Ken Paxton beat John Cornyn in a Republican primary that cost more than $100 million, and a large part of his own party spent that money trying to stop him. Understanding why requires going through the list.
Where do things stand?
- Paxton, the Texas attorney general, defeated Sen. John Cornyn in the May 26, 2026 Republican runoff, ending three decades of Cornyn’s dominance in Texas.
- Paxton had Trump’s endorsement.
- The primary cost Republicans more than $100 million.
- He faces Democratic state Rep. James Talarico in November.
Why Republicans fought him
The objection from inside his own party is not ideological. Paxton is a conservative in a conservative state. It is about the record.
- In 2023 he was impeached by a Republican-controlled Texas House on bribery and corruption allegations. The Texas Senate acquitted him.
- Senate Republicans argued publicly that his baggage could put a reliably Republican seat in play, which is the only argument that ever moves a party committee.
- His wife announced she was divorcing him on biblical grounds.
Cornyn’s summary of his opponent was unusually blunt for a colleague.
Unrepentant for all the scandals he’s been involved in and who doesn’t really care about anything else other than himself.
Sen. John Cornyn
The BeezLoop Take
The impeachment is the fact that matters and it is the one that gets softened into the word scandal. A Republican-controlled state House, in Texas, voted to impeach a Republican attorney general. That does not happen because of a policy disagreement or a hostile press. It happens when members of your own party conclude in public that you did something disqualifying.
The acquittal is doing a lot of work for him and deserves the same scrutiny. He was acquitted by a Texas Senate presided over by a lieutenant governor who had taken money from his allies, in a chamber where his wife held a seat. That is not the same thing as exoneration, and treating a party-line acquittal as a clean bill of health is how the word scandal replaced the word impeached.
What the primary actually demonstrated is that inside the current Republican Party, an endorsement outranks a record. More than $100 million went into telling Texas Republicans that Paxton was a liability, from people with every incentive to be believed, and it lost to one post. Whatever anyone thinks of Paxton, that is the real finding, and it applies to every primary the party runs from here.
The general election is where the bill comes due or does not. Texas has not elected a Democrat statewide since 1994, and the honest expectation is that Paxton wins anyway, because partisanship beats biography almost everywhere now. If Talarico makes it close, the lesson Republicans take will be about candidate quality. If Paxton wins by ten, the lesson is that candidate quality does not exist as a category anymore.
If a Republican House impeaching a Republican attorney general is not disqualifying in a Republican primary, what is?
If a Republican House impeaching a Republican attorney general is not disqualifying in a Republican primary, what is? And does the answer differ for either party?
Related: Florida announced 20 voter fraud arrests against nearly 11 million ballots.
Sources: The Texas Tribune · NPR · NBC News · Texas Attorney General
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