Trump Screws Himself So Badly on Texas Race, GOPers Visibly Stunned

[LetMyPeopleVote]

As Republicans seethe over Trump’s decision to elevate the weaker, more extreme Senate candidate in Texas, a Democratic operative who knows the state explains what the path to victory now looks like.

Trump Screws Himself So Badly on Texas Race, GOPers Visibly Stunned

As Republicans seethe over Trump’s decision to elevate the weaker, more extreme Senate candidate in Texas, a Democratic operative who knows the state explains what the path to victory now looks like.

— Jon Cooper (@joncooper-us.bsky.social) 2026-05-20T15:21:55.947Z

https://newrepublic.com/article/210706/trump-screws-badly-tex-race-gopers-visibly-stunned

Donald Trump just endorsed MAGA nutjob Ken Paxton in the Texas GOP primary for Senate, potentially killing off establishment incumbent Senator John Cornyn. As GOP senators absorbed this news, reporters described them as “visibly dismayed” and “stone-faced.” Senator Lisa Murkowski openly declared that Trump has now put the seat “in jeopardy,” asking: “How does that help strengthen the president’s hand when we lose a state like Texas?” Translation: Trump has screwed himself and his party in a big way. This might cost them the seat, and at a minimum it makes it much harder to hold. So is Texas actually gettable for Democrats? We talked to Democratic operative Sawyer Hackett, a veteran of Texas races. He explains why Paxton is much weaker than Cornyn, why a perfect storm of conditions in the state could bring about the unthinkable, what Democrat James Talarico’s path to victory looks like, and what could still go wrong for Democrats.

Here is a transcript of this podcast

trump did not endorse Paxton until Tuesday of last week after early voting had started. A ton of vote by mail ballots had no doubt been already cast. Corynyn had more money than Paxton and had a great deal of good material to work with. Paxton is a major league asshole. Cornyn is still running negative ads on Paxton. This will be fun to watch.

[mdbl]

1. What are they worried about?

Do they think GOP voters in TX will think for themselves? I'll believe when I see it.

[Vogon_Glory]

3. I fear that Texas Republican primary voters are going to fall over themselves to vote for

Ken Paxton. Whether the rest of Texas’ electorate will follow their example is not so clear-cut.

Despite decades of disappointment by Texas voters, I am wondering if this time the rest of the Texas electorate has finally had enough of Texas Republican primary voters choosing who will represent them in Washington and the Texas state house.

[mdbl]

7. Not holding my breath but would love to be proven wrong this time.

[Vogon_Glory]

8. So would I. The reason I'm somewhat more optimistic this time...

The reason that I’m somewhat more optimistic than in 2022 is because we’ve had 17 months of Trump, Texas voters are wondering if the economy might tank if they vote Republican again, and the republicans’ “Seal the borders” rhetoric dovetails nicely into Trump-Miller xenophobia and racism. Busting brown people might play well in the older, whiter, more reactionary part of the Texas electorate, but the complexions of a plurality of the Texas electorate looks an awful lot like that of the folks that Donald John and his Texas fan club wants to deport.

[Vogon_Glory]

2. Campaigning in Texas like it was still 70 percent white is a dumb move in 2026

After over 18 months of fear and

humiliation by the White Wing of the Texas Republican Party, even the politically inert and apathetic part of Texas’ Latino population may finally be just aroused enough to put an end to governance by wing-nuts.

[usonian]

4. This is why "white privilege" is going away.

And the unduly privileged are upset.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majority_minority_in_the_United_States

As of 2024, nine states are majority-minority: Hawaii (20.7%), California (32.6%), New Mexico (35.1%), Texas (37.8%), Nevada (42.8%), Maryland (45.3%), Georgia (48.0%), Florida (49.1%), and New Jersey (49.5%).[4] In the case of Hawaii, the state has never had a non-Hispanic White majority

[Vogon_Glory]

6. One of the reasons the Texas Republican Party has managed to hold on to power is

because they downplayed a. Not-so-well-hidden attitude common among many Texas conservatives—that Latinos, at least Texas Mexican-Americans—weren’t the same as Euro-Americans and allowed more conservative Mexican-Americans to believe that they had a place at the table of the Texas Republican Party.

This started to change when Texas Republicans decided to make undocumented border crossings an issue while Biden was President. It has changed even further after Trump got inaugurated again last year, with the heavy-handed ICE arrests and the more and more open racist rhetoric spouted by Texas Republican activists and influencers.

“Deporting the brown people!” May play well in the fish-bowls of right-wing Texas Republican Party gatherings, but not so well with an increasingly-wary general electorate.

[Blue Owl]

5. That fat fucking piece of shit dug a hole so huge even he can fit in it