Two years ago, Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw sailed through his first reelection campaign without a problem: The freshman Republican, who in his first term embraced a tough-on-immigration persona and backed then-President Donald Trump s border wall, ran unopposed in a GOP primary and then waltzed to a 13-point victory that November even in a district Trump barely won.

This go-round hasnt been as smooth. Throughout a primary that will conclude on Tuesday, multiple Republican candidates have staked out positions well to Crenshaws right, no matter the fact that he ranks, by some measures, as one of the 50 most conservative members in the House GOP caucus.

To hear his opponents tell it, Crenshaw is the personification of Republican heresy : Although he supported a Texas lawsuit that sought to overturn the election in late 2020, Crenshaw has since denounced conspiracy theorists who said that the election was stolen from Trump. Hes also criticized the idea that sham audits, like those the Arizona GOP and Republicans elsewhere have conducted, will lead to Trumps imminent return to the White House. Republicans like Dan Crenshaw, one of his right-wing challengers told The Texas Tribune recently, are why we allowed ... the election to be stolen.

Crenshaw still seems likely to emerge from the March 1 primary contest as his partys nominee. But his primary plight offers one of the earliest glimpses into how the 2022 midterm elections are likely to push the party farther and farther to the right and how the GOPs approach to congressional redistricting is likely to exacerbate it.