Tuesday’s primary runoffs in Texas were a victory for the GOP’s establishment — but it was far from a decisive show of force in its ongoing battle with the party’s insurgent hard-right wing.

Moderate Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales fended off a far-right pro-gun YouTube star in his sprawling West Texas district. But it took a major party mobilization and millions of dollars in outside funding to help him crawl across the finish line shortly after 1 a.m. on Wednesday morning.

A clearer victory did come in an open red congressional seat to the north, where state Rep. Craig Goldman decisively beat an opponent aligned with members of the House Freedom Caucus.

The results were messier in a slew of hotly contested state legislative races. The state House speaker managed to cling onto his seat — also by a few hundred votes — despite a challenge from the right, a symbolic victory in an expensive race that had become a proxy battle. But several other incumbents were felled, following a series of ousters in the March primaries. Those evictions were driven by Gov. Greg Abbott and other top GOP leaders, who went after fellow Republicans for stymieing conservative priorities and supporting Attorney General Ken Paxton’s impeachment.

Taken together, the results presented a portrait of a complicated, dynamic state in political turmoil.

The congressional outcome is a huge boon to the governing wing of the House Republican Conference, which has been mired in gridlock. But the state-level results were less decisive as warring GOP factions each claimed hard-fought victories across the state. Texas politics have become more vicious in recent years, with the establishment and conservative wings of the party battling over the future of the GOP.

That intensity was on full display Tuesday night as election results rolled in.

Tony Gonzales ekes out a victory, with some help

Gonzales and Goldman both received support from establishment-aligned players. While Goldman somewhat easily beat John O’Shea in Tuesday’s runoff, Gonzales’ win was a squeaker.

House GOP leaders had mobilized to defend Gonzales from Brandon Herrera, a pro-gun activist known as “The AK Guy”. He had support from Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and House Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good (R-Va.). To secure Gonzales’ victory, several establishment-allied super PACs pumped more than $4 million onto TV. Some of those spots boosted Gonzales, while others attacked Herrera for his history of incendiary comments he made online as a social media influencer. He drew harsh criticism for past videos mocking the Holocaust, Barron Trump and the suicide of veterans.

Herrera spent $1.3 million on TV ads compared to Gonzales’ $1.9 million, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact.

Among the groups that spent millions to block Herrera were AIPAC’s super PAC, the GOP leadership-aligned American Action Network, the political arm of the Republican Jewish Coalition and the Hispanic Leadership Alliance.

It was an expensive and time intensive effort. And the race further divided an already fractious House GOP conference.

On TV, Gonzales called far-right members of his conference “scumbags” and suggested that they were Klansmen. His comments pushed even more House Republicans to take the rare step of endorsing the opponent of a sitting member.

Gonzales had already made himself vulnerable by repeatedly angering his own base. He voted to codify same-sex marriage and joined with Democrats to pass a bipartisan gun control bill following a deadly shooting at an elementary school in his district. In the March primary, he received only 45 percent of the vote and was forced into the runoff, a dangerous spot for an incumbent.

His district spans from the outskirts of El Paso to San Antonio and includes more than 800 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border. A battleground in the past, the district became more GOP friendly in redistricting. But Gonzales’ allies warned that Herrera’s nomination could make the seat competitive in the general election. Former President Donald Trump won the district by 7 points under the current lines.

In North Texas, the race to replace retiring GOP Rep. Kay Granger also delved into a proxy battle, but a local one. Abbott backed Goldman, the chair of the GOP caucus in the Texas House. But Goldman’s vote to impeach Paxton led the attorney general to endorse O’Shea.

Goldman had a double-digit lead in the March primary, but it wasn’t enough to avoid a runoff. A super PAC bankrolled by GOP mega-donors boosted Goldman through the primary.

In South Texas, Jay Furman won the Republican nomination to take on indicted Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) in November.

Texas House Speaker narrowly avoids a historic defeat

Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan eked out a victory in his runoff primary on Tuesday despite being targeted by top GOP leaders.

Phelan was up by just 366 votes with all precincts reporting – a remarkable turnaround after coming in second in March behind his well financed challenger David Covey. Covey, a former county party chair, was endorsed by former President Donald Trump.

Millions of dollars poured into the race as it became the highest-profile state-level fight in the war between the establishment GOP and the far right.

Phelan lost the support of the state party after failing to pass big-ticket conservative agenda items like school vouchers and leading impeachment proceedings against Attorney General Ken Paxton. Paxton, who faced felony securities fraud charges, embarked on a revenge campaign against the Beaumont Republican and the incumbents who voted to impeach him. Paxton was acquitted on charges by the state Senate last September.

Phelan, arriving at his election night watch party with a cigar in his mouth, told his supporters that “House District 21 is not for sale.”

Gov. Greg Abbott claims victory in campaign to oust Republicans who opposed his school voucher plan

Texas has been roiled in a fight over school vouchers. And after the state legislature helped tank Abbott’s prized school choice proposal, he set out to knock out the lawmakers at the ballot box. On Tuesday, he largely succeeded.

Only one of the four Republican incumbents who faced runoffs and opposed school vouchers survived, as state Rep. Gary VanDeaver managed to hang onto his seat despite being targeted by Abbott and aligned Republicans. But the three other Republicans who also voted against school vouchers – state Reps. DeWayne Burns, Justin Holland and John Kuempel – all lost to far-right candidates recruited by Abbott.

Amid the national wave of new school choice laws, Abbott has sought to remake K-12 education in Texas through a voucher program that would allow parents to use public money to pay for private tuition, but enough Republicans joined Democrats last year to block him from doing so. Furious, Abbott has spent months engaged in a revenge tour to replace anti-voucher Republicans and give himself a pro-voucher majority.

Fifteen Republican incumbents were voted out in total during the Texas primary season, ten of whom were targeted explicitly by Abbott for voting against vouchers.

It wasn’t just Texans spending money in these races. National groups like Club for Growth and pro-school choice advocates like former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Republican megadonor Jeff Yass poured money into supporting pro-voucher candidates.

Abbott declared victory Tuesday night, saying there will now be enough votes to pass his voucher proposal.

“While we did not win in every race we fought in, the overall message from this year’s primaries is clear: Texans want school choice,” he said in a statement.