Senate race in Texas, some Republicans argue privately that President Donald Trump would bear part of the blame. Trump’s sagging approval ratings, his handling of the GOP primary, and his early hesitance to use his enormous war chest to defend his preferred candidate, the scandal-scarred attorney general Ken Paxton, have boosted Democrats’ chances to win a statewide election in Texas for the first time in more than 30 years. Paxton lags slightly behind his Democratic opponent, state representative James Talarico, in several recent polls.
More alarming to party strategists, Talarico has outraised Paxton by enormous margins, giving the Democrat the resources to compete in a huge and expensive state that the GOP did not plan to defend so fiercely. Mark Jones, a Texas politics expert at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, describes the contest as a “perfect storm” for Democrats. The most flawed major statewide candidate that the Republican Party has had in modern memory.
And we have a Democratic candidate who, while not ideal, is a very credible politician.” Trump has the resources to help rescue Paxton: his affiliated super PAC, MAGA Inc., was sitting on more than $400 million this summer as the Republican begged for help. Initially, the President didn’t want to invest heavily in the race. According to three sources familiar with Trump’s thinking, including a senior White House official, Trump harbors doubts about the GOP’s midterm outlook.
In private conversations, he has mused about how the money would simply be wasted, citing the history of a President’s party suffering defeats in midterm elections. A senior Trump adviser tells TIME that the President’s political operation has plans to spend tens of millions in the coming election cycle but won’t telegraph their strategy to the press and the opposition. Other aides say there is another reason Trump has been careful to disburse funds: he wants to save as much as cash as he can for 2028 and even 2030, when his presidency would be ending or over, seeing the money as a means of exerting continued influence over the party.
When Republicans gathered in Dallas for an extravagant two-night midterm convention this month, Trump’s endorsement of Paxton and praise for his record came wrapped in jabs at his appearance, his sense of fashion, and his shortcomings as a television performer. The result is a race Republicans once assumed would be easy becoming one of the most competitive and costly in the nation. For Trump, more than a Senate seat hangs in the balance.
Get ready for a near-death experience “ The Texas Senate race occupied an unusual amount of attention inside Trump’s political operation as far back as late 2024. The four-term incumbent, John Cornyn, was a Senate stalwart and close ally of the chamber’s top Republican, John Thune. But he had grown less popular with the party’s base, and Trump wanted him gone.
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