A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
A pair of Republican senators have lost their seats in less than two weeks.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Yeah, one of them is John Cornyn. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton defeated Cornyn on Tuesday. He's been a senator for four terms. Paxton outpolled Cornyn by a margin of nearly 2-to-1. President Trump supported Paxton, endorsing him late after Paxton was leading in many polls. Trump also recently supported the successful primary challenge to Louisiana Republican Senator Bill Cassidy.
MARTÍNEZ: Houston Public Media's Andrew Schneider has been following all of this. So, Andrew, help us understand the scope of Paxton's victory over Cornyn.
ANDREW SCHNEIDER, BYLINE: Well, like many elections across Texas and around the country, the contest is very much about a potential changing of the guard. Cornyn is in his mid-70s. He's a staunch conservative, but he represents the establishment wing of the Texas Republican Party. The party's moved considerably to the right since he was first elected senator when George W. Bush was in the White House. Paxton's younger. He's long been a favorite with what has been developed into the MAGA wing of the party. He made the case over the course of the past year-plus that Cornyn's time was passed, and particularly that Cornyn wasn't enough of a supporter of President Trump. And Cornyn repeatedly countered that he's voted for Trump's agenda more than 99% of the time, but that's a message he wasn't able to get through to a majority of Republican primary voters.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. Early voting was already happening when president's endorsement came. So how much of a role did you think that played in Paxton's win?
SCHNEIDER: Well, Paxton gave Trump a lot of credit for pushing him over the top. Here's Paxton giving his victory speech in Plano, Texas.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
KEN PAXTON: President Trump is the leader of our party, and his endorsement in this most - is the most powerful force in politics.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Whoo.
PAXTON: And I'm honored to have his support, and I look forward to working with him in the Senate to deliver for Texas.
SCHNEIDER: Last month, Texas Public Opinion Research released a poll that suggested a Trump endorsement would propel Paxton to a double-digit victory over Cornyn, and that's exactly what happened.
MARTÍNEZ: OK. Now, Paxton is the Republican candidate against the Democratic nominee, and that's state representative James Talarico. Did Paxton give any indication at all how he plans to campaign against Talarico?
SCHNEIDER: Paxton's already arguing that Talarico is too far left to represent the state. He pointed to Talarico's previous statements on issues ranging from immigration to the economy to transgender rights. Now, traditionally, that line of attack has been very effective for Republicans running statewide in Texas. The last time a Democrat won statewide office here was more than 30 years ago. But it's not clear how it will work this time. One of the ways Talarico became the Democratic nominee was by pointing to his record of flipping a state House district that previously went for Trump by double digits. Talarico's already launched his own campaign, focusing on the corruption allegations that have dogged Paxton since he took the attorney general's office. In fact, today marks the third anniversary of Paxton's impeachment by the Republican-led Texas House on some of those charges. That's an impeachment that ended in his acquittal by the Texas Senate.
MARTÍNEZ: All right. It should be a fascinating race. What are some of the other major developments that you saw in Tuesday's elections?
SCHNEIDER: That changing of the guard phenomenon wasn't just limited to Republicans. Another race we saw called early and by a wide margin was in the Democratic primary runoff for the 18th Congressional District. Thanks to last year's mid-decade redistricting, Congressman Christian Menefee was forced into a race against Congressman Al Green. Menefee won that faceoff. Republicans targeted Green as part of the redistricting, and this was their first real victory out of that. Menefee is in his late 30s, and Green is in his late 70s. And while Green had seniority on his side, this is a district that hasn't had steady representation for a few years, and that was very fresh in voters' minds.
MARTÍNEZ: That's Houston Public Media's Andrew Schneider. Thanks a lot.
SCHNEIDER: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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