The Final Move Before Voting Begins

Ken Paxton's campaign made a notable strategic shift in the closing hours of the Texas GOP Senate runoff: it stopped running negative ads against incumbent John Cornyn.

According to PBS News, Paxton's campaign pulled the attack spots after President Trump endorsed the attorney general Tuesday. The campaign then redirected its fire toward Democratic nominee James Talarico, the state representative who will face whoever wins Tuesday.

Paxton's pullback suggests his campaign believes the primary fight is already decided.

What's Actually at Stake

The Texas Tribune laid out what this race is really about: the soul of the Texas Republican Party.

On one side, Cornyn — a 24-year Senate veteran, self-described Reagan Republican, and the guy who cut a bipartisan gun deal in 2022 and reportedly questioned Trump's electability in 2023. On the other, Paxton — the attorney general who showed up at Trump's 2022 campaign launch when almost nobody else would, led the legal effort to overturn the 2020 election results, and survived an impeachment by his own party in 2023.

Thirteen months. $135 million spent. According to the Texas Tribune, this race nominally began last April but its roots go back years. Every grudge, every vote, every loyalty test has been on the table.

Trump's Endorsement Went Against His Own Senate Leadership

Trump's endorsement of Paxton went directly against the recommendation of Senate Majority Leader John Thune and the broader Republican political machine in Washington, according to the Texas Tribune.

The sitting president endorsed a candidate to replace a sitting senator over the objection of his own Senate leader. That signals Trump is overruling Thune's judgment in a very public way.

For Cornyn, who chairs no small amount of Senate influence, that's a brutal public rebuke.

Paxton's Pitch: The Fighter Narrative

At a rally in Dripping Springs outside Austin, Paxton opened with attacks on Talarico — not Cornyn — according to PBS News reporting by Jesse Bedayn and Thomas Beaumont of the Associated Press.

"He's a fighter, he's a person of action, he's proven that as attorney general," said Jeffrey Sonnier, 72, a Paxton supporter at the event. Of Cornyn, Sonnier said he "digs out to become a supposed active Republican MAGA person every six years."

That's the Paxton argument in one quote. Cornyn shows up when he needs votes. Paxton was there when it cost him something.

Trump's Track Record on Incumbent Ouster Bids Is Real

PBS News noted that Trump has successfully knocked out disloyal incumbents. U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky lost this week to Trump-backed Ed Gallrein. Trump also successfully defeated incumbents in Louisiana and Indiana.

If you're Cornyn, those aren't encouraging data points.

The Separate Democratic Mess Nobody's Covering

While the Cornyn-Paxton fight dominates headlines, the New York Times flagged a completely separate Texas primary drama: Democratic House candidate Maureen Galindo is fighting accusations of antisemitism from within her own party over comments she made about "Zionists."

Democratic leaders are reportedly trying to stop Galindo from winning the party's primary in a contested U.S. House district. The NYT coverage didn't provide specifics on what exactly Galindo said, but the fact that Democratic leadership is actively working against one of their own candidates days before a primary tells you the comment was serious enough to create real panic.

The mainstream left-leaning press is covering the Republican race wall-to-wall while this Democratic primary fight is getting minimal attention.

What Mainstream Media Is Missing

Most national coverage frames this as a MAGA purity test — Cornyn the reasonable institutionalist versus Paxton the dangerous extremist. That framing protects a narrative.

What it leaves out: Cornyn voted for a bipartisan gun bill that angered millions of his own constituents. He cast public doubt on Trump's electability. In a state where Republican primary voters are the actual electorate, those aren't minor sins — they're documented reasons voters might want someone else.

You can think Paxton's legal and ethical baggage is disqualifying while still acknowledging that Cornyn gave his base legitimate reasons to look elsewhere.

What It Means for Regular Texans

If Paxton wins, Texas sends a MAGA-aligned senator to Washington who will almost certainly be a more combative, less deal-cutting presence than Cornyn — and who enters with an FBI investigation in his background and a prior impeachment on his record.

If Cornyn survives, the old-guard institutionalist wing of the GOP demonstrates it can still outlast Trump's endorsement machine on its home turf — a rare outcome in 2026.

Either way, the general election against Talarico is shaping up as a real race. Both Cornyn and Paxton polled behind Talarico in surveys cited in our prior coverage.

Texas Republicans picked a bloodbath primary. Tuesday is when they find out what it cost them.