Outgoing Republican Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw told CBS News’s Margaret Brennan on Sunday his landslide reelection defeat in the March 3 GOP primary was “basically a product” of online misinformation.
Republican Texas State Rep. Steve Toth, who ran to Crenshaw’s right, unseated the four-term congressman by a margin of 15 percentage points in what was regarded as a stunning upset. Polling and betting markets showed the incumbent as the overwhelming favorite prior to election night. Brennan pressed Crenshaw on “Face the Nation” to clarify his earlier post-election comments blaming a culture of misinformation for his repudiation at the polls, asking, “What lessons should other Republicans take from that? What do you mean?”
“Well, I mean,” Crenshaw began to answer before briefly laughing, “I’m a unique Republican.”
“You know, I’ve been the target of online smears and conspiracies for a very long time. My election was basically a product of that,” the lawmaker continued. “You know, first of all, 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, I mean, believing that I was worth millions of dollars from insider trading.”
“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 aded. “And so the lesson to be learned is, like, you’ve got to get the truth out. You’ve got to try.”
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Crenshaw then appeared to accuse Democrats of being partly to blame for the alleged misinformation against him.
“But ultimately, this is a question for the American people. Are you going to believe everything you read online or that’s sent to you in your mail?” he said. “I mean, Democrats spent almost a million dollars also pushing these smears on television. 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.”
In past election cycles, Democrats often spent money on advertising to influence Republican primaries in favor of candidates perceived to perform more weakly in the general election. Crenshaw’s district, however, is a safe GOP seat which, under its newly redrawn lines, voted for President Donald Trump by 23 points in the 2024 election, according to data from Dave’s Redistricting App (DRA).
“So that’s the lesson, and it’s not just for Republican politicians. It’s the lesson for Republican voters,” the congressman and former Navy SEAL concluded.
“Misinformation,” Brennan repeated after Crenshaw’s remarks, before closing the segment.
The lawmaker from the Houston suburbs was notably the only one of 19 incumbent House Republicans representing Texas who Trump did not endorse prior to the March 3 Texas primary. The president, however, did not endorse Toth, and has yet to endorse him in the nearly two weeks following his upset victory. Notably, Toth did carry the endorsement of Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz during the primary season.
Toth sat down with Tucker Carlson for an October 2025 interview during which the two men accused Crenshaw of not representing the America First movement and being too lax on illegal immigration. They went on to criticize Crenshaw’s hawkish stance on Russia’s aggression in Ukraine as well as what Carlson dubbed his “suspicious skills in the stock market.” In just over five months, the interview amassed over 700,000 views on YouTube.
Crenshaw was also caught on video in February 2025 saying he would “fucking kill” Carlson if he had ever met him in person.
“No, seriously, I’ll kill him. He’s the worst person I’ve ever met,” Crenshaw says in the video, referring to past exchanges with Carlson on X.
During his interview with Toth eight months later, Carlson said, “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.”
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