Washington Examiner healthcare reporter Gabrielle Etzel said Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) has pursued efforts and investigations aligned with the Make America Healthy Again movement, seeing him as a “warrior” for their cause in the U.S. Senate. “Members of the Make America Healthy Again movement really see Paxton as a warrior for their cause,” […]
Former White House strategist Steve Bannon on Wednesday predicted that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) will beat state Rep. James Talarico (D-Texas) in the race to replace Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) but that the contest will be an uphill battle for the GOP nominee. “I just don’t know if Texas is ready to vote…
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) is throwing his support behind Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton after Paxton’s primary defeat of incumbent Sen. John Cornyn (R) on Tuesday. In a radio interview with Hugh Hewitt on Wednesday, Thune said maintaining the Republican Senate majority is paramount, and that Paxton’s general election opponent, Democrat James Talarico, is a…
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton won over voters Tuesday when he defeated Sen. John Cornyn in a historically expensive primary runoff, but now he’s working to convince K Street he’s a candidate worth investing in.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) threw his support behind Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Wednesday, bringing Senate leadership one step closer to coalescing around a Republican they spent months trying to defeat. Thune endorsed Paxton on the heels of his victory against Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), telling conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that […]
Democrat James Talarico and Republican Ken Paxton wasted no time appealing to Sen. John Cornyn’s (R-TX) supporters after the longtime incumbent was ousted in a Senate primary runoff against Trump-backed Paxton. Democrats see a moment ripe for the taking to win over Cornyn-backers after party leaders, save for Trump, openly trashed Paxton as a morally […]
The president's last-minute endorsement of Paxton was driven by his petty grievances against incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, who was clearly the safer bet to retain the seat.
Texas state Rep. James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in the Lone Star State, concedes some past statements during debates over transgender policy "missed the mark."
Despite suffering from weak approval ratings in countless polls, President Donald Trump is having no problem affecting the outcome of GOP primaries: Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky), Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana) and at least five Indiana state lawmakers are among the Republican incumbents who lost recent GOP primaries to challengers backed by Trump. Journalist Colby Hall is arguing that Trump's weakness in polls and far-right Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's Tuesday victory over Cornyn are "the same story," showing that "Trump's coalition is getting smaller and louder at the same time.""The contradiction at the center of Donald Trump's politics has never been more visible than it was this week," Hall, the founder of Mediaite, writes in a column for his ColbyHall.com website. "He is one of the least popular presidents in modern polling history, and simultaneously, the most dominant force in the Republican Party. Neither fact is canceling out the other. His approval numbers are collapsing again. Depending on the poll, they are now approaching the lows he hit after January 6. He is underwater on inflation, cost of living, immigration, and now Iran. The broader electorate is plainly exhausted by him, the still very high price of a gallon of gas, and the bread and eggs he promised to make cheaper on Day 1 of his second term."Hall continues, "At the exact same moment, Trump casually ended Sen. John Cornyn's political career with a single endorsement of the far more MAGA-coded Attorney General Ken Paxton in Texas. Ironically, Trump helping Paxton win the primary delivers his MAGA faithful a short-term win while putting the seat itself in real jeopardy. Democratic nominee James Talarico is a much more plausible threat to Paxton than he would have been to Cornyn, and a Republican Senate majority that looked safe a week ago no longer does."According to Hall, the "true nature of Trump's current power" is that he "looks weak nationally" yet continues to be "all-powerful inside the Republican Party.""The two observations fit together pretty neatly," Hall argues. "Trump still owns the Republican primary electorate. The problem for Republicans is that the Republican primary electorate is no longer the country. His coalition is shrinking and becoming more emotionally concentrated at the same time. That creates the illusion of growing strength because intensity is very often mistaken for scale." Hall compares Trump's influence on the GOP's hardcore MAGA base to professional wrestling, noting that "the diehards in the front rows scream louder as the cheap seats empty out.""Trump's endorsement (of Paxton) remains incredibly powerful inside a shrinking but highly motivated audience that still sees him as the central figure in American politics," Hall explains. "Outside of it, the reaction looks very different. Republicans may still hold the seat, but they just replaced a broadly electable incumbent with a candidate carrying impeachment baggage, corruption allegations, and obvious general-election vulnerabilities. Democrats suddenly have a plausible opening in Texas that barely existed before."