Welp. Ken Paxton blew out John Cornyn by 28 points, 63.8 to 35.2 this week. That makes Cornyn the first incumbent Republican senator in Texas history to lose the party’s nomination at reelection time.
Trump endorsed Paxton a week before Election Day. Wesley Hunt jumped on board the same day. The base spoke, and it was not close, y’all.
Oh, and Leonard Leo, the Federalist Society guy, architect of the judicial pipeline whose money turned Paxton into a national figure? He was NOWHERE to be found in the upset. Not a dollar spent. Not a quote given. Not one single solitary fingerprint in first-quarter FEC filings.
The same Leonard Leo who sat on Paxton’s transition team in 2014. The same Leo whose Concord Fund (formerly Judicial Crisis Network) pumped $20.3 MILLION into the Republican Attorneys General Association while Paxton was AG. The same Leo who used the Texas AG’s office as a battering ram for Federalist Society-backed cases like OSHA, Planned Parenthood, ESG, TikTok, the whole shebang. He took the wins and now *poof* … he’s gone.
Where’d the money go? Leo’s new Lexington Fund dropped a million bucks on a super PAC for, get this: Susan Collins. ANOTHER half-million to the Sentinel Action Fund, which is propping up Collins, along with Mike Rogers in Michigan and Jon Husted in Ohio. Three votes that go however leadership tells them to go. Three people the donor class can stomach. That’s the pivot.
And look, this ain’t the first time. Remember January 2025? RFK Jr.’s HHS confirmation? Leo’s CRC Advisors, a PR shop, was working with Mike Pence’s Advancing American Freedom to tank that nomination. And treated worried families and covid “pandemic” skeptics and critics as the enemy. By a conservative.
It’s almost like there’s a pattern here.
When populist conservatism produces a candidate the Federalist Society didn’t pick, you know, Paxton, RFK, whoever’s next, well then Leo’s network shows up to rail against them. Meanwhile, two of the three Trump SCOTUS justices Leo championed (Gorsuch, Barrett) sided AGAINST Trump on tariffs. And Leo bankrolls the legal group that sued over those same tariffs!
Now, you may credit Federalist Society with our conservative SCOTUS Justices of late, and that’s fine, but they want to pick the whole menu for everyone. Dictate what choices we have. Well Republican voters in Texas like to order à la carte, friend, even if we don’t say in French.
Fact is, Ken Paxton won the nomination in a walk. With an impeachment in his rearview. Outspent nine to one overall. Without Leo’s checkbook. And we know now who showed up and who didn’t. Worth remembering.