Category: Politics

Latino voters flocked to Tuesday’s Democratic primary in Texas in droves, reversing a long-running erosion for the party ahead of this year’s pivotal midterms.

The numbers were dramatic: In five different rural majority-Latino counties, more votes were cast in Tuesday’s Democratic primary than for Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.

“These very Hispanic counties are amongst the swingiest in the country, and they’re really telling us something,” said Mike Madrid, an anti-Trump GOP strategist who wrote a book about Latino voters.

The results provide some much-needed hope for Democrats that they can compete not only in Texas as they have long dreamed, but in Latino districts across the country that could determine control of the House in November. Few groups of voters have vexed Democrats in recent cycles as much as Latino voters in the Rio Grande Valley.

On Tuesday, the party started to seem like it had a way back.

The turnout surge among Hispanic and Latino voters helped power state Rep. James Talarico’s Senate primary victory over Rep. Jasmine Crockett, setting him up for a general election that has ignited Democrats’ fever dream of finally flipping Texas. In counties that are majority-Latino, Talarico won by roughly 22 points, according to preliminary results, compared to a roughly 3-point margin of victory over Crockett in the rest of the state.

It’s the latest sign that Latino voters who helped President Donald Trump return to the White House are not inherently sticking with Republicans. Democratic candidates put up strong numbers in predominantly Latino areas in gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey last November, as well as a smattering of special elections, including a state senate race in Fort Worth just last month.

But the results are especially significant because South Texas had long been an early warning sign of Democrats’ problems with Latino voters. While Latino voters swung sharply towards Trump in 2024, the party had been losing ground in the Rio Grande Valley dating back several election cycles.

A number of Rio Grande valley counties swung away from Democrats in 2020, and kept swinging right in 2024: In Zapata County, for instance, where 94 percent of the population is Hispanic, Trump won just 33 percent of the vote in 2016, but took 53 percent in 2020 and 61 percent in 2024.

On Tuesday, it was among the five counties where more voters cast ballots in the Democratic primary than voted for Harris in 2024, along with Kenedy, Jim Hogg, Reeves and Dimmit. Talarico won 55 percent of the vote across those five counties.

Republicans leaned heavily into their recent gains with Latinos as they redrew congressional maps in their favor last year, with several majority-Latino districts among those they are hoping to flip.

But some of those flips now look a lot less certain. In the newly redrawn 35th Congressional District, which stretches from San Antonio to Austin and is majority Latino, Democrats’ four-way primary drew 7,500 more voters than Republicans’ three-way contest. Both primaries are headed to a runoff in the district that Trump won by 10 points in 2024.

Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), whose district was also redrawn to be more friendly for Republicans and who faces a tough election in November even after he was pardoned by Trump in December, said Tuesday’s results were evidence that Republicans’ gains in Texas in 2024 were “not a political realignment.”

Latino voters are angry with Republicans, he said, over continued high prices and Trump’s tariffs, along with ongoing immigration enforcement that has gone beyond what voters are comfortable with.

“If ICE would have just stuck on deporting criminals, people would have been OK with that, they would have been supportive,” Cuellar said. “But the moment they started going into work sites and going after criminal records — down here in South Texas, everybody knows somebody who has been here for a while — so that has turned Hispanics against Republicans.”

Madrid, the GOP strategist, argues Latino voters have always been more of a swing group than many people recognized. With Trump in office and high prices persisting, that creates openings for Democrats, both in Texas and across the country.

“It began literally, with Liberation Day, with the tariffs,” said Madrid, the GOP strategist. “When Trump announced those, you could see Trump’s numbers dropping with Latinos precipitously.”

Democrats’ best-case scenario in Texas would mean Cuellar and Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas) both hold their districts despite the effects of redistricting, with the party flipping the nearby 15th District, where Tejano singer Bobby Pulido won a primary to face Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz, as well as the open 35th district. In that case, Republicans’ might pick up only one seat in the state despite their aggressive gerrymander.

And while national Democrats have not identified Texas as necessary to take back the Senate, there is still hope that Talarico could become the first Democrat to win statewide in Texas in more than three decades.

Talarico’s performance with Latino voters was notable not only because of his party’s recent struggles, but also because the last Democrat to come close in a Senate race in Texas — Beto O’Rourke in 2018 — faltered with Latino voters. O’Rourke lost dozens of predominantly Latino counties in the primary, and comparatively lower turnout among Latino voters in the general election hurt his bid to unseat Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, which he lost by less than three points. O’Rourke’s struggles in the region presaged what was to come for Democrats in the Rio Grande Valley.

Talarico has campaigned hard in the region.

“Talarico’s faith-based messaging probably resonated really well, especially in a community that is heavily driven by faith,” said Kendall Scudder, chair of the Texas Democratic Party.

Scudder described Tuesday’s result as a “good first step” in retreading inroads with the community ahead of November, but said the party had to “double down” on their efforts to engage. But local Democrats, scarred by recent elections, aren’t taking a victory lap.

“It’s not the party that’s driving people to the polls. It’s the horrendous behaviors of the man in the White House and his cronies. That’s what’s driving people to the polls,” said Sylvia Bruni, chair of South Texas’ Webb County Democratic Party.

Democrats, she acknowledged, have a “prime opportunity” to win back the community against a “backdrop of abuse that our people are experiencing full force.” But she said the party still hasn’t done enough to directly engage with voters in remote, expansive counties like hers, which includes Laredo.

“I’d be the first to say to my party, you would need to do a hell of a lot more for us,” she said.

How much ground Democrats can make up in Texas may also depend on who they are facing. In the Republican primary, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) did a few points better in Latino areas than he did in the rest of the state, suggesting he might be the stronger general election candidate with Latino voters if he can survive a runoff against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. He’s run well in Latino areas of the state in the past.

“John Cornyn has been the senator for quite a while, and there’s a familiarity with South Texans,” said Daniel Garza, a Texas-based Republican strategist and president of the conservative Libre Initiative. “He’s like somebody who’s trusted, who has a lot of credibility, and who’s familiar, right? And so people are comfortable with him in that position. Paxton, not so much.”

​Politics

James Talarico’s charmed political journey has broken his way at almost every juncture of his career, from “The Joe Rogan Experience” invite as he was weighing a Senate bid last summer to his star turn in Texas’ quorum break to a fundraising windfall over a spiked Stephen Colbert interview in the primary’s homestretch.

But as he gave his not-quite-victory speech late Tuesday night, Talarico faced a more uncertain future than he had hoped. The Associated Press eventually called the election for him hours later, though voting problems in Rep. Jasmine Crockett’s home base of Dallas County delayed the result.

And suddenly, it looks like he could face a much tougher opponent than he’d banked on in the general election.

Talarico and Democrats had hoped for months that the preacher would get to face scandal-tarred Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, but Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a less objectionable general-election foil, outperformed expectations and fought him to a draw, forcing a runoff.

For the disciplined and studious Democrat who can commit scripture and prepared remarks to memory in a matter of minutes, and who is known by aides to linger over edits to social media posts and ads, the unknown outcome of the runoff is an unwelcome twist, the seemingly rare thing he cannot control.

Even with a 12-week head start on whomever voters select as his opponent in a brass-knuckled, dregs-scraping, cash-consuming GOP runoff, Talarico could still face a four-term incumbent with a long track record of big general-election wins.

Amid a legal dispute over voting precinct hours in Dallas County, Talarico did not quite declare victory in a short speech just after midnight local time, when he was leading the race but before The Associated Press called it.

“We are still waiting for an official call, but we are confident in this movement we’ve built together,” he said after lamenting what he called “voter suppression.”

“We are not just trying to win an election,” Talarico said at his rally in Austin. “We are trying to fundamentally change our politics, and it’s working.”

Earlier Tuesday, a district judge permitted the Dallas County Democratic Party to extend polling hours until 9 p.m. central, but the Texas Supreme Court granted Attorney General Ken Paxton’s request to set aside the votes of those people who were not in line by 7 p.m.

The polling problems are just the latest in a long history of voter suppression and voting rights battles in the state — ones that have particularly impacted Black and Hispanic voters. Crockett first gained national attention as a state representative battling against the Texas GOP’s move to pass a law that added new restrictions on voting, an issue once again in the spotlight as her Senate campaign came to a close.

In a statement earlier in the evening, Talarico’s campaign acknowledged that they were “deeply concerned about the reports of voters being turned away from the polls in Dallas and Williamson counties following the GOP’s implementation of precinct-specific voting locations for Election Day.”

Crockett initially told supporters Tuesday evening there was “a lot of confusion today,” citing Paxton’s move and the state Supreme Court’s decision. But on Wednesday morning, Crockett said in a statement she spoke with Talarico and conceded the race to him.

“This morning I called James and congratulated him on becoming the Senate nominee,” she said. “Texas is primed to turn blue and we must remain united because this is bigger than any one person. This is about the future of all 30 million Texans and getting America back on track.”

Talarico ran well in heavily white and Hispanic areas Tuesday, but has conceded he has work to do with Black voters if he’s going to win in November — an effort that could be complicated by the sour final note of voter confusion.

The final stretch of the contest pitted Talarico’s and Crockett’s supporters against each other in bitter feuds, often along racial lines, that played out on social media platforms like TikTok and X. Those debates focused on whether Democrats believed Crockett, a Black representative from Dallas, could be elected in a deep-red state — as well as over a claim made by a social media influencer that Talarico had described a former opponent as a “mediocre Black man,” comments he says were misconstrued.

Still, his strong performance against Crockett has jolted Democratic hopes of winning Texas for the first time in more than a generation, forging a wider than expected path to flipping the Senate — and out of the wilderness.

“I’d be very worried if I were the national Republican Party after tonight,” said Emily Cherniack, the founder and CEO of New Politics, and a longtime Talarico ally. “Strong turnout, especially among Latino voters, signals real dissatisfaction with Republicans in power. That’s a huge warning sign for November for them.”

Up until Tuesday, Senate Democrats had staked their chances of flipping the Republican-controlled Senate on just four states: North Carolina, Maine, Ohio and Alaska.

But now, some Democrats believe Talarico can cobble together a winning coalition in the most improbable of states — no Democrat has a Senate seat in Texas since 1988 — based on his class-focused message seeking to unite voters across parties.

“A perfect storm is lining up for Texas Democrats,” said Mark McKinnon, the former Texas media operative who started out advising Democrat Ann Richards on her gubernatorial campaigns before switching to Republican George W. Bush in 1997. “They have a nominee who can appeal to moderates and soft Republicans. Talarico could be Moses who leads the Lone Star Democrats out of the desert they’ve been in for 35 years.”

Public and private polls have mostly shown close races in either matchup; Talarico would start off with the edge over Paxton but trail Cornyn.

“It is still a massive mountain to climb, but this doesn’t hurt the effort,” one former staffer on Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign said of Talarico’s win.

Talarico has argued that he can beat either foe.

“I think both of them are extraordinarily weak,” Talarico said in an interview with POLITICO just days before Election Day. “Paxton and Cornyn, they’re different. Paxton was guilty of illegal corruption. That’s why my colleagues and I impeached him in the Texas House.

“But Cornyn is guilty of legalized corruption. He was the deciding vote on the Big, Ugly, Bill which kicked millions of Texas off their health care, took food out of the mouths of hungry Texas kids all to give tax breaks to his donors. Both of them are guilty of using their public offices to enrich their donors — Ken Paxton in an illegal way, but John Cornyn in a legal way. I look forward to prosecuting the case against either of them — whoever makes it out.”

Gregory Svirnovskiy contributed to this report.

​Politics

Sen. John Cornyn defied expectations in the Texas GOP primary on Tuesday. National Republicans believe his unexpectedly strong showing may be enough for President Donald Trump to endorse the embattled incumbent.

Trump has privately intimated that he will soon get involved in the Texas Senate race after rebuffing endorsement pleas from both candidates for months, according to a GOP strategist close to the White House who was granted anonymity to speak freely. For months, party leaders worried that Trump would back state Attorney General Ken Paxton, a longtime ally of the president, especially if he dominated in Tuesday’s primary.

Then came the results that had Cornyn neck-and-neck with Paxton. With that outcome, the strategist said, it would be “very surprising” if Trump backed Paxton.

The stakes are high for Republicans, who fear control of the Senate is hanging in the balance. The GOP hoped to avoid state Rep. James Talarico clinching the Democratic nomination because they see him as able to draw away moderate Republican voters.

Republicans “should take him seriously,” said another close Trump administration ally, granted anonymity to be candid. Talarico is a “big reason for Trump to get in for Cornyn and end this thing,” the ally said, especially to free up massive amounts of money that could be spent instead on competitive Senate races in Michigan and Georgia.

National Republicans estimated they would have to spend $200 million to protect Cornyn in the runoff. But the GOP strategist shrugged off the price tag. “Look, it will probably cost some money,” the person said. “It’s just money, we have a lot of it.”

Tuesday’s results were the best-case scenario for establishment Republicans, who worried Cornyn would finish far enough behind Paxton that it would be a slog for him — and a tough sell for a president who hates to back losers.

The Texas GOP Senate primary has become a referendum on the future of the Republican Party, testing the strength of the conservative grassroots against the establishment wing. While the MAGA base kept the four-term incumbent — who nearly became Senate majority leader — from getting a majority of the primary vote, the results show the old Republican establishment isn’t quite dead yet.

Cornyn’s narrow lead over Paxton was powered by even performances across the state.

Even in the most heavily Republican counties where Paxton might have expected to benefit from a MAGA base, the incumbent senator largely held his own: Across more than 110 mostly rural counties that Trump won by at least 50 points in 2024 and were reporting complete results as of early Wednesday morning, Paxton built up only the narrowest of leads, 44 percent to just shy of 40 percent for Cornyn.

Meanwhile, Cornyn strengthened his advantage in the more traditional white-collar suburbs, leading by double digits in Travis and Dallas counties as results continued to come in early Wednesday morning.

The senator, speaking to reporters on Election Night in Austin, said Republican voters’ choice is “crystal clear.”

“I refuse to allow a flawed, self-centered, and shameless candidate like Ken Paxton risk everything we’ve worked so hard to build over these many years,” he said. “There is simply too much at stake.”

Republicans are well aware that overall control of the Senate may be at risk. Cornyn’s allies warn that scandal-plagued Paxton turns off general election voters, especially if Talarico is their opponent.

During Paxton’s decade as attorney general, he faced an impeachment by the GOP-led Texas state House, ethics complaints, a federal securities fraud investigation and a recent divorce complete with allegations of infidelity.

Now Paxton is facing another 12 weeks going up against the wrath — and war chest — of the Washington establishment.

“John Cornyn spent around $100 million trying to buy this seat,” Paxton told his supporters at a watch party after the race was called. “We spent around $5 million… We prove something they’ll never understand in Washington: Texas is not for sale.”

One question is which candidate the voters who backed Rep. Wesley Hunt, who finished a distant third place, will support now — or whether they turn out at all for the May runoff.

Lone Star Liberty, a pro-Paxton super PAC, in a memo circulated ahead of Tuesday’s election, shrugged off threats that Cornyn would succeed in the runoff by continuing to hammer the attorney general on his litany of scandals, arguing they had nothing new to offer.

“Cornyn’s talk of ‘unleashing’ new attacks’ in the runoff is bluster,” the memo states. “The truth is that from day one, his forces fired every bullet they had. There are no new attacks left — only more of the same, at ever-greater cost and with ever-diminishing returns.”

Senate Republican operatives – who had entered the night expecting the race to head to a runoff, but unsure of how Cornyn would track against Paxton – were exultant as the incumbent maintained a narrow lead well into the night.

A Republican working on Senate campaigns, granted anonymity to speak freely, said Cornyn “proved to be formidable” on Tuesday — bolstering the establishment GOP argument that he is “the most electable” as the party braces for a battle against Talarico.

Talarico’s lead “reaffirms the need to have Cornyn as the nominee. Can’t risk this to Paxton,” the GOP operative close to the White House said.

Yet some Republicans conceded Cornyn has a tricky path to navigate. He’ll have to square off again with the conservative primary voters who make up Paxton’s base.

“Runoffs are extremely unpredictable, and head-to-head it could be anyone’s ballgame,” said Republican strategist Jeff Burton.

Dasha Burns, Lisa Kashinsky, Alec Hernandez, Jessica Piper and Erin Doherty contributed reporting

​Politics

State Rep. James Talarico won the Texas Senate Democratic primary, defeating Rep. Jasmine Crockett and giving party leaders the candidate they had quietly seen as the stronger option to flip the ruby-red state.

The race was defined by questions of electability and simmering racial tensions, as Talarico and Crockett worked to reassemble the party’s fractured multiracial coalition. That carried over through Tuesday, with both candidates raising concerns that voters had been disenfranchised in Crockett’s home base of Dallas County, which includes a large number of Black voters.

The legal dispute over voting precincts in Dallas could cast a shadow over his victory. Crockett told her supporters not to expect a final call on election night. But on Wednesday morning, Crockett said in a statement she spoke with Talarico and conceded the race to him.

“This morning I called James and congratulated him on becoming the Senate nominee,” she said. “Texas is primed to turn blue and we must remain united because this is bigger than any one person. This is about the future of all 30 million Texans and getting America back on track.”

Talarico, a progressive Seminarian, took a big-tent approach to his campaign by appealing to voters from both parties and independents. He will face off against either Sen. John Cornyn or Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is mounting a right wing challenge to the four-term incumbent.

Texas Democrats have failed to win statewide in three decades, but they believe they have a rare opening to flip the Senate seat in November, due to backlash to the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts and handling of the economy — especially if Paxton emerges from the GOP runoff.

There has been scant nonpartisan public polling in the general election, but a recent memo from the National Republican Senatorial Committee shows Cornyn ahead of Talarico by three points, while Talarico would lead Paxton by three points.

Gregory Svirnovskiy contributed to this report.

​Politics

Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) was ousted by a primary challenger who successfully cast the four-term incumbent as anti-Trump and capitalized on a redrawn district.

State Rep. Steve Toth — who had the backing of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) — beat Crenshaw on Tuesday night, all but assuring his seat in Congress given the district’s safe-red bend.

Crenshaw was the only incumbent GOP representative in Texas without President Donald Trump’s support and had at times split with the president, including in his criticism of Trump’s refusal to accept his 2020 election loss.

And Toth, with Cruz’s help, focused his campaign on casting Crenshaw as insufficiently conservative for the district, which was redrawn in the GOP’s recent Texas redistricting push.

“You deserve an unwavering fighter, a Republican who walks the walk,” Cruz said in a recent ad for Toth.

​Politics

Texas Sen. John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton advanced to a runoff in the Senate GOP primary, extending an already-bruising fight into late May that some Republicans worry could hurt their chances of holding onto the seat — and the Senate.

Tuesday night’s result showed some surprising strength for Cornyn, who had trailed Paxton in most public polls and whose allies were worried might finish far behind the MAGA firebrand. And it indicates the four-term senator still has a real chance to retain his seat in late May.

National Republicans widely expected the runoff when Rep. Wesley Hunt, who finished third, jumped into the race last fall. But while Cornyn is still in the battle, saving him will continue to be an expensive endeavor — and one that risks further damaging Paxton, who could still be their nominee.

The senator and his allies already spent more than $100 million to defeat Paxton, highlighting his political and personal baggage, like his recent divorce, accusations of infidelity, ethics complaints and impeachment proceedings.

Paxton brings huge support from the hyper-conservative grassroots – a devoted following derived from his decade serving as Texas’ top lawyer. He has long been closely aligned with President Donald Trump, supporting his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.

Trump has not yet endorsed in the race.

Democrats believe they have a shot at flipping Texas after decades of falling short, bolstered by a wave of enthusiasm within the party and backlash to the Trump administration over its immigration and economic policies. They’re hoping that the scandal-plagued Paxton emerges victorious from the runoff and gives them a better opening to entice moderate Republicans and independents.

But Cornyn showed Tuesday that he still has some fight left in him.

​Politics

Rep. Chip Roy will advance to a runoff in the race to replace Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

He will face state Sen. Mayes Middleton, who led Roy by a double-digit margin with three-fifths of the vote counted.

The competitive primary turned into a fealty test to President Donald Trump. Reitz and Middleton slammed Roy for breaking with Trump in the past and calling for Attorney General Ken Paxton to resign after he faced charges of bribery and abuse, while brandishing their own MAGA bona fides.

Trump made no endorsement in the race.

Roy — the House Freedom Caucus policy chair who has represented Texas’ 21st congressional district since 2019 — earned a reputation in Congress as a true conservative ideologue. He has led in polling and fundraising and has been endorsed by well-known conservatives like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and fellow Freedom Caucus representatives.

But Mayes’ apparent first-place finish indicates that he begins the runoff as the favorite. It remains to be seen what the president, who once called for Roy to face a primary challenge, might do in the runoff.

​Politics

Israel, after a long, devastating war in Gaza, has become so unpopular among many voters in the Democratic base that major candidates in top primaries are using even small connections to the country’s political leaders to hit their opponents.

One Illinois Democratic operative involved in this year’s primaries has dredged up a 2019 trip that Illinois U.S. Senate candidate Juliana Stratton took to Israel to meet with the then-leader of the Israeli opposition Tzipi Livni. The operative, who was granted anonymity because they feared getting blacklisted from future political campaigns, went even further back citing a decade-old plus arrest warrant a British court issued related to a weeks-long conflict with Gaza that started in December 2008. And one of Stratton’s opponents has gone on the record criticizing the trip.

Livni, of course, is one of Netanyahu’s top critics and is solidly on the left in Israel. She is a vocal advocate of a Palestinian state aside a secure Israel despite support for a two-state solution in Israel falling precipitously in recent years. And she has met with numerous Democratic politicians over the years, including Joe Biden in 2010, Barack Obama in 2013 and a congressional delegation led by Nancy Pelosi in 2018.

Despite that record, Illinois Senate primary opponent Rep. Robin Kelly (D-Ill.) said that Stratton’s 2019 meeting with Livni raises questions about her leadership.

“Illinois voters believe that judgement matters,” she said in a statement to POLITICO when asked about Stratton’s Livni meeting. “Juliana Stratton owes them an explanation.”

Kelly sees her stance on Livni as one of her progressive bona fides.

“When I first ran for office I made a promise that nothing would compromise my ability to look myself in the mirror each day, and I’ve spent my career standing up and speaking out against injustice,” she said. “I’m the only candidate to call what happened in Gaza a genocide, reject AIPAC money, and refuse ICE-contractor cash.”

Kelly’s views on Israel’s conduct in Gaza have also shifted since she entered the Senate race in May. Kelly and Stratton, who is backed by Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, are facing Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), the frontrunner in the March 17 primary. Less than a year ago, Kelly even accepted donations from pro-Israel lobby AIPAC, and she’s been to Israel numerous times as part of congressional trips. In January, Kelly said she wouldn’t take AIPAC money again.

Even tangential ties to the longtime U.S. ally are likely to become campaign issues across the country as the conflict with Iran intensifies into a regional conflagration. All three candidates following the strikes on Iran were quick to condemn the joint U.S.-Israeli action, citing what they believed was Trump’s overreach and swift action without congressional approval. Other Democrats have voiced concern that Trump’s decision could plunge the U.S. into another protracted war in the Middle East.

A Gallup poll released Friday found that around two-thirds of Democrats sympathize more with the Palestinians with only around 20 percent saying they are aligned with Israelis, down from half of Democrats being pro-Israel in 2016. Nearly 50 percent of Democrats even had an unfavorable view of the Israeli people, while the same amount had a favorable view, according to a Pew poll taken in September.

Stratton is not the only Democratic candidate who has been criticized by rivals for ties to Israel. In the Michigan Senate race, Abdul El-Sayed has blasted rival Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) for being a vocal advocate of Israel and protesters have shown up to her office to denounce donations she’s received from AIPAC. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas), whose Senate primary is Tuesday, has also been forced to defend herself for voting to fund defensive weapons for Israel.

Stratton, the current lieutenant governor of Illinois, went to Israel as part of the “2019 Influential Women in Leadership Delegation” organized by the America-Israel Friendship League and the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A video from the organization shows her meeting with Livni, the former vice prime minister and foreign affairs minister.

In 2009, a British court issued an arrest warrant for Livni over accusations of war crimes in Gaza for her role during Operation Cast Lead. She was a member of the Israeli war cabinet during the conflict, which Palestinian authorities and an Israeli human rights organization said killed hundreds of Palestinian civilians.

She was supposed to give a speech in London at the time but later cancelled her trip. The warrant was withdrawn after the court found out that she wasn’t in the U.K. and the British government formally apologized to her for the arrest warrant.

She also had told Palestinian counterparts in 2007 during negotiations that even though she was the justice minister, “I am against law – international law in particular” and that “Palestinians don’t really need international law.”

Livni’s office has said she was “proud of all her decisions regarding Operation Cast Lead” and that the conflict achieved its objectives to protect Israel and restore Israel’s deterrence from Hamas rocket attacks from Gaza.

The America-Israel Friendship League, the Israeli Foreign Affairs Ministry and Livni didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Although Israel has yet to become a leading issue in the campaign, at a recent debate Stratton said she wanted to “see the suffering end” in the region and said that Netanyahu should step down.

Asked about the trip, a Stratton campaign spokesperson said in an email that the Livni meeting was “a group meeting that took place on a delegation trip promoting women in leadership coordinated by a third party – Juliana did not arrange the meeting and was one of several participants.” The spokesperson reiterated that she supports a two-state solution and “wants to see lasting peace in the region.”

This reporting first appeared in Illinois Playbook. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every weekday.

​Politics

On Jan. 6, 2021, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton declared to a raucous crowd of President Donald Trump’s supporters, many of whom were moments away from storming the U.S. Capitol: “We will not quit fighting.”

Five years later, Paxton’s fighting spirit has him poised to unseat a 24-year incumbent.

It’s been a steady journey. As Texas’ top lawyer, Paxton became a hero of the far right by using rapid-fire lawsuits to spearhead their most important causes, from expanding religious influence in schools to attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election. He presented himself as a foil to the Obama and Biden administrations, filing more than 100 lawsuits over issues like immigration and environmental regulations. And he continues to steer the power of his office toward investigating alleged election irregularities, particularly in Democratic-led cities like Houston.

On Tuesday, the MAGA grassroots that fueled his rise will reach its apex of influence so far: Paxton is well-positioned to finish first against John Cornyn in the GOP primary for his Senate seat, despite being saddled with tons of political baggage and targeted by millions of dollars in attack ads.

The bare-knuckle Senate primary is likely headed to a runoff, dragging out the party’s own angst over generational change.

For the far-right in Texas, Paxton’s arc shows the ascendent strength of their movement, which has pushed Republican leaders toward adopting increasingly conservative positions. For Cornyn, it means the potential end of his long career in the Senate, and the near-extinction of establishment Republicans within the party.

“Ken Paxton is more than just an attorney general that’s been MAGA. He is a symbol of the heart of the grassroots MAGA movement,” said Steve Bannon, the former senior adviser to Trump and War Room host who has been broadcasting his popular show from a rented ranch in North Texas in the days leading up to the election.

“He’s resilient because folks here know he has fought the good fight for years and years and years,” Bannon said. “He has resilience because people know where his heart is, and he’s a fighter.”

Cornyn is in serious trouble

The MAGA movement is tenacious in protecting its own and knifing its Republican rivals. Paxton has survived an impeachment by the GOP-controlled state House, a federal securities fraud investigation and slew of ethics complaints. Three months after beginning his Senate campaign last year, Paxton’s wife filed for divorce, alleging an extramarital affair. His competitors — including Cornyn, who has said Paxton is too unethical to serve in public office — have hammered his trail of scandals.

And still he’s the front-runner.

Paxton has continued to lead in polling — from even before he launched — despite a concerted effort by Republicans in Washington to boost Cornyn.

“Ideally you want a saint to be your elected leader, and that is something we all hope and pray for one of these days,” said Bo French, former chair of the Tarrant County Republican party, who is running for a seat on the Texas Railroad Commission. “But until that happens, we need people who are going to be warriors for the cause. And he is seen and beloved among Republican primary voters in Texas as a warrior.”

Cornyn knows the strong headwinds he’s facing, conceding that the composition of primary voters doesn’t reflect his usual base of support. Many Texas Republicans remain angry with the senator for voting in favor of a bipartisan gun control package after the Uvalde school shooting that left 19 children and two teachers dead. Cornyn was famously booed onstage at the Texas GOP convention in 2022.

“If only the most radical people show up in the primary … then I think that’s going to be a challenge,” Cornyn said in an interview Saturday with CBS. His other primary opponent, Rep. Wesley Hunt, who is also running a campaign appealing to the far right, said on X that Cornyn’s comments show he has “lost touch with the people you’re supposed to represent” and “your contempt for the voters of Texas is exactly why your career is coming to an end.”

Trump has not endorsed in the race, throwing a wrench into any MAGA pickup Cornyn could get — or that could put Paxton over the line. At an event in Corpus Christi last week, Trump said he had “pretty much” decided who to support, but did not reveal that pick.

Democrats believe Paxton’s baggage makes him beatable in the general election, a view shared by many national Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who is working to keep Cornyn in the GOP caucus.

Kendall Scudder, chair of the Texas Democratic Party, said Paxton jeopardizes Republicans at every level of the ticket. “Every one of these top-tier Republicans in the state is wildly unpopular, and they’ll be led by Ken Paxton,” he said. “That’s what puts a lot of these different seats in interesting hands.”

The MAGA vs. establishment fight has been years in the making

Paxton has endured years of legal and personal scrutiny. He also kept winning.

Texas Republicans have repeatedly reelected both Cornyn to the Senate and Paxton as attorney general, backing the leaders of both wings of the party. But recent elections have shown the growing strength of the MAGA faction.

Paxton’s reelections have been aided by the deep coffers of Texas megadonors like Tim Dunn and the Wilks brothers in addition to his hyper-conservative supporters. In 2022, he was challenged by Land Commissioner George P. Bush — the relative of former Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.

Bush tried to sell conservative voters on his vision to restore integrity to the attorney general’s office at a time when Paxton was facing years of securities fraud investigations and bribery allegations. It’s a playbook Paxton allies say Cornyn is reusing.

Voters seemed to prefer Paxton’s combative style. Paxton thumped Bush by a two-to-one margin in that year’s run-off, the clearest sign yet that voters were siding with the MAGA wing and rejecting the old-school establishment.

In 2022, Paxton agreed to pay restitution and perform community service to settle the securities fraud case, which was brought over allegations that he duped investors in a tech startup. The Justice Department, in the final weeks of the Biden administration, decided not to prosecute Paxton over the remaining bribery charges. That eventually led the GOP-heavy Texas House to impeach him before the Senate voted to acquit.

As scrutiny over Paxton intensified within the Texas Republican Party, he cast himself as a martyr, a victim of spurious probes that not only threatened him, but also the integrity of the MAGA base. For the far-right, Paxton’s impeachment acquittal only further strengthened his parallels to Trump.

The onslaught energized his supporters. State Rep. Gary Gates, a Republican, learned that firsthand when he publicly recanted his vote to impeach Paxton after dealing with blowback from the base.

“There was a certain faction of those that support him that were rather upset,” said Gates, who represents a suburban district outside of Houston. “You have to deal with that political reality.”

Paxton often brags that he was one of the few Republicans to attend Trump’s campaign launch at Mar-A-Lago in 2022, when many in the party had abandoned him following the violent insurrection in the U.S. Capitol.

“When you try to take out somebody like those two guys who have fought for our values, and the whole world is weaponized against them, the people are ride-or-die,” said Aaron Reitz, a former deputy in Paxton’s office who, with his backing, is running to succeed him.

“I hope that the establishment wing of the GOP would learn a similar lesson when they have tried to take out Trump, which is they are not in control of this party,” Reitz said. “The grassroots, the people, are in control of the party, and they have to stop spending their millions.”

How Paxton got here

Paxton’s deep base of support is built in part from his lawsuits against frequent targets of the right — high-profile cases that were splashed on the front pages of local newspapers from Beaumont to Amarillo. Throughout his decade as Texas’ top lawyer, Paxton oversaw the Lone Star State’s transformation into an incubator for ultra conservatives issues, from defending abortion restrictions to warning that Muslims will attempt to introduce Islamic law in Texas.

At a recent campaign event in the Houston suburbs as early voting was underway, Paxton ticked off his courtroom successes to a group gathered at a “safari ranch” in Richmond with roaming peacocks, zebras and goats.

Paxton, speaking to the crowd of about 75 supporters, recounted the beginning of his career, starting with when he decided to run for attorney general during his first term in the state legislature because he viewed former President Barack Obama as “a really epic threat” who relied excessively on executive orders to bypass Congress.

In his first AG race, Paxton rode the wave of the Tea Party insurgency to topple an establishment Republican backed by former President George W. Bush. Paxton told the audience, to chuckles, that he sued Obama 27 times in the 22 months they overlapped.

After Obama left office and Trump took his place, Paxton turned his sights away from the White House and toward Silicon Valley. He sued Google (“who was doing really bad things”), Facebook (“we got a lot of money from them”), Twitter (“before Elon”) and Pfizer (“they lied about the vaccine”).

Then Paxton became fixated on probing voter fraud allegations, making him an instrumental figure in Trump’s unsuccessful efforts to overthrow the results of the 2020 election. He even filed a case directly with the Supreme Court seeking to invalidate election results in Pennsylvania and other battleground states — though the justices rejected his attempt, ruling Texas did not have standing.

When Joe Biden was sworn in, Paxton picked back up his onslaught against the federal government. Then Trump was reelected in 2024, Paxton said, and he “felt like I didn’t have a mission. I’d done my three different missions. I felt like 12 years was enough.”

“And I looked around,” Paxton told the crowd, “and I saw a guy: John Cornyn.”

Adam Wren contributed reporting.

​Politics