Will incumbent Senator John Cornyn beat Ken Paxton in the TX Republican primary runoff on May 26?
64% of users predicted YES — the community missed this one. 36 predictions cast.
Ken Paxton defeated incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in the Texas Republican Senate primary runoff on May 26, 2026, winning roughly 63 percent of the vote to Cornyn's 37 percent across approximately 1.38 million ballots cast. The Associated Press called the race shortly after 8 p.m. CT, about an hour after most Texas polls closed — making Cornyn the first Texas Republican senator to lose renomination in more than five decades.
Paxton's decisive margin traced in large part to a Trump endorsement delivered just seven days before the runoff, issued while early voting was already underway. Pro-Cornyn forces had outspent the Paxton side by more than four to one on advertising, but the financial advantage could not overcome the Trump endorsement and the ideological composition of a low-turnout runoff electorate. Cornyn had led in early surveys, but a University of Houston poll released in early May showed the race tightening sharply.
Paxton, the former Texas attorney general who was impeached by the Texas House in 2023 and later acquitted by the Texas Senate, will face Democratic nominee James Talarico, an Austin-area state representative, in the November general election.
A majority of the Predict Six community — 64 percent — projected a Cornyn victory, which did not match the outcome.