Liz Cheney lost her Wyoming seat in 2022 by 37 points after she decided she knew better than the voters who sent her to Congress.
Dan Crenshaw just found out Texas has the same memory.
Turns out seven years of breaking promises has a price and Texas voters just handed Crenshaw the bill.
Dan Crenshaw Lost the Texas Primary and the Reasons Go Back Years
On Tuesday night, State Representative Steve Toth crushed Crenshaw 56% to 40% – and the reasons go back to his first year in office.
The grievances against Crenshaw didn't pile up overnight.
They started with the guns.
After the El Paso shooting in 2019, Crenshaw publicly called for red flag law in Texas – the kind that let the government take your firearms before you've been charged with anything.
Gun Owners of America didn't forget it.
They endorsed Toth and spent the final weeks of the race reminding voters that Crenshaw had earned a nickname in Second Amendment circles: "Red Flag Dan."
The vaccine mandate fight was next.
While Republicans across the country were fighting to get troops reinstated after Biden's Pentagon fired more than 8,000 service members for refusing the COVID shot, Crenshaw blocked their path back.
These were soldiers and sailors who chose their conscience over compliance – and a congressman who called himself a military man left them out in the cold.
The stock trades didn't help either.
Crenshaw failed to disclose purchases he made in March 2020 – right as Congress was building the $2.2 trillion CARES Act – violating the STOCK Act's 45-day reporting requirement.
He bought Boeing the day the relief bill was signed into law.
And he bought Southwest and Kinder Morgan the day it passed the House.
Conservative podcaster Shawn Ryan – a fellow Navy SEAL with six million YouTube followers – spent months asking questions about Crenshaw's finances on air.
Crenshaw's response was to send Ryan a legal threat referencing SEAL Team 6.
Medal of Honor recipient Dakota Meyer saw the letter and posted two words publicly: "Be better."
Mexico came next.
During a congressional trip in August 2025, Crenshaw drank himself into trouble badly enough that House Intelligence Committee Chair Rick Crawford went straight to Speaker Johnson asking to strip him of his committee seat entirely.
Johnson said no – but Crawford pulled Crenshaw's committee travel for 90 days and shut down his cartel task force.
Ukraine tied it all together.
While Trump pushed for peace and Republican voters grew increasingly skeptical of sending American tax dollars into a foreign war with no end in sight, Crenshaw became one of Congress's loudest Ukraine aid cheerleaders – clashing openly with Tucker Carlson and dismissing anyone who questioned the spending as someone who didn't understand national security.
Carlson – who reaches more Republican primary voters than any congressman alive – dubbed him "Eyepatch McCain."
The name stuck.
Trump Withheld His Endorsement and Steve Toth Made Crenshaw Pay For It
Of every Republican House incumbent in Texas on Tuesday's ballot, Crenshaw was the only one without Trump's endorsement.
That single fact tells you everything you need to know.
Toth ran one argument: Crenshaw campaigned like a MAGA Republican and governed like a Washington insider.
The voters agreed – by 15 points.
Crenshaw poured money into the race, plastered the airwaves, and ran TV ads featuring video of Trump calling him "great."
Didn't matter.
He told the Houston Chronicle's editorial board, "If you think I'm not MAGA enough, then you're not following me on social media, that's the reality."
The voters of Texas's 2nd District were following him just fine.
Ted Cruz sealed it.
After Crenshaw voted against Cruz's aviation safety bill – the senator's top legislative priority – Cruz recorded an ad for the pro-Toth super PAC.
Toth appeared on Tucker Carlson's podcast and spoke directly to the voters Crenshaw had spent years antagonizing.
Why the RINO Primary Losses Keep Coming and Who Is Next
This wasn't a weak politician going down to a stronger one.
Crenshaw is a combat veteran who lost his right eye in Afghanistan, deployed two more times after, outraised his opponent by $1.3 million, and still lost by double digits in one of Houston's most reliably Republican districts.
The voters weren't confused. They were paying attention.
Freedom Caucus members – "performance artists" and "terrorists," by Crenshaw's own description.
When a fellow SEAL started asking questions about his finances on a podcast with six million subscribers, the response was a legal threat referencing SEAL Team 6 – and a Medal of Honor recipient reduced it to two words: "Be better."
The Ukraine votes are on the record. So is the vote that left 8,000 troops out in the cold after Biden's Pentagon fired them for skipping the COVID shot.
Red flag gun laws – backed them, then spent years claiming he never did.
Steve Toth goes into November as a heavy favorite in a solidly Republican district.
The seat stays red.
And the next Republican thinking about crossing this base should study what just happened in Texas's 2nd District very carefully.
Sources:
- NBC News, "House Republican Dan Crenshaw unseated after Texas House primary vote," March 4, 2026.
- Texas Tribune, "Steve Toth unseats Dan Crenshaw in GOP primary," March 3, 2026.
- Punchbowl News, "Crenshaw banned from international travel after Mexico trip," November 19, 2025.
- RedState, "Dan Crenshaw Forced to Deny Being Banned From International Travel After Alleged Alcohol-Fueled Incident," November 20, 2025.
- Gun Owners of America Texas, "Support Second Amendment Champions for Congress In Texas," 2026.
- Breitbart, "Rep. Dan Crenshaw Explains His Support For Red Flag Laws," August 11, 2019.
- insider-trading.org, "Why Was Dan Crenshaw Accused of Insider Trading," May 10, 2025.
- CNN, "How Dan Crenshaw's feuds with Ted Cruz and MAGA threaten his political future," February 26, 2026.
