Norms Impact

Anti-LGBTQ+ Congressman Dan Crenshaw ousted by more extreme candidate in Texas GOP primary

A GOP primary defeat rewards escalation toward using federal funding levers to restrict medical care, signaling a hardening precedent of policy-making aimed at narrowing civil protections.

Elections

Mar 4, 2026

Sources

https://www.advocate.com/politics/election/dan-crenshaw-loses-gop-primary

Summary

U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw lost the Texas Republican primary for the 2nd Congressional District to Steve Toth. The result accelerates the GOP’s internal shift toward more hardline candidates who center federal power on restricting transgender health care. It increases the likelihood that future congressional agendas will treat civil-rights limitations as a party’s baseline rather than an outlier position.

Reality Check

Normalizing campaigns that treat federal benefits programs as tools for targeting a minority group corrodes the expectation that public institutions serve all constituents on equal terms. When primary incentives favor ever-more punitive restrictions, lawmakers learn that power is gained by narrowing rights, not governing responsibly. Over time, that precedent conditions our politics to accept ideological enforcement through the machinery of government rather than restrained, broadly accountable policymaking.

Detail

U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a Texas Republican first elected in 2018, lost the Republican primary for Texas’s 2nd Congressional District on Tuesday to Steve Toth. The Associated Press called the race at 1 a.m. Eastern, reporting Toth with 57.3 percent of the vote to Crenshaw’s 39.3 percent.During his tenure, Crenshaw backed and helped advance federal efforts aimed at restricting gender-affirming medical care for minors. In 2025, the U.S. House passed legislation he supported to prohibit Medicaid funds from covering gender-affirming care for minors by amending the Social Security Act. He also advanced the “Crenshaw Amendment,” a provision described as barring federal programs including Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and Affordable Care Act subsidies from paying for gender-affirming care for minors.Toth, a Texas House member since 2019, campaigned as a more hardline conservative aligned with the party’s MAGA wing and has supported Texas legislation limiting gender-affirming care and social transitioning for minors. Toth advances to the general election in November.