Dude, I'm in another country and I'm anxious about Texas.

Not only is Texas massive numbers-wise, but Texas and Florida have been the spiritual home of the Republicans... so being the Administration that lost Texas will be such a massive indicator of how deeply unpopular their policies and activities are.

It is absolutely wild that Paxton won the primary, he is a uniquely terrible candidate and obviously Cornyn would be doing much better.

Polling data is tough because it's incredibly hard to poll younger voters, and people aren't always honest about their voting intentions to pollsters, so even if a candidate is 14+ points ahead, that still might only mean they have a 65% chance of winning, which is only marginally more likely than a coin toss. Even someone with a 95% chance of winning isn't guaranteed, so candidates doing the community groundwork is an absolute must (which I don't think Paxton has been doing a lot of).