Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) has been defeated in his primary bid for the GOP nomination for Texas’s 2nd Congressional District, losing to a challenger from the right in what could be the night’s biggest electoral upset.
At 1 a.m. ET on March 4, the Associated Press declared that Republican Steve Toth had won the race. At the time, Toth had an 18-point lead over Crenshaw.
Toth, a member of the Texas House of Representatives, has run to the right of Crenshaw, describing the lawmaker as a “neocon”—a term colloquially understood to describe an individual favoring U.S. military involvement internationally.
Crenshaw was the only House Republican in Texas whom President Donald Trump did not endorse. He has at times split with the president, including over the 2020 election results.
He voted for the 2024 bipartisan border bill, which received criticism from some Republicans and Trump.
According to the “About” section on his website, Toth is an ordained minister and small business owner. Toth, who was backed by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), has championed his conservative track record while serving in the state Legislature.
Texas Rep. Steve Toth (R-The Woodlands) speaks during a news conference in Porter, Texas, on Aug. 25, 2020. (Jason Fochtman/Houston Chronicle via AP)
Toth’s upset victory in the primary race comes just days after the United States joined Israel to take out Iran’s ballistic missile and nuclear capabilities. U.S. and Israeli strikes also resulted in the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the nation’s leader, and have led to a series of retaliatory strikes by Iran across the Middle East.
Crenshaw is a longtime supporter of a more hawkish stance toward the Persian nation and has expressed support for the ongoing campaign dubbed Operation Epic Fury.
In a post to social media on March 3, he defended the legality of the operation, writing, “The law is clear, and the President is operating within it.”
He discouraged the president from yielding to mounting pressures, saying, “don’t show hesitation mid-swing. What we absolutely cannot have right now are political roadblocks that weaken our position mid-operation. When American troops are in harm’s way, the last thing we should do is signal hesitation or division to our adversaries.”
