{"id":310856,"date":"2026-05-27T14:14:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T14:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/310856\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T14:14:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T14:14:10","slug":"republicans-unite-behind-paxton-as-democrats-see-november-opening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/310856\/","title":{"rendered":"Republicans unite behind Paxton as Democrats see November opening"},"content":{"rendered":"

Republicans quickly rallied around Republican Ken Paxton<\/a> after his victory over Sen. John Cornyn in the GOP Senate runoff, while Democrats viewed the result as an opening in a statewide race they have not won in decades.<\/p>\n

Within minutes of\u00a0Paxton\u2019s commanding win Tuesday night, Republicans lined up behind him.<\/p>\n

Sen. Ted Cruz, who had not made an endorsement in the Senate race, called\u00a0Paxton a \u201cfearless conservative\u201d and said he looks forward to \u201cfighting alongside him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cKen is a fearless conservative who spent years taking on Texas\u2019s toughest battles as attorney general and has proven that he will always fight for and defend the Lone Star State,\u201d Cruz said in a statement.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cIt\u2019s time to unite to make sure that Texas stays Texas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gov. Greg Abbott<\/a> congratulated Paxton \u201con the resounding victory\u201d and called on Texans to unite behind the Republican ticket.<\/p>\n

\u201cA united Republican Party will drive victory,\u201d Abbott said in a statement issued after the runoff elections. \u201cTogether, we will crush socialist Democrats\u2019 dream of turning Texas blue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abbott, who made no endorsement and had declined to say who he voted for in the Senate race, predicted that\u00a0Paxton would \u201cdestroy\u201d Democrat James Talarico<\/a> in November.<\/p>\n

Even Republicans who had criticized\u00a0Paxton during the primary quickly moved to support him after the runoff.<\/p>\n

State Rep. Jeff Leach of\u00a0Plano, a Cornyn supporter, said Republicans \u201cmust quickly heal and unite from these bruising primaries.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Texas we know and love is worth it,\u201d Leach posted on X.<\/p>\n

Cornyn also signaled support for the party after his loss, saying he would \u201csupport the Republican ticket,\u201d though he stopped short of explicitly endorsing Paxton.<\/p>\n

Democrats <\/a>also welcomed\u00a0Paxton\u2019s win, saying his legal troubles and ethics controversies make him a weaker candidate in the general election against Senate nominee James Talarico. an Austin state representative.<\/p>\n

\u201cKen\u00a0Paxton has spent decades in office abusing his power to serve special interests and enrich himself at Texans\u2019 expense \u2013 and in November, we\u2019re going to put a stop to his corruption,\u201d state Democratic Party Chair Kendall Scudder said in a statement.<\/p>\n

State Rep. Gina\u00a0Hinojosa, an Austin Democrat running against Abbott, called the GOP slate the \u201cmost corrupt ticket in Texas history.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Republicans quickly rallied around Republican Ken Paxton after his victory over Sen. John Cornyn in the GOP Senate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310857,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[160,162,161],"class_list":["post-310856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-plano","tag-plano","tag-plano-headlines","tag-plano-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}