A gapingly vast money pit has just opened up for both parties in the Lone Star State.
Round one of the Texas primary race has concluded, and what a mess it is for the Republican Party. Without further ado, let’s don our work clothes, grab our battered swabs, and get to work mopping up the blood and entrails.
The Republican Senate primary is set for a May runoff election. One mild surprise on the night was the showing of Senator John Cornyn; while every observer expected a runoff, most assumed that Ken Paxton would finish comfortably ahead of Cornyn in the first round. Instead, with almost all votes now counted, Cornyn is currently edging out Paxton by 42 to 41 percent.
The problem is that with Wesley Hunt no longer in the race, the expectation is that Paxton will collect most of his 13.5 percent share of the vote in May (after all, these are voters who have already chosen to reject Cornyn). I will not re-explain here why Paxton poses a unique challenge to the GOP’s ability to hold an otherwise safe Republican Senate seat; my archives are easily searched. My opinion of him notwithstanding, Paxton remains very well positioned to win the nomination, unless Texas Republican voters rally to their senses next month.
And there is a chance that may happen, once the reality of what Republicans are facing in November sinks in. Texas Democrats themselves rejected the bait on Tuesday, decisively picking state representative James Talarico over celebrity bomb-thrower Jasmine Crockett by a margin of 53 percent to 47 percent. (And all this despite Kamala Harris’s last-minute endorsement. Better luck picking a winner next time, Kamala!)
On the one hand, this is the end of an era: We won’t have Jasmine Crockett to kick around anymore, which means I’ll need to find another scratching post to sharpen my rhetorical claws against. I won’t forget to pour one out for her tonight, just as I do for all my departed political homies — George Santos, Jamaal Bowman, Nancy Mace (believe me, just wait for it), etc. She was a valued performer in the Carnival of Fools, and her presence will be missed — mostly by me.
On the other hand, that means the Democrats have avoided stepping on a landmine and instead have chosen a candidate with real potential to win against someone as damaged as Paxton. We will wait until May, when the final matchup is set, but assuming Paxton becomes the nominee as predicted, the Texas Senate race now goes to DEFCON-1. Texas, with its numerous media markets, is an enormously expensive state to campaign in — and now, for the first time in years, both parties will desperately need to. A gapingly vast money pit has just opened up for both parties in the Lone Star State.
In the world of House primaries, there was at least one surprise outcome: Republican Representative Dan Crenshaw of Texas’s Second District was bounced from his seat by conservative challenger Steve Toth. Crenshaw’s various disagreements with the Trump administration sealed his fate, but the thumping margin (56–40 in favor of Toth, with 96 percent of votes in) is proof enough that getting crosswise with MAGA remains a political death sentence in the Republican primary unless your name is Brian Kemp.
Meanwhile, in Texas’s 23rd district, I could not be more pleased to report that Brandon Herrera — who came agonizingly close to knocking off incumbent Tony Gonzales in 2024 — is currently running ahead of Gonzales 43–42 and looks well-positioned to consolidate the rest of the protest vote against him in the runoff. No need to demand his retirement when the fine residents of West Texas can simply retire him themselves in May, which I hope they do.
And that is when I will return to this beat once again, to survey the final lay of the land. In the meantime, gird your loins and pray that Texans are not handed a Paxton vs. Talarico matchup. Far too many on the right are smugly complacent about Republican voting strength in Texas. “A Democrat winning statewide? It can’t happen here!” It may well yet.