This is a continuation of my series of posts on the internal politics of major U.S. states. Today’s installment focuses on Texas.
If you’re interested here’s the first two pieces in the series:
The Cali piece focused on the constitutional crisis that was breaking out last weekend.
The New York piece was looked at a red-hot Democratic mayoral primary with enormous national implications given the Presidential aspirations of disgraced former Governor Andrew Cuomo and the chance for the Bernie Sanders wing to knock off the establishment.
Ironically, New York had some constitutional crisis action of its own Tuesday with City Comptroller and Mayoral candidate Brad Lander arrested by ICE agents.
Despite mountains of crazy going on in Texas politics, I’m going to focus on what is shaking up to be the most important primary of 2026 for our Naked Capitalism readers.
One last point before we dive in — all three states are essentially one-party fiefdoms. Both New York and California have been almost completely controlled by Democrats for most of this century. Texas, of course, has been under complete GOP control since the early 2000s and hasn’t elected a Democrat to statewide office since 1994.
Texas: Why You Should Care
- It’s huge:
Texas has 40 of America’s 538 electoral votes and is absolutely critical to the GOP presidential coalition. If the Republicans lose Texas in 2028 there are almost no realistic scenarios in which they hold the White House.
- It’s closer than you think:
Yes the dire Kamala Harris 2024 campaign lost Texas by 14% and over 1.5 million votes, but in 2020, Biden came within 6% and 550 thousand votes. More impressively, Beto O’Rourke’s 2018 US Senate challenge to the loathed Ted Cruz came within 3% and 215 thousand votes.
- It’s A National Money Magnet
The 2024 Texas elections drew at least a “combined $33 million” as of May of that year, from out of state donors including Miriam Adelson of Nevada, Jeff Yass of Pennsylvania, George Soros of New York, Reed Hastings of California, and Richard Uihlein of Illinois.
- Texas is the front lines of a GOP civil war:
Unlike it’s blue state giant peers California and New York, Texas has seen two-decades of intra-ruling party warfare in which both sides have won some and lost some and we’ve got a major primary brewing.
With the preliminaries out of the way, let’s get into the specifics.
The Texas 2026 Senate Primary Stands to Be the Frontlines of MAGA vs RINO
The 73-year-old RINO (Republican In Name Only) John Cornyn has been a mainstay of the Republican Senate caucus since his 2002 election. He is the former Majority Whip of the Senate — that’s the second highest ranking member of the caucus, just under majority leader.
In November 2024, following the elections, Cornyn stood for Majority Leader to replace the visibly senile and probably incontinent Mitch McConnell. Cornyn lost to South Dakota’s John Thune by only four votes.
Despite his standing in D.C., Cornyn’s public approval levels have been weak for over a decade. As one of the last Texas politicians owing his career to Karl “Turdblossom” Rove he has not been truly in sync with his electoral base since G.W. Bush was president.
Cornyn, who was state Attorney General before he ran for Senate is now being officially challenged in the 2026 GOP primary by the current Texas AG, Ken Paxton.
This matchup pits the notoriously stupid Cornyn against the infamously corrupt Paxton.
The Stupid RINO
Cornyn began his career at a white chip San Antonio law firm in 1977 and according to Texas legend was only able to earn the firm’s money back when they got him elected to a district court bench where he reliably ruled in favor of his former colleagues and their clients.
Cornyn won his first state-wide election due to a ridiculous fluke:
Cornyn caught a big break when a formidable Democratic judge lost his primary to an unknown lawyer who benefited from sharing a name with the famous tap-dancing actor Gene Kelly. “It was a gift from the gods, and we took advantage of it,” said Bill Miller, an Austin lobbyist hired by Cornyn to run that campaign. He skated to victory and became a sitting Texas Supreme Court justice at the age of 38, providing the business lobby with a coveted majority.
From there, Karl Rove took Cornyn under his wing and masterminded his election to Attorney General where Cornyn “turned the attorney general’s office into a faithful ally of industry, bolstering Texas’ reputation as a big-business paradise.”
His reward was a U.S. Senate seat in 2002.
The Corrupt MAGA
Paxton was under federal indictment for stock fraud for the first nine years of his term as AG and that’s been his least notorious criminal scandal while in office.
In 2023, Paxton was impeached by the Texas House “on 16 articles of impeachment related to accusations, primarily by his former top deputies who became whistle-blowers, that he had abused his office for the benefit of himself and an Austin real estate investor who was said to have assisted Mr. Paxton with home renovations and an extramarital affair.”
Paxton was acquitted in the Texas Senate in a trial presided over by “the pale, white-haired lieutenant governor Dan Patrick, whose stranglehold on the Senate is undisputed. Though he was the ostensible judge in the proceedings, he was indebted to the pro-Paxton donors who had graced him with $3 million in campaign loans and contributions shortly before the trial.”
Despite Cornyn’s decades of yeoman’s work at turning campaign contributions into legislation serving corporate interest, Paxton is a next level tool of the oligarchy, seemingly wholly owned by just six billionaires.
MAGA is Beating RINO In Early Polls
In a matchup that will remind boxing fans of a classic old lion being fed to a young lion bout (think Muhammad Ali vs Larry Holmes, or Larry Holmes vs Mike Tyson, not the more recent Mike Tyson vs Jake Paul), Paxton seems set to mop the floor with Cornyn, the relic of the Bush era.
The poll from Texan Southern University’s Barbara Jordan Public Policy Research and Survey Center shows Paxton leading Cornyn by 9 percentage points in a two-person race and by 7 points if U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt of Houston enters the primary.
“Right now, if it’s a head-to-head race between Paxton and Cornyn, Paxton is a very strong favorite, and it’s tough to see how, absent, say, a Trump endorsement of Cornyn, Cornyn could effectively flip the table on Paxton,” said Mark Jones, political science fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute and co-author of the survey with TSU’s Michael O. Adams.
A Paxton win could present opportunities for Democrats:
But Paxton’s lead drops to 3 points in a hypothetical matchup against Democratic Congressman Joaquin Castro of San Antonio and to just 2 points against former Dallas Congressman Colin Allred, putting either Democrat within striking distance of victory. The poll shows both Cornyn and Hunt leading either Democrat by larger margins.
That’s all for now but I’ll return to Texas in future posts to discuss such crazy as a potential ban of THC that’s drawing right-wing backlash, a MAHA-driven law that will put warning labels on any food product containing any of 44 common food additives, Senator Ted Cruz’ work to prevent state regulation of AI, Governor Greg Abbott’s Biden-era pioneering of the kind of state vs. federal law enforcement we’re currently seeing in California and New York, the 2024 primary purge of rural Republicans who tried to defend their local school districts from big money hell bent on educational vouchers and much, much more.
But let’s close with the kind of delusional nonsense that passes for political discourse in Texas (and I’m someone who’s come to admire some of Tucker Carlson’s anti-war positions so don’t think I’m just a hater, but this segment is batshit).
Tucker Carlson and Texas AG Ken Paxton talk about how George Soros funded DAs now cover 70% of the entire Texas population and have allowed the cartel to flourish
“Every big construction site in this country has prostitution run by the cartels, often of children”
“Our… pic.twitter.com/3E5p7jeE4t
— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) March 7, 2025
Alright, sanity check. Does it feel rather surreal at the moment?
The Donald self destructing and obliterating many of his previous allies. The nation is about to kick-off a horrific war that will make Iraq look cute. Our commander in chief casually asking a nation for an Unconditional Surrender via twitter.
Seems not much is left but to pray for the population to start radicalizing. I remember Yves saying something on the lines that Americans need to be burned a few more times before they finally walk in a different direction.
Iraq 2.0 is a good test.
things have felt surreal in Texas for a mighty long time, maybe always, but yes, it seems to have spread globally
Seems not much is left but to pray for the population to start radicalizing. This goes in the careful-what-you-wish-for department. I’d say we are well on our way, just not the way you or I hope.
Texas is an “Open Primary” state. This means that anyone can vote in either party primary. You have to keep to that party for a while, but it is very flexible.
See: https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/texas-primary-election-2024-early-voting/#:~:text=Yes,youcan!Infact,that%E2%80%99sthewaythesystemworksinTexas.Unlikesomestates,Texashasopenprimaries.%E2%80%9CInTexas,whenyouregistertovote,youdon%E2%80%99thave
Thus, Cornyn can eke out a win if he urges Democrats to vote in the Republican primary, for him and “good governance, law and order, and the sanctity of private property” etc. etc. Something similar happened here in Mississippi in a senate primary between a very popular Tea Party Republican and the Establishment Republican incumbent. The Democrat Party “elders” nudged their flocks to cross party lines in that primary and vote for the incumbent. It worked. Later that year the incumbent skated to an easy win against the perennially weak Democrat Party contender.
So, deceit and lies, those staples of American politics, can win the day for Cornyn.
Similarly to the tone of the essay, “Everything is bigger in Texas” applies to political corruption too.
Stay safe.
does texas still have a living…let alone functional…democratic party?
i admit that i dont wander far from home…this county and the 4 surrounding counties….but i havent seen any of that rare bird in quite some time.
the national demparty incessantly texts me asking for money whenever an “election” approaches.
but the state party,lol…last time i attempted to call the austing hq(used to be on sixth street down by where Katz’ Deli used to be), no one answered the phone(yeah, this was during obama’s last year in office)
and in these 5 counties out here in the hill country that i roam in, i havent seen a dem yard sign…let alone a county dem headquarters…in more than 20 years.
Billary’s farm bill turned all the farmers and ranchers and adjacent into republicans…and the loud and wall to wall propaganda and agitprop(and the birth of faux newts) did the rest.
Bernie had a chance, but no,lol.
Democrat leadership seems to like running against crazy Republicans so less chance of them nudging their flocks here. They are probably drooling over the possibility of facing Paxton. Depending on how much Trump screws things up in the next 16 months, it might even be the right political calculation but this strategy has backfired in their face spectacularly enough that they should have learned their lesson. Hopefully I’m wrong anyways.
I’ve flirted with cross-over primary voting a few times but the problem is in the blue cities if you want to impact your local elections you need to stay in the Dem primary.
Nonetheless, the thing killing Texas politics is the absolute rule by the plurality of Xtian fundamentalists who dominate the GOP.
Some young, not-to-be-named podcaster / local cuisine fan out of suburban Chicago said before 2022 mid-terms that all of the RINOs / Neocons should be primary-ed. Right once again.
Thanks for another excellent roundup.
The Elon Musk factor adds a delicious layer of unpredictability. Also, I see that his attorney John Bash is running for Paxton’s current job, AG.
Stock up on popcorn.
I had forgot the Musk factor.
Old acquaintances state that Austin has become rather cosmopolitan over the past two decades. One wag said that it is now Aoum-stan. (Assume the position yoga fans!) The rest of the state could be named Libertaristan.
Apart from our esteemed ‘amfortas,’ and the Apaches and Comanches, I see little evidence of anarcho-socialist thinking in the state.
There is a business opportunity! A tome about the “Zen of Texas.” Then we could promote a “Way of the Four Corners.” If we can elect Biden or Trump, surely, we can do this.
Stay safe good sirs and mesdams.
I see little evidence of anarcho-socialist thinking in the state. Lose the socialist part and that describes Musk, heh heh. For that matter, isn’t “libertarianism” just “Anarchy Lite”?
Tastes great, less chilling!
Musk is looking to build his “Greater Hong Kong” there. I imagine he has aspirations. And partners.
idk about the Apaches, but the Comanches fled to Oklahoma a long time ago.
they used to put on a big pow wow in frederickburg every year or two…in honor of the treaty w Baron von Meusbach…that was never broken…until the texas rangers opened a museum where the pow wow happened,and the retired ranger who ram rodded the museum was a real dick to the Tribes.
so no more buffalo, and now no more indians.
we are oversupplied with real dicks, but remember that not all texans are dicks.
we are oversupplied…
Overstock being reported in all 50 states plus the District of Columbia.
DickNation! Where living’ is hard and time is short.
my pleasure. this is a great community to serve.
I’ve been hearing for the last 15+ years how Texas could at least go purple. I just giggle at the folks saying that now. Doesn’t matter if you’re Ted Cruz “Leaving, On a Jet Plane” to upcoming Ken “Even his longtime aides squealed” Paxton, it will always be red. Course, the Dem’s do nothing to outright deserve it, but that’s another story.
I’ve accepted that the most I’ll be able to do is booo loudly when Greg Abbot appears at the one Longhorn game the wife I can manage to get a ticket donation for every year. Hell, Longhorn football is truly relevant again for the first time in 20 years, but all I can muster is a booo at a home game! Get’s me a few non-appreciatory head turns at least.
Thank god for the Lady Longhorns, and I don’t just mean the sporting ladies. Amfoh mentions dicks and nothing can beat the college ladies and their protests against gun laws a while back.