Ken Paxton is one win away from a stunning upset. The embattled Texas attorney general narrowly trailed Senator John Cornyn in March's Republican primary, and now Trump's endorsement has thrust him into a position to potentially knock off the state's senior senator in a Tuesday runoff that has become the nation's most watched Senate contest.
Cornyn faces a treacherous path forward. Despite record spending in his favor during the primary phase, he still finished behind Paxton. Now the former president's backing looms large, a force that has already toppled House Republicans elsewhere this cycle. Trump's endorsement of Bill Cassidy in Louisiana failed to prevent the senator's elimination, but the former president's hand has been far more successful in House races, where his backing recently helped unseat Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie.
Paxton's record suggests he thrives in binary contests. The scandal-plagued attorney general has built a reputation for winning primaries and navigating bruising runoffs, positioning himself as the outsider willing to fight establishment figures.
Cornyn's allies warn that nominating Paxton would hand the seat to Democrats. They point to James Talarico, the state legislator from Austin running on the Democratic side, who has galvanized small-dollar donors with his religious messaging and raised $27 million in the first quarter alone, nearly quadrupling Paxton's entire campaign war chest. Republicans have not lost a statewide race in Texas in three decades, but party figures fear Paxton's controversial background could crack that streak in a general election showdown with Talarico.
The dynamics underscore a deeper fissure within Texas Republicans. Cornyn launched a social media campaign with the hashtag "#stillwithCornyn," acknowledging the underdog status he now occupies. Multiple Republican senators have publicly opposed the Trump endorsement, a rare display of intra-party tension at the highest levels.
The Senate race has shattered advertising records, and the stakes extend beyond the runoff itself. A Paxton victory would force Republicans to defend Texas in the fall, potentially diverting resources from other battlegrounds as the party fights for Senate control.
Democrats Face Generational Reckoning
Texas's runoff ballot extends far beyond the Cornyn-Paxton duel. Two House Democrats will face off Tuesday in Houston's 18th Congressional District, guaranteeing that a sitting Democratic incumbent loses a primary for the first time this cycle. Representative Al Green, an 11-term veteran now 78 years old, is fighting for his political survival against Representative Christian Menefee, a 38-year-old newcomer who won his seat in a special election earlier this year. The race has drawn significant crypto-industry spending backing Menefee, drawn by Green's longstanding criticism of digital assets and his perch on the powerful House Financial Services Committee.
Another Democratic battle in the 35th Congressional District carries unexpected complexity. Johnny Garcia, a Bexar County sheriff's deputy, holds endorsements from the national party's House campaign arm, state legislator Talarico, and the moderate Blue Dog Coalition. Yet his opponent, Maureen Galindo, a sex therapist and activist, finished first in March's initial contest. Galindo advanced despite statements suggesting an immigration detention center be converted into "a prison for American Zionists," language that Democrats have condemned as echoing Nazi rhetoric. Her campaign has benefited from nearly $900,000 in spending from a secretive super PAC with loose Republican ties and no disclosed donors, a reversal of typical partisan patterns.
Former Representative Colin Allred, who lost a 2024 Senate race to Ted Cruz, is mounting an unlikely House comeback against his successor, Representative Julie Johnson. The matchup carries racial dimensions that mirror broader Democratic tensions, with Allred backing Black candidate Jasmine Crockett in the statewide Senate primary while Johnson endorsed white candidate Talarico. Crockett lost that race by six points. Recent audio of Johnson disparaging Black colleague Marc Veasey as ineffectual has added fuel to the tensions.
On the Republican side, the race to replace Paxton as attorney general pits conservative state senator Mayes Middleton against Representative Chip Roy, a Capitol Hill hard-liner with a record of occasionally breaking with Trump. Middleton invested $3 million of his own money into the contest, while Roy benefited from $2.75 million in outside spending from Amarillo businessman Alex Fairly and backing from Senator Ted Cruz, Roy's former boss.
Democrats will also field a runoff for attorney general between state senator Nathan Johnson and former Galveston mayor Joe Jaworski, though Republicans are heavily favored to prevail in November regardless of the primary outcome.
Author Sarah Mitchell: "Paxton's ability to navigate runoffs makes Tuesday genuinely unpredictable, but Cornyn's warning about general election vulnerability in a Republican-held state suggests the party may be staring down a self-inflicted wound."
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