The most conservative Republicans continue to win in Texas; from U.S. Senate nominee Ken Paxton, to nominee for railroad commissioner Bo French, and attorney general nominee "MAGA" Mayes Middleton, as he likes people to call him.
"What we're seeing is the consolidation of MAGA power," Jon Taylor, a political scientist at the University of Texas at San Antonio, told the Texas Newsroom.
"MAGA" is shorthand for the "Make America Great Again" movement spearheaded by President Donald Trump and refers to the president's brand of conservative to far-right politics.
Out with the old
That "MAGA power" led to the end of political careers for longtime incumbents like Sen. John Cornyn, U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, and even Railroad Commissioner Jim Wright.
"You're seeing essentially the last of the old guard being swept away," Taylor said. "Anybody who is not 100% MAGA, 100% committed to Trump, is viewed as disloyal and therefore must be purged."
Michael Adams, a political scientist at Texas Southern University, told The Texas Newsroom he agrees.
"It sent a clear signal, I think, to the Republican Party that the [George] Bush or the [Rick] Perry wing of the Republican Party — what we know as the institutional Republican part of the traditional wing — I think that has been put to rest," Adams said.
One of the most obvious examples is Attorney General Paxton's win over incumbent Sen. Cornyn. A day into early voting, Trump, the leader of MAGA, endorsed Paxton over Cornyn, who claimed to vote with Trump 99% of the time.
Will MAGA power win in November?
But Nancy Sims, a political scientist at the University of Houston, believes while being the most MAGA in the primaries was a winning strategy, she isn't too sure what it'll look like going forward.
"That's going to be their challenge," Sims said. "They moved so far to the right to win their nominations, that they're gonna have to live with the commercials they made side-by-side with Trump. All the MAGA promises they made for the general cycle are not gonna be popular with independent voters, in my opinion."
There's several reasons for that. Trump's approval rating is low, the economy is in bad shape, gas prices are soaring and the country is at war.
But MAGA candidates are ignoring those topics and instead focusing on hot-button social topics like gender identity, immigration enforcement and stoking fears over Islam.
While that strategy worked during a Republican primary where only 1.4 million voters participated, political scientist Jeronimo Cortina isn't sure it'll be so successful with the general electorate.
"On the one hand, I don't know 97% of folks that did not participate in the runoff election, whether they are Democrats or Republicans, support that type of rhetoric or not," Cortina said.
Uphill battle for Democrats
Even with all that in Democrats' favor, polls show, at best, Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate James Talarico may beat Paxton by a few percentage points, while others predict it to be dead even. And with months to go until voters begin casting ballots, Sims isn't too sure that'll be the same if things change.
"Today, if you ask me, I would say it looks like Texas may be competitive for the first time in 30 years," Sims said. "But that could shift if Trump's popularity begins to rise again."
Until then, Democrats have their work cut out for them. They haven't won a statewide race in more than three decades. But Taylor believes it's possible.
"Texas is not truly a red state," Taylor said. "It's a low-turnout state in which you've got Democrats who, if they would ever get off their butts and actually mobilize, could actually win elections."
So while the conditions are there for Democrats to win in November, an engine doesn't run on good design alone — it needs ignition, and for Democrats that ignition is voter turnout.
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