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
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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.
exactly. I’ve met many radicalized Texans and they were 100% terrifying and 100% in favor of nearly every awful thing being done by the oligarchs
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.
The TDP actually elected a promising director but he’s only got the office until the convention next June. Meanwhile he’s saddled with so much debt from the previous regime that they can’t pay most of their vendors.
Since 2008 there have been wave after wave of “Turn Texas Blue” carpet baggers from Obama world coming here and squandering vast fortunes to lose badly.
Notably they were not involved with Beto O’Rourke’s 2018 campaign. His 2020 presidential disaster? That was 100% them.
09 or 10 is when i started tuning them out with a will(texdems).
…because of those obamaborg types.
and whenever they made Wendy the gov candidate…and made it mostly about abortion…with zero for the bottom half of the states peeps.
all that performative bs eventually swallowed the local demparty whole…podpeople, all.
“nothing we can do, but fly off to ohio to campaign for so and so…”…while looking out their picture window down the hill and into the barrio, silently thinking, “somebody should do something about that mess…”.
i remain unrepresented.
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.
back when i still voted…we had a guy i liked running for sheriff…really a dem, but he had to run as gop. because such local things are decided in the gop primary.
so i bit my tongue and voted in the gop primary…for that one person,lol.
for years after, my mailbox was full of xmas cards of smiling W and Laura(one can only hve so many dartboards) and surveys(which i answered so well i filled up the margins) and just reams of glossy gop crap.
so i said never again.
last tim i voted in th egeneral was obama’s 1st time.
last time i voted at all was for bernie in the primary.
but it seems no one wants my vote, lol…because no one is doing anything at all to earn it.
i never know if the greens are gonna be on the ballot…and writing NOTA or writing in that boot on the head guy…just gets yer ballot tossed.
Agree about the Nazorites in Texas politics. They have been organizing there for decades. They started small, at the county and city level. Then they gained control of the Texas primary and secondary school book department. That unleashed a long term “influence” campaign to mold the young of the entire state. You have to give credit where credit is due. They mastered Texas local and state level politics bit by bit.
Now, their supposed main opponents, the “progressive” Democrat Party nomenklatura, are clueless about how to win elections and wield power.
As the pundit said long ago; “Politics ain’t beanbag.”
Be safe.
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.
According to Kim Stanley Robinson, libertarians are just “anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.” Seems about right.
Thanks, I’m reading Ls are As with property. This kind of makes sense.
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.
Austin has been through many stages in the 30 years I’ve lived here but the post 2020 influx of right-wingers from California has been IMO the worst deluge of douchebag assholes imaginable. And this is a town I’d already given up on emotionally in 2005.
that invasion from orange county, etc had already begun when i was there…92-95…and theyd kinda colonised the area out 183, past MOPAC…
south austin was still like i remembered, then…but even thats changed, now.
and i avoid the place, these days…far too many people for a jangled road system based on the whims of cattle.
2 hours to get from 183 to 71 on 620…which is what, 10 or 12 miles, if that?
It gets especially funny when “native” Texans blame those very same Orange county right-wingers whenever something left-of-center passes through the cultursl milieu.
Texas ethnic cleansed its native populations very thoroughly with two minor exceptions by the 1890s.
Colorado did as well. The rallying cry was “Utes must go!”.
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.
Beto would’ve beaten Cruz in 2018 had he been able to get above 20% in the rural counties — he won or split the “big 8 suburban counties” that had driven the 1990s GOP takeover of the state. Beto worked hard to campaign in the rural areas — Amarillo, Abiline, etc but the death of local media meant that instead of reaching a hundred thousand or so via local TV and the local newspaper, no one except the ~200 Dems who showed up in person knew he’d been there. Then late in the cycle most of the state saw him for the first time on Ellen, The View and the Daily Show and that was instant death.
After Kamala lost the Rio Grande Valley that probably killed Dem chances for the foreseeable future….but then Dan Patrick went and banned THC which is an $8B annual industry employing 50K Texans…so at some point possibly their misrule will bite them in the ass.
I dunno.
Personally I think the US is beyond the Democratic Republic stage or as I say “we ain’t voting our way out of this shit.”
But electoral politics is the field in which I misspent my youth so it’s all I’ve got to talk about at the moment. lol?
Thanks. That’s a nice analysis of the Beto adventure.
I have to agree on the last part. “Beyond”, yes, we only move forward. The entirety of governance, all things politics has been effectively co-opted by money.. I’d wager the destruction of our institutions was more about getting them out of the way than cutting costs.
So lol it is. (Ask a research scientist.)
Ahh, youthful transgressions;)
Agree with you on Beto, but I think he also reiterates my point. I talk to a lot of hard core conservatives. As much as they despised (and still despise) Cruz, there was no way they’d let a dem win that race.
Will be interesting to see what happens with the THC issue. Would not be surprised if Abbott vetoed it.
Look forward to further articles, Nat!
Thanks, much! Got an AI screed in the works…well link bomb
Important information on Ian Welsh’s site:
https://www.ianwelsh.net/the-us-continues-to-accelerate-its-decline-iran/
“Israel’s attack on Iran exposed a hidden network. For 25 years, India’s RAW and Israel’s Mossad have worked together using Indian tech workers across the Gulf as quiet access points into sensitive infrastructure. This network runs through millions of Indian…”
I read Ian daily. Off topic to this post but highly relevant to anyone on the planet.
Please do not leave off topic comments. The place for this is Links. This is called thread-jacking and is a violation of our written site Policies.
It would appear so, but, I think we will see a huge wave of repression that makes the red scare of the, 20s was it?, look tiny.
People will quickly learn just as admin., students and professors have learned not to say certain words.
so, in a fit of pique, i shouldnt have painted “thought criminal” on my headache rack, then?
As Lambert used to say: the GOP is feral.
There have been at least two right populist movements that have upended the GOP: the Tea Party; and Trump/MAGA.
Across the isle, no such luck unless you count Bernie’s two runs which – to paraphrase G3n0c1de $Jo3y N0rd5tr3aM – fundamentally changed nothing.
RINO’s may all eventually gonna go the way of the DoDo. Trump’s lasting influence on GOP politics will be showing not so much the Art Of The Deal, but the Art Of The Possible. It is possible to do/say batshit crazy things and get away with it all. Whether or not another personality as large and mischievously manic as Trump’s can rise from GOP ranks with the same power to “kill a man in the middle of 5th Ave (NYC) and still have people love them” remains to be seen. But there is no doubt, that for the right person, Trump has machete’d a trail that will provide far less resistance if/when their time comes.
Also …
LMAO
OMG … they ran the ole “Jeff Johnson” play from Eddie Murphy’s “Distinguished Gentleman”
(via YouTube)
and knowing the Karl Rove era GOP like I do, I’d say there’s a better than 30% chance that “Gene Kelly” was no accident.
Karl Rove once bugged his own candidate’s office and called a press conference about it.
Not to mention all the Dem campaign types he imprisoned on trumped up charges.
Or the way he methodically destroyed the careers of the most promising Hispanic Democrats of the 1990s — Lena Guererro, Dan Morales and Henry Cisneros. If any one of them had been in statewide office in the 2000s it would be a completely different state.
> Karl Rove once bugged his own candidate’s office and called a press conference about it.
LOL … Hyena levels “feral”