Dan Crenshaw just got demolished in his own GOP primary by a MAGA challenger who called the Navy SEAL veteran insufficiently loyal to Trump.
Texas state Rep. Steve Toth crushed the sitting congressman in the heavily Republican 2nd District, effectively ending Crenshaw’s political career. The loss makes Crenshaw the only sitting House Republican in Texas who didn’t get Trump’s endorsement—and now we know why that mattered.
Toth, a 65-year-old construction business owner, spent the campaign hammering Crenshaw as a fake conservative. His pitch was simple: Crenshaw wasn’t MAGA enough for the “Make America Great Again” coalition.
The attacks worked. Even Ted Cruz piled on last week, endorsing Toth after Crenshaw voted for a bipartisan aviation safety bill that Cruz had championed. Because apparently bipartisanship is now a liability in today’s GOP.
Crenshaw’s heresies included actually supporting Ukraine against Russia’s invasion—which drew fire from the isolationist wing of his party. He also had the audacity to criticize fellow Republicans who deny Trump’s 2020 election loss.
Trump had endorsed Toth in previous state house races, signaling early that the former president preferred the challenger over the incumbent.
The race got ugly in its final days after a deadly shooting in Austin, where a gunman killed two people and wounded 14. Both candidates tried to exploit the tragedy by linking it to immigration, even though the shooter was a naturalized U.S. citizen.
Toth wrote on social media: “America’s primary role is keeping Americans safe in our homeland. It’s not mass immigration in the name of diversity.”
Crenshaw went further on Twitter, claiming the shooting was “possibly a terrorist attack” and warning about “Iranian and Islamists sleeper cells” created by “years of open borders.”
Since Texas’ 2nd District is heavily Republican, Toth is basically guaranteed to win in November. The district covers Houston suburbs where Trump politics now matter more than military service or legislative experience.
Crenshaw, who lost his eye serving in Afghanistan, has been in the House since 2019 and was once seen as a rising star in the party.