Texas GOP runoff - Trump-backed Paxton wins

About 64 percent to about 36 percent: Ken Paxton beat John Cornyn in Texas's Republican Senate runoff, with the race posted on the Texas secretary of state's results page electionresults.sos.state.tx.us and AP-reported totals cited by Al Jazeera aljazeera.com. The trade here is not just that Cornyn lost, but how cleanly he lost. Cornyn had been slightly ahead in March, 42.5 percent to 40.8 percent, but neither candidate cleared the 50 percent threshold, and Trump never gave Cornyn the endorsement he wanted bbc.com. Once Trump backed Paxton, the race stopped clearing like a standard incumbent-defense contest and started clearing like a loyalty test, which is why the margin matters more than the upset label. For Senate Republicans, the read-through is that incumbency and fundraising do less work when the primary electorate is being asked a simpler question about alignment with Trump. A Cornyn save, or even a much tighter Paxton win, would have kept this Texas-specific and candidate-specific; this result makes it a Trump-endorsement story first, and a Senate GOP control story second.