Paxton Will Beat Cornyn By At Least Eight Points

The bet: Paxton by at least 8

My call: Ken Paxton beats John Cornyn in Tuesday’s Texas Republican Senate runoff, and it is not photo-finish close. I expect Paxton to win by at least 8 percentage points once the votes are certified.

The consensus story is that this race is a high-minded clash of visions for the GOP. The signal is simpler: Trump finally picked a side, called Paxton a "true MAGA warrior," labeled Cornyn "very disloyal," and Republican primary voters are about to behave exactly like the party they have been telling us they are.

Polls in the final week show Paxton up by roughly 20 among likely GOP runoff voters. Betting markets that had Cornyn as the safe incumbent are now priced for a Paxton win. In other words, the establishment is praying for a polling error, not building a path to victory.

Driver 1: Trump made this a loyalty test

Trump waited as long as possible so Republican leaders could beg him to behave, then did what he wanted anyway. After months of John Thune and friends pleading with him to back Cornyn, Trump publicly endorsed Paxton days before the runoff and then twisted the knife, branding Cornyn "very disloyal."

That one word is the ballot question for engaged Republican voters. Not "who is more conservative," which Cornyn could credibly argue. Not "who can hold the seat," which Cornyn might actually be right about. The question is if Cornyn is loyal enough to Trump to deserve another term. Trump has already graded the exam. The base tends to accept the answer key.

In a presidential primary with a broader electorate, maybe you can survive that. In a low-turnout Texas runoff, where voters skew older, more ideological, and more online, "disloyal" is a scarlet letter.

Driver 2: Runoff math loves the zealots

Texas runoffs are built for the people who show up to county conventions for fun. They are not optimized for your suburban donor who mostly interacts with politics by replying to Cornyn’s Christmas card.

In March, with a higher-turnout primary, Cornyn barely edged Paxton 42 to 41. That was Cornyn’s best-case electorate: more casual Republicans, more Chamber of Commerce types, more voters who have not memorized every Trump post on social media.

Runoff electorates shrink and harden. The people who return are the ones who feel like the party is theirs and might be stolen. That is Paxton’s core market.

Recent polling reflects exactly that shift. After Trump’s endorsement, surveys like SoCal Strategies’ have Paxton up by roughly 20 among likely runoff voters. Could those screens be wrong? Sure. But to save Cornyn, they would need to be spectacularly wrong in one direction, systematically undercounting the least MAGA slice of the Texas GOP in a contest tailor-made for MAGA activists.

Driver 3: Scandal fatigue only travels one way

Ken Paxton is not a mystery box. He was impeached by a Republican House on bribery and corruption charges, acquitted by a Republican Senate, and then hit with his wife’s divorce filing on "biblical grounds." Millions of dollars in negative ads have recited the whole saga on loop.

If there were a latent pool of Republicans who could not stomach him, it was supposed to show up months ago. Instead, Paxton’s numbers within the GOP stayed stubbornly strong. He wears his ethics file like a costume, not a cost.

Paxton’s voters have already decided they either do not believe the charges or they believe the charges and do not care. Cornyn’s final electability pitch is that Democrats will care in November. That is a rational argument. It is also a general-election argument made to a primary electorate that has not punished Trump or Paxton for anything similar before.

It is easier to scare a moderate about losing a Senate seat in November than to convince a committed Paxton fan that Trump’s "warrior" choice might be strategically unsound. The people who talk about "strategic unsoundness" are mostly already with Cornyn, and there are not enough of them.

The stakes: Trump wins the battle, the GOP opens a flank

The scorable part of this column is simple:

• Call: Paxton defeats Cornyn in the May 26 GOP Senate runoff by at least 8 points, as measured by the certified statewide result.

The more interesting part is what happens next.

By choosing Paxton, Texas Republicans are not just picking a senator. They are voluntarily turning a historically safe Senate seat into a real contest with Democrat James Talarico, a candidate who was supposed to be background scenery and is now priced in prediction markets as almost a coin flip against Paxton.

Kalshi bettors give Republicans barely mid-50s odds of holding the seat at all, and Paxton just a modest edge over Talarico. Cornyn versus Talarico would likely be a snoozer in November. Paxton versus Talarico is suddenly a race national Democrats are circling in thick red ink.

If Paxton wins big on Tuesday, the message to Republican senators is blunt: do not cross Trump, even if you are deeply conservative and have carried water for his agenda for years. Loyalty votes in Washington are no longer enough. You are also expected to survive every future primary that Trump personally decides to sabotage.

That is how you get a caucus that is both more obedient and, in key states, more beatable.

What would make this wrong?

The Paxton blowout scenario fails if at least two things go unexpectedly right for Cornyn.

First, the runoff electorate would need to look more like a November midterm than a Texas intramural fight. That means a surge of suburban, business-aligned Republicans who either tune Trump out or separate their affection for him from their vote for Cornyn.

Second, Cornyn’s late "protect the seat" message would have to land emotionally, not technocratically. He would need enough voters who like Trump and like winning to decide that the former is safer with the latter. That is theoretically possible. It just has not been the revealed preference of GOP primary voters since roughly 2016.

An ultra-narrow Paxton win, say 3 to 5 points, would not vindicate Cornyn or the establishment. It would simply mean the runoff functioned as one more warning that Trump’s reach has limits. The scenario where Cornyn actually survives would be a genuine shock and a clear sign that some part of the party has started to treat loyalty tests like suggestion boxes.

The satirical close

So here is the forecast: Trump’s "true MAGA warrior" walks out of Tuesday with Cornyn’s scalp and an 8 point plus margin. Senate Republicans will dutifully call for unity, Texas donors will pretend the numbers look fine, and Democrats will quietly move Texas from fantasy pickup to live option.

If Paxton does go on to lose the seat in November, Republicans can comfort themselves that while they may have sacrificed a senator, they did preserve the sacred principle that no accusation of corruption is as serious as the crime of annoying Donald Trump.