Paxton would become “a fantastic, common sense Senator, one who is respected by all.” Turning his attention to the general election, Trump launched a blistering attack on Talarico, calling him “may be the worst TEXAS candidate I have ever seen” over his liberal policy positions, and pledged to hold “nice, big, beautiful rallies” to support Paxton in the coming months.
At his victory party on Tuesday night, Paxton made clear who he credited for his upset win, emphasizing that Trump stood by him when elite Washington Republicans pushed for his abandonment. “When everyone in Washington told him to abandon me and abandon the people of Texas, he didn’t listen,” Paxton said, calling Trump’s endorsement “the most powerful force in politics.”
Paxton’s political career has been marred by years of legal, ethical, and personal controversy: he was impeached by the Republican-controlled Texas House in 2023 over allegations of bribery and public misconduct, and ultimately acquitted by the Texas Senate, while he has also navigated a high-profile messy divorce. Paxton has repeatedly framed all allegations against him as politically motivated smears.
The result of the Texas runoff lays bare a growing, intractable divide for the Republican Party heading into the 2024 general election: while Trump’s endorsement can all but guarantee victory in Republican primaries, his preference for hardline, pro-MAGA candidates has left many party strategists concerned that those nominees will struggle to win in the general election, even in solidly red states.
Texas has not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1976, and Trump carried the state by nearly 14 points in 2024, meaning Republicans start the general election as clear favorites. But national Democrats see Paxton’s nomination as a unique opportunity. They view Paxton’s long history of scandal as a vulnerability that could help them pull off a historic statewide upset, and Talarico has already raised massive campaign funds for his bid. Talarico has centered his campaign on arguing that both Paxton and the traditional Republican establishment represent a broken political system rigged in favor of wealthy special interests.
For Senate Republican leadership, Paxton’s victory has deepened existing anxiety. Many top Senate GOP officials had privately pushed Trump to back Cornyn, and now fear the party will be forced to divert millions of dollars in campaign funds to defend a seat that was expected to be easily held. Senate Majority Leader John Thune warned last week that Trump’s pattern of challenging sitting Republican incumbents could have long-term consequences, noting that these interventions could make advancing the party’s shared agenda “more complicated.”
That tension has already spilled over into Capitol Hill, where a growing number of Senate Republicans have broken with Trump in recent weeks over issues including Iran war powers and his proposed White House ballroom renovation project.
For Trump, however, the Texas win is just the latest milestone in his primary-season campaign to purge the GOP of any lawmakers who have crossed him. Prior to Cornyn’s defeat, Trump’s endorsements helped oust Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy, who voted to impeach Trump after the 2021 Capitol riot, Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie, who supported releasing the full Epstein files, and multiple Indiana state lawmakers who resisted his demands for congressional redistricting.
In his concession speech Tuesday night, Cornyn struck a measured tone, quoting 2 Timothy 4:7: “I fought the good fight, I finished the race, and I’ve kept the faith.” Shortly after, Talarico, his general election opponent, posted a message on X thanking Cornyn for his decades of public service. “We don’t agree on everything, but we both still believe in public service,” Talarico wrote. “To Senator Cornyn’s supporters: you have a place in our campaign.”