Republicans are biting their nails over how much cash Donald Trump’s meddling in a primary race may now mean they have to splurge on a general election in a state that should’ve been theirs for the taking.
Scandal magnet Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton got a runoff win over incumbent Sen. John Cornyn for the top spot on the GOP’s ticket in November after president issued a last-minute endorsement. But the primary is estimated to have cost the party’s warring factions a record-breaking total of $135 million, and Paxton will now compete with rising Democratic star James Talarico for Cornyn’s seat.
Almost a dozen party donors and strategists told Politico on Thursday they’re now terrified it could cost as much as an additional $150 million to haul Paxton, 63, through his midterm contest with Talarico, 36.
It is an extraordinary GOP expenditure for Texas, which has not elected a Democrat to statewide office in 32 years.
Those costs would, in turn, drain key resources from races in other traditional battleground states. “Last night will go down as one of the worst self-inflicted political wounds of all-time,” as one source put it to Politico.
“No one is happier than Democrats,” another agreed. “Even if Paxton holds the seat—as is likely, though not guaranteed—donor funds will be diverted from critical races.”
Paxton drags an unusually long list of scandals with him into the contest—even for a Trump favorite. He faced three felony counts within just months of taking office in 2015 over claims he’d funneled investors toward a tech company that was quietly paying him.
His own aides then reported him to the FBI in 2020, alleging he’d used his powers as a public official to grant favors to a wealthy donor, real estate mogul Nate Paul. The allegations drove his 2023 impeachment by the Republican-led Texas House on bribery and abuse-of-office articles, though the state Senate ultimately acquitted him.
Paxton’s personal life has proven just as messy. The impeachment proceedings exposed an extramarital affair with a Senate aide, Laura Olson, whom Paul had given a job at his company, which critics slammed as a bare-faced bribe. Paxton’s wife, Republican state Sen. Angela Paxton, announced last July she was divorcing him “on biblical grounds.”
Contrast that record with Talarico—a squeaky-clean former middle school teacher who can quote scripture by heart—and the November race for four-term Sen. Cornyn’s seat just got more competitive than any Republican might’ve thought possible in a state this red.
“Texas is not breaking its 32-year Republican streak for a woke freak who thinks there are six genders,” Republican National Committee spokesperson Zach Kraft told the Daily Beast when asked for comment on this story. “If Democrats want to light a pile of cash on fire, we will hand them the match.”
