Trump defeats the Republican establishment in Texas: Ken Paxton takes the nomination from veteran senator John Cornyn

Donald Trump has added another victory in Texas, underscoring MAGA’s firm grip on the Republican Party in this key state. His Senate pick, the controversial attorney general Ken Paxton, defeated veteran Republican senator John Cornyn by a wide margin. With the result, Paxton denies Cornyn the chance to seek a fifth term in Washington in the November midterm elections.

According to the AP, Paxton garnered 63.8% of the vote, securing wins in key counties that also backed Trump in the 2024 presidential election.

The Republican primary for the Texas Senate seat — which Cornyn has held for four terms — was considered one of the costliest in the country, with more than $135 million spent on advertising. It was also one of the most personal. Cornyn and Paxton — who had never lost an election — traded fierce blows during the campaign, spreading scandals, touting their conservative credentials, and arguing who was better positioned to win the November general election against state Senator James Talarico, the Democratic nominee.

This particular contest has been viewed as a showdown between the Republican Party’s traditional wing and the MAGA movement led by President Trump. It serves as a barometer of whether voters in this red state endorse the confrontational politics that propelled Trump to his first presidency 11 years ago or, alternatively, if they are ready to return to traditional Republican values.

Tuesday’s voting sets up a contest between Paxton and state representative from Austin Talarico, a rising Democratic star and major fundraiser — who ran a million-dollar Spanish-language Super Bowl ad that was shown only in Houston and also used influencers and singers in his campaign — and who won the Democratic primary largely on Latino votes in border counties. Republicans view Talarico as a threat. If he were to defeat Paxton on November 3, it would be the first time in more than 30 years that a Democrat represents Texas in the U.S. Senate.

Meanwhile, Trump is savoring another victory. In early and mid-May, Republican voters in Indiana and Kentucky followed his endorsements despite questions from politicians within his own party. The president was already clearing the way to assert control over his party without major dissent.

In Indiana’s state Senate primaries, five of his seven endorsed candidates won against senators who had dared to challenge Trump in his effort to redraw electoral maps in favor of the Republican Party. Those races, which might have gone unnoticed in another context, became another gauge of his voter support.

And the same occurred in mid-May in Kentucky. Ed Gallrein, a little-known 68-year-old farmer and former Navy SEAL, won the Republican primary in Kentucky’s fourth district over a popular GOP congressman who had repeatedly challenged Trump, the eccentric Thomas Massie.

The fight for the party’s voters

Paxton, who branded himself in the campaign as the MAGA choice, entered Tuesday’s primary strengthened after Trump endorsed his candidacy at the last minute a week earlier, following months of heated contest during which the president had not clearly weighed in.

Trump’s backing of Paxton arrived while early voting was already underway and was a direct rebuke to party leaders who had urged him to support Cornyn. The president and his MAGA supporters, including Paxton, labeled Cornyn a “disloyal” Republican; some voters even told the media that choosing the senator as the nominee would be tantamount to supporting a Democrat.

Cornyn, who beat Paxton by a razor-thin 42%-41% margin in the March primaries and therefore failed to secure the Republican nomination at the first attempt, is seen by the Republican establishment as a traditional candidate, better positioned and less vulnerable in the kind of general election expected in November.

Cornyn describes himself as a Reagan Republican, someone with legitimacy within the party’s conservative tradition. He said the Republican Texas Senate seat was at stake with Paxton’s victory.

On the campaign trail, Cornyn attacked his rival with nicknames such as “corrupt Paxton” and accused him of enriching himself dramatically since taking office as Texas attorney general in 2015. In 2023 Paxton faced an impeachment trial in the state House of Representatives, then controlled by Republicans, on charges of bribery and corruption; the state Senate later acquitted him. Cornyn also attacked him over alleged infidelity to his wife, who — without providing details — filed for divorce for “biblical reasons.”

When asking for Republican voters’ support, Cornyn framed the choice as a dilemma: pick a “strong” candidate who could beat Talarico in November, or a “weak” one who would put everything they care about at risk.

With Paxton’s victory, the majority of the state’s voters turned their backs on the Republican establishment in Texas and sided with the president.

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