Ken Paxton emerged victorious Tuesday in the GOP primary runoff, ousting U.S. Sen. John Cornyn from the seat he’s held for more than two decades and potentially ending the 74-year-old’s political career.
Paxton will face Democratic nominee James Talarico, who defeated Jasmine Crockett in March, for the statewide Senate seat in November. Talarico’s campaign responded to the news of Paxton’s win with a video message calling Paxton the most corrupt politician in America. Talarico, a state representative from Round Rock, is scheduled to rally supporters at a campaign kickoff in Houston on Wednesday evening.
The Associated Press called the race in favor of Paxton, who currently serves as Texas attorney general, just after early voting and mail-in ballots were counted. At the time, Paxton already had 63 percent of the vote, likely bolstered by last week’s endorsement from President Donald Trump.
The race between Cornyn and Paxton was a bloodbath. Cornyn and his allies spent an estimated $100 million on the campaign, making it the most expensive Senate primary in U.S. history. In a statement issued Tuesday evening, Talarico appeared prepared for a heated contest.
“This election will be an indictment of the broken, corrupt political system that Ken Paxton embodies — the system that makes everything more expensive for working Texans by prioritizing billionaire mega-donors over people,” Talarico said. “The way to fix it is clear: working people coming together across partisan divides — The People vs. Ken Paxton.”
Talarico supporters have said it will be easier to defeat Paxton than Cornyn because Paxton doesn’t have the advantage of incumbency and has been embattled for years in scandals, including accusations of securities fraud, adultery and abuse of power.
University of Houston political science lecturer Nancy Sims said the Trump endorsement probably motivated Paxton voters who hadn’t already voted early to go to the polls.
“Trump and Paxton are kindred spirits,” Sims said. “They’ve both been accused of many, many things, and their political careers have not suffered as a result. It wasn’t surprising to see him side with Paxton.”
Sims added that it’s difficult to predict whether Talarico or any other Democrat can win a statewide office this year because a lot can happen between now and November, and the President is so unpredictable. “Today, Trump’s popularity ratings are sitting at about 30 percent,” Sims said. “If that anger at him continues, you could see a complete turnover.”
Renee Cross, senior executive director and researcher at the University of Houston’s Hobby School of Public Affairs, has said that if any statewide seat is going to flip from red to blue this election cycle, it’s likely to be the U.S. Senate seat. Paxton, however, appeared confident Tuesday night that Texas will remain a Republican stronghold.
“Thank you, Texas,” he wrote on X around 8:20 p.m. “Now we must unite to defeat the most well-funded, radical Democrat in America.”
Mealer Defeats Cain
Former Harris County judge hopeful Alex Mealer defeated state Rep. Briscoe Cain, R-Deer Park, in the race for U.S. Congressional District 9, a seat formerly held by longtime Democratic Congressman Al Green.
Mealer, who ran as Alexandra del Moral Mealer in 2022 against County Judge Lina Hidalgo, had secured 69 percent of the vote in Tuesday’s runoff with about half of the precincts in the district reporting.
Cain has argued that Mealer doesn’t even live in District 9 and grew up vacationing in Nantucket with her Hollywood media mogul grandfather, Armando del Moral. Cain says he grew up in the district with working-class parents and touted his 10 years as state rep, during which he pursued conservative legislation, including the pro-life Texas Heartbeat Act.
Mealer, also endorsed by Trump, has never held elected office. Four years ago, she lost to Hidalgo by less than 20,000 votes and challenged the outcome, alleging voter suppression due to complications at the polls. Mealer later dropped the lawsuit and was appointed to serve on the METRO board of directors.
Mealer has said her priorities as a U.S. Congress member will be to secure the border, create American jobs and “defend our Texas values.” She will face Democratic nominee Leticia Gutierrez, a Houston-area community organizer and environmental justice advocate, in November.
Attorney General
Hoping to replace Paxton as attorney general are Sen. Nathan Johnson, D-Dallas, and Sen. Mayes Middleton, R-Galveston. With more than half of the statewide precincts reporting, Johnson was leading former Galveston Mayor Joe Jaworski with about 60 percent of the vote. Middleton was leading U.S. Congressman Chip Roy with 55.8 percent of the vote.
Johnson has said he’ll restore decorum to the AG’s office. “I don’t think the attorney general is there to behave as Ken Paxton has, which is just to light Trump up with lawsuits,” Johnson said. “Oh, I will light Trump up with lawsuits, but that can’t be an agenda in and of itself. The agenda is protecting Texans’ individual rights and protecting Texas’ state rights. An attorney general should be facilitating good government.”
Johnson said that during his four terms in the Senate, he earned a reputation for highlighting hypocrisy and calling out cruelty and irresponsibility. “The attorney general is a very different office but the politics are in the same environment,” he said. “It’s not just a lawyer filing lawsuits. You’re working with the Legislature to pass new legislation, to guide the legislative process, to advise agencies on what they can and cannot do, and to maybe pop an opinion off and tell the governor that he’s overreached and get some attention on an issue so we can have people respecting the separation of powers.”
Middleton is known for his allegiance to Trump — referring to himself in campaign ads as “MAGA Mayes” — and using his personal wealth as an oil and gas heir to fund GOP candidates and causes. He’s spent $16 million of his own money on the AG’s race so far. However, as evidenced by Cornyn’s expensive campaign for the U.S. Senate, the biggest spender doesn’t always win.
In a May 23 interview with Austin TV station KVUE, Middleton reminded voters that he’s the candidate most aligned with Trump’s GOP and that the most important job of the attorney general is “defeating the left.”
“This is a show-me-don’t-tell me business,” he said of Texas politics. “We are tired of politicians telling us what they’re going to do. They’ve got to show us the results, and that’s exactly what I can do. I took on the woke left and the radical gender ideology and won. I authored and passed a Save Women’s Sports Law, which kicks perverted men out of women’s restrooms and locker rooms. I took on the atheists and defeated them and got prayer and the Ten Commandments back in schools.”
The fight over the Ten Commandments wasn’t actually against “the atheists.” There were Christian pastors and parents who sued to block the law requiring Bible passages be displayed on the walls of every public school classroom, arguing the need for separation of church and state and claiming that children should learn about religion from their parents rather than in public school classrooms.
Middleton has also aligned himself with Paxton in attacking the civil rights group Council on American-Islamic Relations and Muslims who practice Sharia law, the sacred religious and moral code of Islam, derived from the Quran.
“I stopped these radical Muslim groups like CAIR and Muslim Brotherhood from buying any property in Texas,” Middleton said. “I’m taking on one of our biggest threats, which is Sharia law and Islamification. Sharia law is organized crime, period. I will treat it as such in the attorney general’s office.”
Lieutenant Governor
State Rep. Vikki Goodwin, D-Austin, defeated union leader Marcos Velez on Tuesday, securing 68 percent of the vote with more than half of the state’s precincts reporting. Goodwin has been in office for seven years and held the lead in polling throughout the campaign. However, some Democratic groups rallied in the final days before the runoff to support Velez because of his union background.
It will be challenging for Goodwin to win in November against Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who handily secured the GOP nomination in the March primary. Goodwin told the Houston Press earlier this year that her priorities are public education, clean water and energy, housing affordability, and comprehensive healthcare. She also wants to lead the Senate in a more efficient way that gives a voice to elected officials from both parties.
Last weekend, Goodwin called out the Texas Majority Party Political Action Committee, which she says offered a “civic education program” that promoted Velez and paid participants $100. Goodwin called the initiative an effort to manipulate voters.
