Texas Congressman Dan Crenshaw, a four-term Republican and former Navy SEAL, lost his seat in the March 3 Republican primary to Texas State Representative Steve Toth.
The margin was 15 percentage points, with Toth capturing a decisive lead according to unofficial returns.
The result was described as a stunning upset in a race that tested whether the incumbent was deemed sufficiently loyal to the president.
Toth opened a wide lead as results came in on election night and declared victory hours before the Associated Press officially called the race.
Toth’s commanding lead reversed the fortunes of Crenshaw, who had in previous years sailed through primaries with double-digit leads.
The overtaking came despite Crenshaw having raised $1.3 million more than Toth, according to reporting from Houston Public Media.
Crenshaw became the first member of Congress to lose renomination in the 2026 midterm election cycle. NBC News
Following the loss, Crenshaw appeared on CBS News’s “Face the Nation” with anchor Margaret Brennan, where he addressed his defeat.
“I’m a unique Republican,” he said.
“I’ve been the target of online smears and conspiracies for a very long time. My election was basically a product of that.”
Crenshaw pointed to low primary turnout as a contributing factor.
“You have about 20% of Republican voters bothering to even vote at a primary, and then you have dozens of online smears and conspiracies that people were going into the voting booth actually believing,” he said.
“Believing that I was worth millions of dollars from insider trading.”
The congressman added that efforts to counter those claims fell short.
“Doesn’t matter how many times we thought we had debunked that, or that other people and influencers and what [not] have not have debunked it, all of these things, people still went in believing it,” Crenshaw said.
He then extended blame to the Democratic Party.
“Democrats spent almost a million dollars also pushing these smears on television,” Crenshaw said.
“So Republican voters are going to the voting booth believing what a Democrat told them on TV based on a smear headline written by a liberal reporter in D.C.”
Crenshaw directed his message beyond candidates to the Republican electorate.
“The lesson is not just for Republican politicians. It’s the lesson for Republican voters,” he said, questioning whether Americans would continue to believe everything read online or received by mail.
WATCH:
The Texas Tribune reported that Crenshaw had previously stated that “a large part of this election was about the power of clickbait,” and that “memes became truth.”
Crenshaw was the only one of 19 incumbent House Republicans representing Texas who President Donald Trump did not endorse prior to the March 3 primary.
Trump also did not endorse Toth, and as of the time of Crenshaw’s CBS interview, had yet to endorse him in the nearly two weeks following his victory.
Senator Ted Cruz of Texas endorsed Toth, a move that drew national headlines.
Toth sat down with Tucker Carlson for an interview in October 2025, during which the two men accused Crenshaw of failing to represent the America First movement and being insufficiently tough on illegal immigration.
They also criticized Crenshaw’s hawkish position on Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, and Carlson raised questions about what he called Crenshaw’s “suspicious skills in the stock market.”
The interview accumulated over 700,000 views on YouTube in just over five months.
Separately, a video surfaced in February 2025 showing Crenshaw making threatening comments about Carlson.
“No, seriously, I’ll kill him. He’s the worst person I’ve ever met,” Crenshaw said in the footage, referring to past exchanges with Carlson on the social media platform X.
During the October 2025 interview with Toth, Carlson responded to those remarks, saying, “I don’t think Dan Crenshaw is the worst person in the world or anything like that. I feel sorry for Dan Crenshaw, he’s clearly a very troubled guy.”
