BLUE STAR STATE

Republican Election Guru Tears Into Failed MAGA Candidate

Trump’s hand-picked candidate was a disaster.

Republican heavyweight Karl Rove has torn into a scandal-plagued MAGA candidate who he said singlehandedly turned a ruby-red state blue in the midterms.

The 75-year-old pundit, who served as President George W. Bush’s top adviser, appeared on The Brian Kilmeade Show on Fox News Radio to conduct a post-mortem on the blue tsunami that saw Democrats seize control of the House and the Senate on Tuesday.

Conversation turned to Texas, where James Talarico defeated Donald Trump’s controversial MAGA ally Ken Paxton and fellow Democrat Gina Hinojosa unseated incumbent Gov. Greg Abbott.

Rove, who lives in Texas, was asked what the exit polls said about what went wrong for the Republicans in the traditionally red state. He did not mince his words.

“Well, Paxton drew down the entire Republican ticket,” Rove said. “He’s at the top of the ticket... and you have to go back to 1982 to see the Democrats have the kind of victory they had in Texas. We lost to every statewide office.”

The last time Texas sent a Democrat to the Senate, back in 1988, Talarico had not even been born. It has since been a happy hunting ground for Republicans.

“People turned out in traditionally Republican counties like Collin County, north of Dallas, and voted straight Democrat,” Rove said. “And it was because our ticket was led by a guy who was plagued by scandals and surrounded by controversy.”

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Rove was then asked if he believed that incumbent Sen. John Cornyn would have won the seat instead of Paxton, the state attorney general whose wife Angela filed for divorce last year on “biblical grounds.”

Trump endorsed Paxton over Cornyn in May before holding September’s Republican National Midterm Convention in Dallas, where he continued to throw his support behind Paxton, as well as attending multiple rallies in Texas last month at which he regularly insulted Talarico.

Saying Cornyn had “enormous strength,” Rove said if he had been the candidate, “We would not have been plagued by... the entire Democrat campaign [saying] Ken Paxton was the most corrupt official that Texas had seen in the modern era. And they made a convincing case.”

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Paxton faced three felony securities fraud charges shortly after becoming attorney general in 2015, later settling them without admitting guilt.

The GOP-controlled Texas House impeached Paxton in 2023 over allegations of bribery, corruption, abuse of office, and obstruction of justice over his dealings with a donor. The state Senate later acquitted him.

Paxton was filmed sightseeing in London in July while on a romantic getaway with his mistress, Christian influencer Tracy Duhon.

Repeating that Paxton was a “scandal-plagued individual” and also a “terrible candidate,” host Kilmeade then joined in with his own opinion.

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“Oh, believe me, he was terrible. He was sleepy. He was lazy,” Kilmeade said of Paxton. “If you’re afraid to debate, you should not run.”

Rove added, “Look, I thought the only way he could save himself was to debate. Sure he’d have to deal with all the stuff, ‘What about the girlfriends?’”

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.

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