The Texas GOP Senate runoff is turning into a rout.

As polls closed Tuesday night, prediction markets gave President Trump-backed Attorney General Ken Paxton a 97% chance of defeating incumbent Sen. John Cornyn.

Then the actual votes started coming in, and the numbers were even more brutal than expected. With 25% of the vote reporting, Paxton had opened up a staggering 22-point lead over the three-term senator. That margin kept growing as election-day vote drops rolled in. One election-day batch showed Paxton pulling 87% of the vote, a jaw-dropping number that left even analysts stunned on air.

The writing was already on the wall before the first ballot was counted. Cornyn’s campaign confirmed the senator would not appear at his own watch party, choosing instead to monitor results “privately.” The room itself reportedly had only about 50 chairs.

President Trump endorsed Paxton ahead of the runoff, turning the race into a direct test of his ability to remove Republican incumbents he views as insufficiently loyal to the America First agenda. Cornyn entered the race with the power of incumbency and a massive spending advantage. His campaign and allied groups had spent roughly $90 million on advertising since last year, with much of the money aimed at attacking Paxton.

But the race had become another test of whether old Senate Republicans can survive when President Trump chooses a challenger. Paxton’s side quickly turned the endorsement into campaign fuel, while Cornyn acknowledged the endorsement would matter but insisted Texas voters would decide the race.

The timing was brutal for Cornyn because the President’s endorsement came as conservative voters were already questioning whether the longtime senator truly represented the MAGA base. Election night returns now suggest that argument landed hard. For Cornyn, it meant money could not erase the endorsement problem. It does not appear to have mattered.

The runoff set up President Trump’s next opportunity to reshape the Republican Party by pushing out an incumbent he viewed as insufficiently loyal. Cornyn had criticized Trump before the 2024 campaign, and much of the primary fight centered on which candidate was more aligned with the President and his agenda. The geography mattered, too. Counties where President Trump had the strongest support were expected to help decide the outcome, especially if Paxton could turn the endorsement into a late surge among election-day voters.

The winner of the Republican runoff will face Democratic state Rep. James Talarico in November. Democrats have been looking for any opening in Texas as they try to retake control of the U.S. Senate, but the GOP nominee will still begin the general election in one of the most important Republican states in the country.

That is why tonight is bigger than one Senate race. It is another test of whether Republican primary voters are still rewarding President Trump’s picks over Washington incumbency. Early returns are answering that question loudly. In deep-red Texas, the Republican nominee is the heavy favorite in November.

No major outlet had officially called the race at the time of this report, but with numbers like these, the math is running out fast for John Cornyn. The Trump endorsement appears to have broken the race open.