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By Jenni Fink and Alex J. Rouhandeh
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President Donald Trump got another endorsement win under his belt when Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton defeated incumbent Senator John Cornyn in the state's U.S. Senate primary on Tuesday, but it could deliver a defeat Republicans haven’t seen in over 30 years.
Trump wants allies in the Senate, and he’s used his platform and power to persuade voters to kick Cornyn out of office for being “very disloyal.” But Cornyn voted with Trump over 99 percent of the time, according to his campaign, and now, Trump risks losing a Republican in the Senate—however disappointed he may be with them—because an open seat is much easier for Democrats to flip than ousting an incumbent.
Incumbents win reelection about 75 percent of the time, and open seats account for a disproportionate share of flips. While flips don’t happen frequently, they’re nearly twice as likely to happen when an incumbent is not in the race, according to data analyzed by Newsweek.
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On Tuesday, Paxton, a MAGA firebrand, defeated Cornyn with 62.5 percent of the vote when the race was called, with 57 percent of the vote counted. He’ll now go on to face Democrat James Talarico in the general election in November.
Former Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan represents the state’s 21st District. He oversaw the Texas House’s impeachment of Paxton and successfully won reelection in 2024 despite being censured by the Texas Republican Party and facing a Trump-endorsed challenger in the GOP primary.
“I've said this a million times—Paxton’s lazy. So, with this Talarico-Paxton as the matchup, we have a problem in Texas because the guy's never been at the top of the ticket and had to run a major race. He's always been coattails.”
“There's a faction of Republican voters that will not vote for Ken Paxton under any circumstances,” Phelan told Newsweek. “If Democrats outperform 7-9 percent, and 2-3 percent of Republicans skip the race, that is a problem.”
“If it’s not a Talarico victory, we could see unexpected losses at the congressional ballot, maybe the state representatives, a couple of Senate seats, maybe some judges, who knows,” Phelan said. “No one saw us losing 12 Texas House seats in 2018, and I’d argue this environment is much worse.”
Trump’s Endorsement Angers Republicans
When Trump endorsed Paxton over incumbent Cornyn in one of the most consequential Republican primaries of the 2026 cycle, the reaction inside the GOP was immediate—and unusually blunt.
“How does that help strengthen the president’s hand when we lose a state like Texas?” Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska, told The Hill.
For decades, such a warning would have been unthinkable. Texas has been a cornerstone of Republican Senate power, a state the party has not lost in a Senate race since the early 1990s. But, now, Republicans see the state as vulnerable, and Senator Ted Cruz has been warning about Democratic inroads for years.
“Texas is a battlefield,” Cruz said ahead of his 2024 election. “It’s easy to be complacent. One of the real mistakes people make in politics is they have a recency bias. They say, well, whatever things have been recently, that’s what it’s going to be forever.”
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In 2012, Cruz won his first election by nearly 16 points. In 2024, that margin of victory decreased by half to only 8 points, and in 2018, he beat Democrat Beto O’Rourke by only about 2 points. Cornyn hasn’t seen the same drop, but his races have gotten closer. In his first race, he won by over 12 points, and in 2020, the last time he ran for reelection, he won by about 10 points. Significantly less than the drop that Cruz saw.
Cruz told CBS News 11 that he doesn’t believe Democrats will win statewide in the midterms, but that it’s a “real fight.” He argued that Talarico’s policy positions are “out of step” with what Texans want.
But Republicans are nervous about the upcoming election.
Senator Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, called Paxton an “ethically challenged individual” in reference to charges he faced for defrauding investors.
"I think the chances of the Democrats winning in Texas are better now than they've been in 25 years," Republican strategist Mike Madrid previously told Newsweek. "You have to have a favorable political environment for the Democrats. You have to have a remarkable Democratic candidate with crossover appeal, and they have that. And the third is you have to have a remarkably damaged Republican candidate, and they have that."
Trump's endorsement record is impressive, which, is part of the reason candidates want his backing. Frank Luntz, a pollster, posted on X, formerly Twitter that there is "zero doubt" that Trump is in control of the Republican Party, and that he can beat just about any candidate in any state.
"His name may not be on the ballot in November, but make no mistake: Nothing and no one will have a bigger impact on voter behavior," Luntz said.
Ken Paxton’s Win Divides Republican Resources
Paxton didn't just win the primary, he flipped nearly every county that Cornyn won back in March. Fox News' Bill Hemmer said after the results came in that the counties flipping in just over two months is "extraordinary."
Republicans have 24 seats to defend this year in the midterms, and Democrats have only 8. It’s already costing them millions of dollars across several states as they try to hold on to their majority, and Paxton’s win means they have yet another state to divert resources to.
Cornyn is a powerhouse fundraiser, raising over $26 million for his campaign, including from former President George W. Bush and Rupert Murdoch, former chairman of News Corp. Paxton, in contrast, has raised about $8 million.
Cornyn has said that he’d support whichever candidate wins the runoff election, but his campaign questioned whether his supporters would donate to Paxton.
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“His supporters appreciate the way he conducts himself,” Matt Mackowiak, a spokesperson for Cornyn, told The Washington Post. “You can’t just transfer relationships built over two decades.”
Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch ally of Trump, told CNN that he’s confident Republicans will win Texas, regardless of who wins the primary runoff. He said Trump’s endorsement is the “most powerful” one in “modern American politics,” and it’s up to him who he wants to endorse.
But Graham said Paxton will “cost more money.”
And, in a midterm where they have “a lot of ground” to defend, according to Senate Majority Leader John Thune, those extra costs mean they need to do more fundraising or divert resources from somewhere else.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Senator Kirsten Gillibrand said in a statement to Newsweek that Paxton winning is a "nightmare scenario" that puts Democrats "one step closer to winning a Senate majority."
“Ken Paxton is so corrupt that even his own party tried to remove him from office, and during his tenure as Attorney General, criminals have walked free while Paxton and his wealthy donors have profited at the expense of Texas families. Texas voters will reject Paxton’s corrupt, self-serving politics and elect James Talarico," Schumer and Gillibrand said.
Ken Paxton Net Worth
Paxton's salary as Attorney General is about $150,000 per year, and in 2018, Paxton claimed on a document to a lender that his net worth was about $5.5 million, according to the Wall Street Journal. In 2019, he added another $2.2 million to his net worth, according to the Wall Street Journal. Paxton also reportedly has millions of dollars in stock investments that are being held in a blind trust for himself and his wife.
A home that Paxton owns in the Dallas suburbs is worth an estimated $2.2 million, according to Zillow estimates.
James Talarico’s Chances of Winning Election, According to Polls
Polls show Talarico making for a tight race, but Cornyn had a slight edge over Paxton. In a May poll from the Barbara Jordan Public Policy Research and Survey Center, Cornyn beat Talarico 45 percent to 44 percent, within the margin of error. In a head-to-head matchup with Paxton, Talarico and the Republican are tied at 45 percent each.
In an April poll from the University of Texas, Talarico came out on top in a head-to-head matchup with Cornyn by 7 points. In a head-to-head matchup with Paxton, Talarico fairs slightly better, winning by eight points.
In 2018, Cruz nearly lost to O’Rourke in one of the closest Senate races in Texas in years. At this point in the 2018 election, Cruz was beating O’Rourke by 11 points in a Quinnipiac poll. That was a significantly better position for Republicans in 2018 than they’re in now, according to polling.
After the race was called, Jessica Taylor, Senate and Governors Editor at Cook Political Report, said they were changing their prediction for the seat from "likely Republican" to "lean Republican."
"Democratic nominee James Talarico will have the money to continue to put Paxton on defense and reach out to independents and moderate Republicans who may be turned off by Paxton’s brash conservatism and checkered history of corruption. But Talarico’s cultural liberalism could alienate those same potential crossover voters," Taylor said in a statement. "Though polling shows the general election close or even tied, we don’t give Talarico an even chance just yet, though the contest could eventually shift into the Toss Up category."
Texas has not suddenly become a state where Democrats can easily win statewide. Republicans still hold structural advantages, from voter registration patterns to historical voting trends. But the margin for error may have narrowed.
Polling shows a competitive race, and Republicans are internally divided. Meanwhile, Democrats are energized and well-positioned to capitalize, and Cruz acknowledged that they’re angry, which could mobilize people.
“They hate Donald Trump, they’re motivated to show up,” Cruz said.
Whether warnings from Republicans prove valid or overplayed will depend on how powerful Trump’s endorsement is in Texas among general election voters, their ability to convince Cornyn’s voters to cast ballots for Paxton, and how many resources they want to devote to Texas. But one thing Tuesday’s primaries made clear is that what was once a likely safe seat for Republicans is now less certain.
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