Dem sweep puts notorious MAGA court trick out of business in Texas

Republican US Senate candidate and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxto n attends a watch party during US midterm elections in Dallas, Texas, US, November 3, 2026. REUTERSCallaghan O'Hare

After a night of Republican bloodbaths there is one additional Republican corpse laying on the battlefield — and MAGA’s really going to miss it.

“For years, the Texas Attorney General’s Office has been at the forefront of nationwide legal fights, either standing side by side with President Donald Trump or challenging the policies of Democratic administrations,” reported NBC News. “That will end in January.”

In addition to sweeping Texas gov. Greg Abbot from the statehouse and a new Democrat into a U.S. Senate seat, Texas voters also took advantage of the blue tsunami to plug a Democrat into the state attorney general’s office currently held by AG Ken Paxton. MAGA AG Paxton turned his office into a springboard for major Republican lawsuits that found their way into U.S. courts and even the Supreme Court. Paxton also defended controversial Texas laws, including “tight abortion restrictions and an immigration law” giving local police the power to arrest migrants, which was reserved for federal officials.

The Supreme Court allowed both of those cases to go into effect, reports NBC News, adding that Paxton’s “most notorious court filing came in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, when he asked the Supreme Court to toss out results in other states that contributed to Biden’s win.”

That Biden related suit failed, and the Texas bar later investigated Paxton for even lobbing it.

But Attorney General-elect Nathan Johnson, a Democratic state senator and Dallas-based lawyer, told NBC News on Wednesday that all that ends under him.

“The MAGA movement looked at Texas as their own private law firm, which happens to have been publicly funded, which I would call corrupt,” Johnson told NBC. “My approach will be quite different.”

As Johnson takes on those legal resources, NBC reports his priority will be not to “wage culture war fights in the courts” but to focus on issues in Texas.

Additionally, he said he will not hesitate to confront Trump where necessary, which was unimaginable under Paxton, a stalwart Trump ally who the president endorsed for his state run — however unsuccessfully.

“If the federal government is breaking the law — and Trump seems to have a just profound penchant for breaking the law — I will be suing him,” Johnson warned. “And it’s unlikely, in my view, that he’s going to have an epiphany and suddenly start following the rules.”

NBC News said Paxton “proudly touted his MAGA credentials, and he frequently challenged President Joe Biden’s policies in court,” even going so far as to brag when he filed his 100th lawsuit against the Biden administration in 2024. Additionally, NBC reports many prominent conservative lawyers and future judges “boosted their careers” by working in the MAGA-led Texas Attorney General’s Office, including “Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, who was solicitor general under Abbott.”

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