Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is projected to win Tuesday's runoff election to become the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, knocking out veteran Sen. John Cornyn and marking the end of a bitter and expensive primary race that divided the party.
Paxton's projected win came after a last-minute endorsement by President Donald Trump, whose support goes a long way in Texas. Senate Republican leaders had begged Trump to get behind Cornyn, who has comfortably held this Senate seat since 2002 and doesn't come with the baggage the attorney general has. But the president sided with Paxton, a scandal-plagued MAGA ally, because he said Cornyn hasn't been sufficiently loyal.
“Ken is a true MAGA Warrior who has ALWAYS delivered for Texas, and will continue to do so in the United States Senate,” Trump said on social media last week. “John Cornyn is a good man, and I worked well with him, but he was not supportive of me when times were tough.” Cornyn, a conservative who has consistently voted with the president, previously said he didn't think Trump would win the 2024 election and that his “time has passed him by.”
Paxton will now face state Rep. James Talarico in the November election. Democrats were hoping for this outcome, as they'll now be able to highlight any number of the attorney general's scandals in campaign ads in the coming months — and force the GOP to spend gobs of money defending him that it would otherwise be able to spend in other races. The Paxton-Cornyn primary race has already been the most pricey in Texas history: Cornyn and Senate Republican-allied groups spent more than $90 million to try to topple Paxton.
Paxton previously faced three felony indictments for securities fraud in 2015, which were later dismissed in 2024 as part of a pretrial deal he struck. That deal came months after the Texas House impeached Paxton on 16 articles relating to allegations of bribery, obstruction and abuse of public trust. The Texas Senate, a jury of his peers, later acquitted him on all counts. Separately, Paxton was the subject of a Justice Department probe in 2020, when eight of his former top aides reported him to the FBI for allegedly using his office to do personal favors for a political donor, Austin real estate developer Nate Paul. That investigation ultimately ended in 2025, when federal prosecutors quietly declined to file charges.
On top of all that, Cornyn has been airing a brutal campaign ad — which Talarico's campaign can now run with — accusing the Texas attorney general of going “easy on child predators” and highlighting a case where Paxton's office offered a plea deal of just one day in jail to a Waco man charged with repeatedly sexually abusing a boy. “It is important to note that the predators who commit these crimes tend to repeat them over and over again, until stopped,” Cornyn said last week in a related social media post. “Paxton could have stopped this one, but instead cut him loose to reoffend over and over again, putting more children at risk. #Disgraceful”
The stunning defeat of Cornyn, a former member of party leadership, adds to Senate Republicans' fears that Trump is weakening their chances at keeping their majority in November. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) lost his primary last week after Trump, who has had it out for the Louisiana Republican after he voted to convict him in his Senate impeachment trial five years ago, backed his challenger. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who has faced Trump's wrath over several of his votes, announced last year he isn't seeking reelection. Democrats have to flip at least four seats in November to retake control of the Senate. Republicans are already at a financial disadvantage, with 22 of their Senate seats in play versus 13 of Democrats' seats in play. Trump's meddling in Republican primaries only makes it harder for the GOP to hold on to otherwise safe seats.
Talarico has a shot at victory in November. But Democrats' best prospects for pickups are currently in North Carolina, for the seat Tillis is vacating; in Maine, where longtime GOP Sen. Susan Collins is up against Democratic newcomer Graham Platner; in Ohio, where GOP Sen. Jon Husted is facing a Democrat who previously held a Senate seat here, Sherrod Brown; and in Alaska, where GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan was trailing in recent polling to Mary Peltola, a former Democratic congresswoman taking him on.
