Blue Tsunami Proves Texas’ Problem Was Never Candidate Quality
After Tuesday’s elections turned Texas decisively blue, many were quick to blame “candidate quality” for Republican losses – a line repeated by outlets like Fortune and Bloomberg and echoed by a White House official who said the president promoted some nominees more effectively than they promoted themselves.Critics pointed to scandals surrounding Senate hopeful Ken Paxton and controversial remarks by Railroad Commissioner candidate Bo French as reasons voters stayed away or flipped.
But the vote totals tell a more nuanced story. With over 95% of ballots counted,Paxton captured about 43% of the vote,only roughly 2.7 points behind Gov.Greg Abbott’s 45.7%. French finished near 46%, a share comparable to or better than Abbott’s, suggesting these individual candidacies alone don’t explain the GOP’s broad defeats.
Instead, the piece argues, larger forces were at work. The author says the war with Iran and the inflation and affordability problems tied to it drove turnout dynamics: Democrats turned out in large numbers-some reporting turnout “as if this were a presidential year”-while many Republicans,including crucial blocs like evangelicals,stayed home. Party leaders in Washington also get blamed for failing to use the GOP’s recent trifecta to pass popular measures (the SAVE America Act is cited) and for declining to financially back Paxton’s campaign, reducing incentives for their base to vote.
The column accuses the establishment GOP of alienating its own voters. It singles out former Sen. John Cornyn and members of the Bush family for publicly criticizing primary winners and opposing the choices of Texas Republicans after the primary, behavior the author says exemplifies the entitlement that cost Cornyn his seat. The piece notes Paxton beat Cornyn in the primary by a wide margin (about 63.8% to 36.2%), arguing that Texans had already rejected Cornyn’s approach and that there’s no evidence Cornyn would have performed better in the general election.
in short, the author contends the Texas losses stem from broader political and policy failures-foreign policy, economic pressures, and the GOP establishment’s antagonism toward its voters-rather than simply a few poor-quality nominees. The article closes by identifying the writer: Jordan Boyd, an award-winning staff writer at The Federalist and producer of The Federalist Radio Hour, who studied political science and journalism at baylor University.
Americans looking for someone or something to blame for Democrats’ sweeping victory in Texas on Tuesday might be tempted to name “candidate quality” the culprit. After all, the narrative that President Donald Trump’s choice to endorse “grossly unfit candidates” like Ken Paxton began before the election was over.
By the time the blue tsunami toppled a red Texas, the blame game was in full force. Corporate media outlets like Fortune and Bloomberg agreed that Republicans lost because the candidates Texans needed to vote for were subpar.
Even the White House joined the dogpile, insisting that “candidate quality matters.”
“President Trump did a better job promoting many of the candidates than the candidates did themselves,” one White House official claimed.
The ruling class can pretend that it was Senate Candidate Ken Paxton’s affair and corruption allegations, and Railroad Commissioner Candidate Bo French’s commentary on the racial makeup of the student section at a University of Texas football game that kept people home or maybe even pushed them to vote Democrat.
Voter data, however, tells a different, truer story. Make no mistake that Tuesday proved to be an undeniably historic and overwhelming defeat for Lone Star State Republicans across the board. A closer look at the margins, however, doesn’t lend any credence to the idea that Paxton or French alone torpedoed the GOP’s chances.
With more than 95 percent of the vote tallied, Paxton received 43 percent of the state’s support. That’s only 2.7 percentage points less than incumbent Gov. Greg Abbot’s 45.7 percent. By Wednesday afternoon, vote totals suggested French’s 46 percent yielded a higher margin than even Abbott did.
— Jordan Boyd (@jordanboydtx) November 4, 2026
That didn’t stop self-proclaimed “principled” conservatives and “native born” Texans from gloating about the losses.
So what was really responsible for turning Texas blue? Despite the administration and corporate media’s attempt to avoid mentioning it, the Iran War and the affordability issues that directly resulted from it played a massive role in the midterm turnout. While Democrats turned out in droves, “as if this were a presidential election” year, a notable percentage of Republicans, including key voter blocs like evangelical Christians, appeared to stay home.
A good chunk of blame for the Election Day bloodbath also falls squarely on elected Republicans, specifically those in the Senate, who wasted the last Republican trifecta for a long time instead of passing key legislation like the SAVE America Act. Their staunch unwillingness to act, as well as their reluctance to help fund Paxton’s race, did nothing to incentivize GOP voters to get to the polls.
That brings us to the heart of Democrats’ Texas election sweep and an ongoing problem in Texas and Republican politics: the establishment GOP’s hatred for its own base.
Democrats have tried for a long time to turn Texas blue. Their efforts were only helped this year by people like ousted Republican Sen. John Cornyn and the Bush family, who spent the time between the primary runoff and the general election complaining about and fighting Texas voters’ choices instead of doing everything to support them.
This entitlement is the exact attitude that got Cornyn voted out in the first place. Cornyn was elected to go to Washington to work for the people. Instead of rewarding Texans’ trust, Cornyn turned on his base by working with Democrats to attack the Second Amendment, call conservatives terrorists, and throw money at another overseas war.
If Paxton was such a bad candidate, he shouldn’t have beat out Cornyn in the primaries. Instead, Texans took Trump’s Paxton endorsement and Paxton’s attorney general track record to heart and voted 63.8 percent to 36.2 percent to kick Cornyn to the curb.
The people spoke, and the verdict was Cornyn should be punished for his betrayal. Cornyn’s firing was a natural consequence of his actions, but he wasn’t done complaining about it. Over the next several months, Cornyn dogged Paxton about not debating Democrat Senate Candidate James Talarico and took aim at French and heritage Americanism. He even committed to not voting for the Republican Railroad Commissioner candidate.
There is no evidence that Cornyn would have fared better in Tuesday’s bloodbath than Paxton did. That didn’t stop him from rubbing it in with a no-caption picture of the Texas Capitol and following that post with congratulations for the newly elected Talarico.
Jordan Boyd is an award-winning staff writer at The Federalist and producer of “The Federalist Radio Hour.” Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on X @jordanboydtx.
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