The GOP Can Still Avoid Shooting Itself in the Foot in Texas

National Review Online

Wednesday, March 04, 2026

 

So far in the Texas Senate race, it’s the worst case for Republicans.

 

While Democrats decisively chose State Representative James Talarico over Dallas-area Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett — a clear vote in favor of perceived electability over “Resistance”-themed television celebrity — the Republicans have sent their Senate contest into overtime, in what projects to be an expensive contest with the two contenders, incumbent Senator John Cornyn and state Attorney General Ken Paxton, continuing to maul one another.

 

The only way it could get worse for the GOP is if Paxton wins.

 

That outcome looks less likely than it did 24 hours ago. Cornyn has long looked vulnerable, but instead of placing well behind Paxton on Tuesday as expected, he held his ground, showing unexpected strength in many of Paxton’s regional strongholds. The senator currently leads 42–41 with 96 percent of the vote counted, and although that gap may tighten, most expected his first-round result to be far worse (with three major candidates in the race, the primary was always destined for a second round). Cornyn thus emerges from the first round bruised but standing firmly on his feet, with a real fighting chance in the May runoff.

 

With the Republican race yet unresolved, GOP voters in the Lone Star State now have a breathing spell to consider the gravity of the choice offered to them on May 26: Democratic voters showed discipline in rejecting their own flashy bomb thrower in favor of a plausible statewide candidate. Will Republicans do the same?

 

It is important to note, preliminarily, that both Democrats and the mainstream media are overstating Talarico’s statewide appeal (and for similar reasons). Talarico has an indifferent public affect — to put it charitably — and no legislative track record to speak of. He is perhaps most famous in conservative circles for stating his conviction that “God is nonbinary” on the floor of Texas House in 2021, and conservatives have wasted little time informing the rest of the state’s voters about it, as well as about his Democratic-coded position on illegal immigration. Temperamentally, he is a poor fit for his state’s sensibilities, as Austin politicians typically are in a state whose major population centers outnumber and historically resent the capital region’s politics.

 

But Ken Paxton’s ethical, legal, and personal problems are known to all in the State of Texas; he has more baggage than could fit in the belly of a 747. Indicted by Texas authorities in 2015 for securities fraud, he delayed prosecution for nearly a decade before taking a plea deal in 2024. In 2020, several of Paxton’s top aides went to the attorney general’s office of human resources with complaints that Paxton was using his position to funnel business to his real estate friends and had forced the office to hire his mistress. Paxton fired all of the aides, and then in 2023 agreed to pay them a whistleblower settlement of $3.3 million. This wasn’t enough to prevent Paxton from being impeached — by his own Republican House, to be clear — or to prevent his wife (State Senator Angela Paxton) from filing for divorce on “biblical grounds.”

 

Were he to win the nomination, the Texas Senate race would instantly become the most expensive contest in the nation, with national Republicans pouring in resources that could be better deployed elsewhere. The choice in May is thus between a well-known Republican in Cornyn — who immediately reverts the Senate race to a standard R-versus-D matchup — and a wild card in Paxton, whose personal foibles threaten to hand six years of Texas Senate representation to a true-believing progressive.

 

With Republicans already facing national headwinds, this is not the year for the GOP to take a flier on a risky candidate, and Paxton is unworthy of an elevation regardless.

 

Donald Trump has announced his intent to endorse a candidate in the race “soon,” with some journalists hinting that he will back Cornyn. That would be the correct choice. The road to a Democratic Senate in 2026 runs directly through the State of Texas, and Republican voters have the power to decide whether it remains blocked or the gates are suddenly thrown open.