Democrat James Talarico casts scandal-plague GOP nominee as the 'most corrupt politician in America' in a fall race that shakes up the 2026 Senate mapShow Caption
Ken Paxton, backed by Donald Trump, defeated incumbent John Cornyn in the Texas Republican Senate primary runoff.Paxton will face Democratic state Rep. James Talarico in a general election that some political observers believe could be competitive.In a Houston-area congressional race, freshman Rep. Christian Menefee defeated longtime Democratic Rep. Al Green.President Donald Trump's purge of Republicans who have dared to defy him reached a new height on May 26 with the ousting Texas Sen. John Cornyn.A four-term pillar of the GOP establishment, Cornyn once climbed to his party's No. 2 leadership post in the upper chamber of Congress.But even with the support of Senate leadership and a fundraising edge, the 74-year-old lawmaker lost a bitter runoff race to state Attorney General Ken Paxton, a scandal-plagued but MAGA-coded conservative who was endorsed by the president.The Associated Press, Fox News and other outlets called the race for Paxton roughly an hour after the polls closed.Trump's endorsement came a week before the election after almost two months of fruitless lobbying by Cornyn's allies. It opened a rift among Republicans in the Lone Star State and in Washington, pitting Cornyn's perceived electability against Paxton's unflinching loyalty to Trump.While Cornyn was a reliable conservative vote in Congress, he had expressed reservations about Trump's 2024 presidential candidacy.Paxton now moves forward to the fall campaign against state Rep. James Talarico, 37, the Democratic nominee and a Presbyterian seminarian who has some in his party believing they could win a Texas Senate race for the first time since 1988."Now, we must unite to defeat the most well-funded, radical Democrat in America," Paxton said in a May 26 post on X.Further down the ballot, voters had to deal with the Texas legislature reshuffling the state's congressional map to increase Republican representation that forced Democratic incumbents to face off in the primary.Here are the main takeaways from the May 26 results.Upending Texas politics, Paxton credits Trump with victoryPaxton trounced Cornyn in almost every corner of the state, doing far better than he had in the March 3 primary.Preliminary results showed Cornyn losing by 26 percentage points, with about 70% of the votes counted, an astounding setback for a fixture of Texas politics once connected to the George W. Bush machine.Paxton's victory also underscores how fealty to the president remains the most potent issue within GOP politics, even at a time when Trump's approval numbers are sinking outside of the Republican base.The president backed Paxton despite concerns from Senate Republicans that the scandal-plagued attorney general was less electable than Cornyn."When everyone in Washington told him to abandon me and abandon the people of Texas, he didn’t listen," Paxton said during his victory speech.Can Democrats make Texas competitive again?Talarico maintained that it didn't matter who won the GOP primary but observers across the spectrum have speculated that Paxton is more vulnerable to a Democratic upset in the heavily Republican state.Trump easily won Texas by 14 percentage points in 2024, but Paxton was impeached by the Republican-led Texas House on bribery charges in 2023. (He was acquitted by the GOP-led state Senate.)The 63-year-old attorney general made headlines again in 2025 when his wife, Angela Paxton, a state legislator, announced on X the two were getting a divorce. She said the split was based on "biblical grounds" after being married almost four decades."Ken Paxton is the most corrupt politician in America," Talarico, who has made his Christian faith and values central to his political identity, said in a May 26 video released almost immediately after the results were called. "He embodies the broken system we’re running against. It's time to come together: The People vs. Ken Paxton."Talarico also thanked Cornyn "for his years representing our state," adding that while the two don't agree on much, his supporters, "have a place in our campaign."Trump, GOP ready to unleash on TalaricoThe nonpartisan Cook Political Report changed Texas' rating from a "likely" Republican state to a "lean" Republican state soon after Paxton's win.A poll by Texas Southern University's Barbara Jordan Public Policy Research and Survey Center released earlier this month showed Paxton and Talarico tied at 45%.But before Democrats start gloating about Texas being within their grasp, conservative activists have a warning of their own."We really believe that that there are multiple points of weakness when you start looking at a candidate like James Talarico, and we're going to prosecute that case," Gregg Keller, spokesman for the pro-Paxton Lone Star Liberty PAC, told USA TODAY."This guy has a history of showing he is completely out of step with where mainstream Texans are and, frankly, completely out of step with where mainstream Americans are in general."Trump had already begun calling Talarico a "a weird candidate," and mocking the Democratic nominee on several fronts, mostly culture war issues.The president, for instance, has said Talarico believes there are "six genders," an attack referencing his objections to a April 2021 Texas bill that would have required public school students to play on athletic teams based their assigned sex at birth.Paxton appeared to echo some of these narratives when he launched his attacks on Talarico after winning the GOP nomination. He lobbed nicknames for his Democratic opponent out to the crowd, calling him "low-T Talarico."Dems make a generational choice in Houston-based districtWhen Texas Republicans created new congressional maps last year at Trump’s behest, it forced several lawmakers to run against members of their own party.Among them was a Democratic battle that took shape along generational lines between longtime Rep. Al Green, 78, and freshman Rep. Christian Menefee, 38, jousting over a newly created Houston-based district.Neither crossed the needed 50 percent threshold in their previous primary showdown back in March, but preliminary runoff results on May 26 showed Menefee prevailing with about 68% of the vote. That makes Green, who was first elected in 2004, the first Democratic incumbent to lose a primary election this year.Since the 2024 presidential election Democrats have been debating if elder leaders, such as Green, known for interrupting Trump's speeches, have stayed in office for too long. Across the country younger progressives have launched primaries against veteran incumbents. Some of those older incumbents, such as 87-year-old Rep. Maxine Waters, are doubling down on their future.During this campaign Menefee emphasized generational change, while Green -- facing stiff opposition from the crypto industry -- argued his seniority is vital in Congress."While Green represents protest politics and likes to disrupt things and pressure change to those inside, Menafee is an institutional reformer who is willing to work from the inside out to make change. It is quite a change for sure," Brandon Rottinghaus, a University of Houston political science professor, told USA TODAY. The 2024 Democratic Senate nominee, Colin Allred, a former member of Congress, faces a similar fight to survive in a runoff against Rep. Julie Johnson.Trump-backed veteran Carlos De La Cruz faces state Rep. John Lujan in the key down-ballot runoff for the GOP.Chip Roy fails to win attorney general primaryThe race to replace Paxton as the state's attorney general saw a MAGA v. MAGA runoff brawl featuring U.S. Rep. Chip Roy and state Sen. Mayes Middleton, with neither receiving formal backing from Trump or Paxton.That resulted in a split among state party leaders in a primary filled with attack ads.Roy, a hardline conservative in Congress backed by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, has been at odds with House leadership and the White House at times. During the 2024 Republican presidential primary, for example, he supported Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and initially opposed Trump's signature "one, big beautiful bill" before eventually supporting the measure.But with the help of GOP megadonors and a surprising $8 million fundraising effort in the last week of the contest, he was able to blitz Middleton, an oil company president who dropped $3 million to his own campaign.Trump stayed out of the race but that didn't stop Middleton from calling himself "MAGA Mayes" in an attempt to curry favor with Trump supporters. That appeared to work enough to give Middleton an 11-point victory.Contributing: Terry Collins, Sarah D. Wire
