AUSTIN (KXAN) — Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was reelected to a third term in the Nov. 8 election, defeating the Democrat that many thought had the best chance of upsetting the incumbent and winning a statewide office.

Rochelle Garza was able to keep Paxton’s margin around 10%, making him the worst-performing statewide Republican candidate.

Paxton claimed about 53% of the vote, to Garza’s roughly 44%.

Just as in the governor’s race, Montgomery County gave the Republican the net highest number of votes over the Democrat. Paxton received almost 100,000 more votes than Garza in the county just north of Houston. He also won five counties with more than a 30,000-vote margin: Parker, Denton, Smith, Comal and Lubbock counties.

Garza netted most votes in Travis County, with a margin of almost 220,000 votes. She also beat Paxton by more than 100,000 in both Dallas and Harris counties.

The final margin statewide was about 785,000 votes or 10.1%.

The margin was much wider than in 2018, when Paxton defeated Democrat Justin Nelson by just 3.65%. In that race, Paxton beat Nelson by fewer than 300,000 votes.

Paxton improved on his 2018 performance in all but five counties.

Somervell County, southwest of Fort Worth, swung most to the Democrats, by 6.41 percentage points. Kaufman, Travis, Ellis and Williamson counties all saw a swing to the left of less than 5 points.

Meanwhile, 249 counties shifted rightward. Of those, 110 swung by more than 10 points, and 11 swung by more than 20 points.

Starr County, along the border in South Texas, gave Paxton the biggest swing, moving rightward by 34.98 points. The Republican was able to cut the Democratic margin from 54 points in 2018 to 19 in 2022.