Big John refused to go quietly into that bad night.
When it became clear that Attorney General Ken Paxton would challenge Senator John Cornyn’s reelection, Cornyn could have opted to retire with dignity and spend his remaining golden years watching turtles sunbathe while strolling the shores of Austin’s Lady Bird Lake.
Instead, he fought and clawed for the right to a fifth term (i.e., 30 years) in the U.S. Senate, where he amassed a great deal of political power—if not much enthusiasm back home.
This race was personal for him. As Cornyn has previously acknowledged, he would’ve probably ceded his seat to an up-and-coming Republican who was more properly suited for the job. But to Paxton, the scandal-plagued man who had defiled the very attorney general’s office Cornyn once held himself? No way.
He and his super PAC allies deployed a whopping $71 million in ad spending backing his campaign and napalming Paxton over his various scandals, affairs, and other myriad shortcomings. That’s the most spent in support of any incumbent in a non-presidential primary ever.
To what end? As was revealed Tuesday night: a moderately stronger Cornyn performance than expected.
With nearly all the vote in late Wednesday morning, the incumbent was besting Paxton by about a point—defying most of the public polling. Houston-area Congressman Wesley Hunt had proved every bit the paper tiger and inevitable spoiler as he pulled in less than 15 percent of the GOP vote.
Onward, then, to what might be the bloodiest, most bruising, and most wince-inducing political primary Texas has seen in a very long time.
As Cornyn told reporters on election night: “I refuse to allow a flawed, self-centered and shameless candidate like Ken Paxton risk everything we’ve worked so hard to build over these many years. … Judgment Day is coming for Ken Paxton.”
And as he said in the leadup to the election, “I think it’s going to be a miserable experience for him. And I think whatever positive he enjoys today will evaporate. And so he’ll be even less electable.”
It’s difficult to imagine what more the Cornyn camp could dig up and blast out on the airwaves that hasn’t already been put out there—and which has yet to sink Paxton. But that doesn’t mean they won’t commence with almost 90 days of firebombing anyway.
As for Paxton, he remains defiant as ever, despite his somewhat lackluster performance. Speaking on Tuesday night, he said: “After all the personal attacks … after all the lies, you listened to what John Cornyn was selling and you weren’t buying.”
Indeed, Paxton may be right. He knows better than perhaps any other politician apart from his Supreme Leader Donald Trump that even the most repugnant personal and legal scandals are often not enough to fell a MAGA warrior. On the other hand, an establishment Republican who first entered office as a Bushie conservative nearly 25 years ago, and who has had a tenuous relationship with the Trump faction of his party? Now that’s someone who may be ripe for a fall—especially in a runoff contest.
It’s a truism of Texas politics that an incumbent who is forced into a runoff is not long for his or her electoral world. As the thinking goes, a politician who enjoys the powerful benefits of elected office but cannot muster more than 50 percent of his party’s base voters in March will not likely be able to do so in a runoff contest after nearly three painfully long months.
Cornyn doesn’t accept this destiny—at least not yet. Perhaps he can lean on the fact that his runoff opponent is one of the most scandal-riddled politicians in state history—a man who, for what it’s worth in either direction, did survive his own runoff four years ago. (The fact that the man Paxton bested was George P. Bush, a Texas Republican decidedly in the Cornyn mold, may not lend as much comfort to the senator.)
And then there’s the Trump of it all. Despite persistent pleas, the president stayed out of this primary fight, backing neither Cornyn—more likely to help hold a Senate majority—nor Paxton, more likely to help Trump put a final end to the role of personal morality in politics. It seems possible the president could break this truce in the weeks to come.
Anyway, buckle up y’all, because the Republicans are fighting. As Trump’s former campaign manager and now-Cornyn operative Chris Lacivita posted last night in a warning to Paxton and his rival campaign manager Jeff Roe: “The second wave is going to be a bitch…”
There were plenty more high-octane races up and down the Republican primary ballot Tuesday.
Let’s start with the open race to succeed Paxton as attorney general. This primary featured four GOP candidates: right-wing Congressman Chip Roy, state Senator Mayes Middleton, state Senator Joan Huffman, and former Paxton deputy Aaron Reitz.
Reitz, who was Paxton’s endorsed candidate and who briefly served in Trump’s DOJ, had promised to use the OAG “to destroy the left.” Alas, he won’t be able to do so, as he was unable to first destroy anyone on the right, coming in last with about 14 percent. Tough luck for him and his former boss.
The biggest surprise was that Mayes Middleton, a conservative state senator and uber-wealthy oil heir from the Houston/Galveston region, ended up coming in first—fueled by over $12 million of his own money and a self-given nickname in “MAGA Mayes.” All that was missing? Practically any real legal experience.
Middleton managed to purchase himself just shy of 40 percent of the vote, ensuring a runoff contest with the presumed frontrunner in the race, Roy, who got just over 30 percent.
Roy, a boisterous limited-government conservative who’s oft proven an obstacle to Trump’s priorities in Congress, is a longtime player in Texas right-wing circles. He was Ted Cruz’s first chief of staff in the Senate and practically served as AG in absentia for Paxton, before the latter grew tired of Roy getting credit for running his office and they split on nasty terms. Roy later called for Paxton to get impeached. Roy and Middleton will be a runoff to watch.
Further down the ballot, former state senator and tea-party firebrand Don Huffines easily won the primary contest for the Texas Comptroller post, which controls the state’s money, budgeting, state contracts, and more. Huffines ran on a promise to DOGE-ify state government—which is sure to go smoothly.
Notably, in doing so he handily bested the Acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock, who was plucked from the state Senate and installed to that position by his political ally Governor Greg Abbott, who did seemingly everything in his power to help Hancock get elected. To no avail.
Abbott did succeed however in ousting his political nemesis, Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller in favor of the Frisco-based honey purveyor Nate Sheets. What a ride.
Christian nationalist right-winger Bo French, who left his post as Tarrant County GOP chair to run for Texas Railroad Commission, managed to force a runoff with incumbent Jim Wright by running on a platform promising to use the powers of the oil-and-gas regulator to… stop Sharia law in Texas, among other things.
A few other down-ballot surprises (or not-so-surprises) for Republican incumbents: One-time GOP phenom and star of his own campaign action movies, Congressman Dan Crenshaw, was demolished by Conroe state Representative Steve Toth, who was boosted by a last-minute Trump endorsement. And scandalized Congressman Tony Gonzales was once again forced into a rematch runoff, even finishing second Tuesday, with gun-obsessed YouTuber Brandon Herrera.
Lastly, Republican state Representative Stan Kitzman, tagged by the right-wing enforcement forces of Texas as too moderate, was ousted by a man named “Goose” Geesaman.
