Beltway RINOs Sabotaged the Texas Senate Race and Now Their Media Pals Are Trying to Gaslight You Over It

Ken Paxton beat Senator John Cornyn in the biggest Senate primary upset of the cycle.

The RINOs whose feelings Paxton hurt in the primary turned around and worked to make sure he lost the seat anyway.

What the Washington establishment crowd did next cost the GOP more than anyone thought possible in one of the reddest states they have.

The GOP Establishment Cost Texas More Than One Senate Seat

Texas is not a state Republicans lose statewide.

Trump carried it by nearly fourteen points in 2024, pulling 6,393,597 votes to Harris's 4,835,250.

Two years later, James Talarico pulled 4,880,229 votes to beat Ken Paxton's 3,847,153 while Gina Hinojosa pulled 4,735,613 to beat Governor Greg Abbott by seven points right behind him.

That is not a close loss.

That is a Republican coalition that simply did not show up, in a state Trump carried by double digits two years earlier.

Paxton wasn't a perfect candidate, and nobody is pretending otherwise, but campaigns with real flaws survive all the time when the party actually backs them.

The Math Shows Exactly How Big This Abandonment Was

The lesson for 2028 is not that Texas is turning purple.

It is that a party establishment willing to sit out a general election just to settle a primary score will lose the seat it was supposed to defend.

Hinojosa's seven-point win over Abbott backs that up: a different Republican, the same cycle, the same establishment sitting on its hands, and Texas still lost ground statewide.

Paxton didn't hand Democrats this seat.

Washington RINOs did.

The Media's Favorite Excuse Skips Right Over Darline Graham

The media is gaslighting America by saying Trump put his thumb on the scale in the Texas primary but they're ignoring him anointing Darline Graham who had zero experience or qualification, and was a pro-abortion RINO at best, if not a flat out leftist.  

The establishment and their media pals are doing this because they want Americans to see the next Conservative as unelectable.

Within hours of the loss, national outlets settled on a tidy explanation: Cornyn was electable, and Trump's endorsement of Paxton blew a winnable seat.

It is a tidy story, and it lets everyone who actually sat on their hands this cycle off the hook.

Trump also endorsed Darline Graham for South Carolina's Senate seat the same cycle, backing a nominee with zero days of elected experience over sitting conservative congressman Ralph Norman, and the coverage of that race still never blamed Trump's judgment the way it blamed his grudges in Texas.

Norman, or any of a handful of other candidates, like Project 2025 architect Paul Dans, would have walked away with the South Carolina win with far less financial backing for Tuesday than Darline Graham had.

RINO White House handler Susie Wiles seemingly wanted Graham, and Trump backed it all the way.

Had Dans or Norman been on the ticket, the financial backing that went her way could have shored up Texas.

The difference was never the endorsement – it was that Paxton was the genuinely conservative candidate, and Cornyn was the Washington incumbent those same commentators’ Wall Street bosses would rather have kept in the seat.

Cornyn and Karl Rove Sat This One Out While Elon Musk Tried to Save It

Trump didn't wait for Election Day to name the actual saboteurs, publicly blaming John Cornyn and Karl Rove back in May for working to sink Paxton's campaign from the inside.

Senate GOP leadership openly badmouthed the nominee through the entire runoff, and John Thune refused to lift a finger for Paxton until the votes were already counted.

The real financial rescue didn't come from the Bush-Rove-McConnell wing – it came from Elon Musk, who poured more than $150 million into a Senate PAC trying to save Paxton's campaign, when Cornyn's allies in the donor class walked away.

That is not a party closing ranks behind its nominee.

That is party elites who demand conservatives back every squish candidate they serve up but letting a Senate seat burn to settle a primary grudge when their guy lost.

Sources:

• Jim Hoft, "Texas Turnout: Weirdo James Talarico Won OVER HALF A MILLION More Votes than Kamala Did in 2024 – How Does That Happen?," The Gateway Pundit, November 4, 2026.
• Breitbart News, "Trump-Backed Ken Paxton Defeats Incumbent John Cornyn in Texas GOP Senate Runoff," Breitbart, May 26, 2026.
• Washington Examiner, "Winner of Paxton-Cornyn Texas Senate Primary Runoff: James Talarico," Washington Examiner, 2026.
• Mediaite, "Trump Starts Blame Game for Ken Paxton Losing, Points Finger at John Cornyn and Karl Rove," Mediaite, May 2026.
• Reason, "Ken Paxton's Primary Victory Shows How Trump's Grudges Undermine His Party's Interests," Reason, May 27, 2026.
• The Texas Tribune, "Elon Musk Is the Donor Behind Senate Republicans' Massive Rescue Mission for Ken Paxton," The Texas Tribune, October 15, 2026.
• Washington Examiner, "Thune Backs Ken Paxton After Divisive Texas Primary," Washington Examiner, 2026.
• Axios, "Republicans Skeptical Darline Graham Can Win a Full Senate Term," Axios, July 24, 2026.