Picasso-faced Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s intra-party revenge tour for the failed 2023 impeachment effort against him itself failed to score its most highly-sought scalp on Tuesday. The Texas Tribune reports that MAGA primary challenger candidate Dave Covey conceded defeat to incumbent state House Speaker Dade Phelan, with Covey coming up short by just 366 votes in an extremely fucking heated HD 21 runoff. Per the Tribune, it’s extremely rare for a Texas legislative candidate to trail in a March primary and then prevail in a runoff, but Phelan did just that after an unheard of $3.8 million in spending by his campaign. That figure was more than double Covey’s $1.6 million, combining for what was likely the most expensive state legislative primary in Texas history.

Safe as his seat may be, Phelan’s gavel could be a different story and where he stands after Paxton’s challengers knocked off 15 out 85 state House Republicans – Pax had targeted 35 of them, so his record actually isn’t that great. The Tribune notes however that the likeliest reason no members have come out in support yet was that they weren’t sure Phelan would win the runoff.

Tuesday’s other nationally-watched Texas runoff also saw the “RINOs” prevail over MAGA as “moderate” asshole Congressman Tony Gonzales narrowly defeated fucking demented gun freak Brandon “the AK Guy” Herrera, by just 407 votes at 98 percent reporting. Herrera, a 28 year-old YouTuber who had attracted the support of large-foreheaded statutory rapist Matt Gaetz and several other House Freedom Caucasians, mounted the campaign after Gonzales had been censured in 2022 over his support for the mildest of gun control bills – the district, Texas’s 23rd, includes Uvalde, site of the 2022 Robb Elementary School massacre. Herrera might have fucked himself out of a Trump endorsement and thus the nomination for past comments such as doubting the Orange Allah could win in 2024 and joking about Barron. What the actual joke was is unclear.