Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton just defeated four-term U.S. Senator John Cornyn in what's being called the most expensive Senate primary on record, and the Republican establishment is going to need a minute. Or a therapist. Possibly both.
Let that sink in. The man Democrats tried to impeach just evicted the GOP's longest-serving insider from his own seat. Beautiful.
CBS News projected Paxton's victory on May 27, and the shockwave hasn't stopped. Cornyn — the guy who pulled 53.5% of the statewide vote in 2020, the man who spent decades accumulating Washington power like a squirrel hoarding acorns — just got sent home by the attorney general that the entire political establishment tried to bury. They threw everything they had at Paxton, and he's still standing. Cornyn? He's updating his LinkedIn.
President Trump endorsed Paxton in the Texas Republican Senate primary runoff, and once again, the Trump endorsement proved to be the political equivalent of a freight train. When Trump backs you, you win. When the establishment fights you, it just makes the victory sweeter. Cornyn learned that lesson the hard way.
Paxton himself referenced Trump's loyalty during the campaign, noting in a post shared by CBS News: "When everyone in Washington told him to abandon me..." He didn't need to finish the sentence. We all know how it ends. Trump didn't abandon him, and the voters didn't either.
This wasn't just a primary. This was a referendum on what the Republican Party actually is now. The old guard — the Cornyn wing, the go-along-to-get-along crowd that spent years cutting deals in DC while the base got angrier — just found out they don't own this party anymore. The voters do. And the voters chose the fighter over the dealmaker.
The establishment types are going to spend the next week writing think pieces about how this is "bad for the party" and "risks electability" and all the usual hand-wringing nonsense. Save it. Cornyn had every institutional advantage money could buy in what was literally the most expensive Senate primary ever run, and he still lost. That's not a fluke. That's a message.
As United Voice reported, this race has reshaped the power dynamics of the Texas GOP entirely. The MAGA wing isn't some fringe faction anymore — it IS the party. And Ken Paxton, the guy they impeached, investigated, and tried to politically assassinate, is now headed to the United States Senate.
The establishment got evicted from their own house, and the guy holding the eviction notice is smiling ear to ear. Texas just sent Washington a message they won't be able to ignore.