GOP Rep. Dan Crenshaw loses primary race in Texas to state Rep. Steve Toth, CBS News projects

Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw has lost the GOP primary race in Texas’ 2nd Congressional District to Texas state Rep. Steve Toth, CBS News projects. 

Crenshaw, who has served in the House since 2019, is the only sitting House Republican in Texas who did not receive President Trump’s endorsement.

Toth, 65, is a small business owner with a background in construction and business consulting. He’s an avid supporter of the president, and on the campaign trail, argued that Crenshaw wasn’t loyal or conservative enough for the “Make America Great Again” coalition. Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas endorsed Toth last week, after Crenshaw voted against a bipartisan aviation safety bill that Cruz championed. 

Mr. Trump endorsed Toth in the past in his bids for the state house.

Texas’ second congressional district, in the suburbs of Houston, is heavily Republican, so the winner of a GOP primary is all but guaranteed victory in November. 

Texas has open primaries.

A deadly shooting in Austin over the weekend cast a shadow over Tuesday’s primary races in Texas. A gunman wearing a hoodie that said “Property of Allah” killed two people and wounded 14 before police took him down. Both candidates attempted to link the shooting — perpetrated by a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Senegal, officials said — to immigration.

Toth wrote on social media in reaction to the shooting: “America’s primary role is keeping Americans safe in our homeland. It’s not mass immigration in the name of diversity.”

Crenshaw wrote on X over the weekend: “Yes, this was possibly a terrorist attack. We don’t know just yet, but it is increasingly more likely than not. Years of open borders and allowing immigrants from countries where we were not always able to fully vet them created the potential for Iranian and Islamists sleeper cells. Stay on high alert, and remember: You have the right to defend yourself here in Texas.”