US President Donald Trump further cemented his grip over the Republican Party on Tuesday as his favored candidate in a bitter Texas primary runoff, scandal-plagued Ken Paxton, trounced incumbent Senator John Cornyn.
Paxton’s resounding victory, quickly called by Fox News and CNN after polls closed, underscored Trump’s continued power to make or break Republican political careers — even as lawmakers on Capitol Hill begin to rebel over the Iran war, his White House ballroom project and a compensation fund for his allies.
Cornyn, a four-term senator and former Republican whip, began the year as the establishment favorite.
Trump’s late endorsement transformed the race, giving Paxton a decisive boost and leaving Cornyn as the latest Republican incumbent punished after falling out of step with the president.
The result once again exposed the central tension facing Republicans ahead of November’s midterm elections: a Trump endorsement can be decisive in a primary, but the president often favors hard-right candidates whom party strategists fear could prove weaker in a general election.
Paxton, Texas’s attorney general, has survived years of legal, ethical and personal scandal, including a 2023 impeachment by the Republican-led Texas House, allegations of bribery and misconduct and a messy divorce.
The 63-year-old was acquitted by the Texas Senate after his impeachment trial and has long cast the allegations against him as politically motivated.
Cornyn by contrast was a straight-laced institutional conservative who had represented Texas in the Senate since 2002 and built deep ties with the state’s donor class and Republican leadership in Washington.
On Tuesday Paxton won easily, with more than 60 percent of the votes, US media reported.
At a victory party Tuesday night he thanked Trump. “When everyone in Washington told him to abandon me and abandon the people of Texas, he didn’t listen,” Paxton said. He called Trump’s endorsement “the most powerful force in politics.”
Source: Insider Paper
