Two takeaways from Tuesday

Plus an underwater milestone

Tuesday was a primary and special election day in several states around the country, so let’s take a break from the Iran war. Texas dominated the coverage with its primary elections, but there were also primaries in Arkansas and North Carolina.

In Texas, the big stories were the loss by Dan Crenshaw and a second-place finish by Chip Roy, along with James Talarico’s victory over Jasmine Crockett in the Democratic Senate primary. The Republican Senate contest will go to a runoff between incumbent John Cornyn and Ken Paxton.

Photo credit: Element5 Digital/Unplash.com

Dan Crenshaw’s loss in congressional district 2 came as somewhat of a surprise. Crenshaw, a former Navy SEAL, was a strong Trump supporter but lost Trump’s endorsement after some public criticism, including about the January 6 insurrection and Trump’s failure to accept his 2020 election loss. In the end, it wasn’t close. Crenshaw lost by 15 points to Steve Toth, a megachurch pastor and state senator, who avoided a runoff with a 55 percent majority.

Chip Roy is leaving his House seat to run for Texas attorney general, but his prospects aren’t looking good. Roy trailed Mays Middleton by eight points but did manage to stay alive since Texas requires a runoff if no candidate receives a majority. Mark Teixeira, a former Major League Baseball player, won the Republican nomination for Roy’s old seat outright and will face Democrat Kristin Hook in November, but the seat is typically reliably red.

In the Senate race, Democrat James Talarico eked out a majority win over Jasmine Crockett. Talarico is an outspoken Christian and is considered the moderate choice in the race, even though his platform is decidedly progressive, and his brand of Christianity is not evangelically orthodox.

As Nate Silver noted, “Crockett might not be more liberal, but she was more partisan.”

Talarico’s demeanor may be more appealing to white swing voters in Texas than Crockett would have been, but whether he can marshal support of the state’s black voters remains to be seen.

The outcome of the Texas Senate race in November depends a lot on whether Ken Paxton emerges as the Republican nominee. John Cornyn has held the seat since 2002 and has been reliably conservative, but Paxton is a MAGA favorite. Paxton was also impeached by his own party as attorney general (although not removed from office) for bribery, abuse of public trust, and obstruction of justice. He also had a messy extramarital affair that led to an ongoing divorce. Cornyn led narrowly on Tuesday. The race heads to a runoff.

On Wednesday, Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that he was prepared to endorse a Texas Senate candidate and will be asking “the candidate that I don’t Endorse to immediately DROP OUT OF THE RACE! Is that fair?” [emphasis and random capitalization are his]

MAGA world is obviously getting concerned about the possible loss of a Texas Senate seat, and the word on the street is that Cornyn will get the nod. However, Trump’s base doesn’t always honor his endorsements, particularly when they see the candidate that he endorsed as a squish or a RINO. Cornyn fits that bill.

Another Republican allegedly involved in another messy affair also survived to the runoff. Tony Gonzalez of TX-3 is accused of having an affair with a married staffer that led to her committing suicide by setting herself on fire. Gonzalez still finished a close second, thanks in large part to Donald Trump’s endorsement, after denying the allegations. (He admitted the affair Wednesday afternoon.)

In North Carolina, Roy Cooper overwhelmingly won the Democratic primary to replace Republican Senator Thom Tillis, who was last seen unloading with both barrels on Kristi Noem. [Insert Cricket joke here.] Michael Whatley, a former chair of the Republican National Committee, will be the Republican nominee. Roy Cooper is a popular figure in the state, winning two elections as governor in years that Trump carried North Carolina.

In Arkansas, Republican Tom Cotton handily won renomination to the Senate and will be challenged by Hallie Shoffner, a soybean farmer who lost her family farm due to rising costs from tariffs.

I have two big takeaways from Tuesday night. The first is that the old Republican Party is gone. When conservatives like Crenshaw and Cornyn are being swept aside because they aren’t MAGA enough, the GOP has lost touch with its roots and is way out of the mainstream.

More to the point, the ideological diversity in the party is moving from extremely trumpy to overwhelmingly trumpy. (Never go full Trump.) It isn’t as if Crenshaw and Cornyn weren’t allies of Trump. The Republican fights were about who loved Trump more and whether the GOP electorate could tolerate even mild criticism of the president. Crenshaw’s defeat argues that it can’t, and without Paxton’s sordid past, Cornyn would have likely suffered the same fate.

The Republican Party that many of us used to support exists only in our memories at this point. The GOP is no longer conservative; although some of the same faces remain, the conservative principles are gone. My guess is that a lot of Republican voters are pulling the lever for the “R” after the candidate’s name without looking too closely at the changed platform. The “boiling frogs” theory of acclimatization to increasingly extremist rhetoric and policy also explains a lot.

Ironically, the Iran war may be a bridge too far for Trump’s base. The MAGA base is showing signs of discontent with the attack on Iran, while the neocon wing of the party is lining up to support regime change. So far, most Republicans are sticking with the president, however. A new CBS poll found that 85 percent of Republicans approved of the war compared to only 44 percent of the nation at large (with 56 percent disapproval).

The second takeaway is that Democrats seem to be both overperforming and considering electability. Democrats picked off another Republican state legislative seat on Tuesday, the only seat to change hands this week. Arkansas House District 70 went to Democrats, another reliably red district. This follows a series of special election wins for Dems in 2025 and earlier this year. By one estimate, Democrats won 21 percent of Republican seats that were on the ballot in 2025.

Take this with a grain of salt, but I was struck by the fact that Democratic primary voters in both Texas and North Carolina outnumbered Republicans. That shouldn’t be taken to be indicative of the outcome of those races in November, but it does indicate an energy among Democrats that is absent from the GOP. That energy probably has to do with boththe overall mood of each party as well as candidate quality.

MAGA Republicans have a long history of nominating crazy over conservative. Like an Iranian missile barrage, some of the crazies slip through the electoral defenses, but a lot of the worst candidates get shot down by their Democratic opponents. In some red states and districts, extremely fringe MAGA candidates can win, but often that isn’t the case, and nominating weak Republican candidates, along with Trump’s rising unpopularity, may turn out to be the Democratic path to a Senate majority.

November is a long way away, but all other things being equal, I’d rather be a Democratic candidate right now. Many Democrats will have tough campaigns, but the winds of public opinion are currently at their backs.

UNDER THE SEA An unidentified US submarine sank an Iranian warship in the Indian Ocean with a torpedo. The IRIS Dena had been participating in exercises with India during February. Reuters reports that 32 people were rescued and 87 were known dead from the crew of approximately 180.

The attack marked the first time a US submarine had sunk a ship with a torpedo since WWII, and is one of only four cases of sub-launched torpedo attacks in the post-war period.

WAR POWERS Senate Republicans killed a resolution to end the Iran war. The vote was largely along party lines with Rand Paul and John Fetterman voting with the other respective party.

GOVT GONE WILD Newsweek reports that three ICE agents shot themselves in the leg within two days. None of the shootings were fatal, and all occurred while the agents were holstering their weapons during training sessions. Subtitle this one: “He hires the best people.”

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