Trump will regret endorsing Ken Paxton in the Texas Senate primary

https://www.salon.com/2026/05/27/trump-will-regret-endorsing-ken-paxton-in-the-texas-senate-primary/

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Democrat James Talarico may win — and the president weakened his hold over the GOP

By Amanda Marcotte

Senior Writer

Published May 27, 2026 6:45AM (EDT)

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton defeated Sen. John Cornyn in the state's Republican Senate primary (Stewart F. House/Getty Images))

 

 John Cornyn probably never had a chance to keep his seat. The senior Republican senator from Texas has repugnant, far-right politics. He even used the confirmation hearing for Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to float legal theories for ending same-sex marriage. But he is mild-mannered — a flaw in today’s GOP — and he doesn’t have a history of flashy corruption scandals and adultery, unlike Ken Paxton, the state attorney general who handily defeated him in the Republican primary on Tuesday night.

Paxton is just a bigger scoundrel than Cornyn, so of course he drew a last-minute endorsement from Donald Trump, who took credit for Paxton’s victory, gloating on Truth Social with a meme declaring “Ken Paxton wins! Endorsed by Trump!” over a photo of the president glowering in a face he believes looks “tough.”

But the president will likely come to rue the day he stuck his nose into this particular race. Or at least he would regret it, if he were capable of self-reflection. Polls show that the Democratic nominee, state Rep. James Talarico, is more likely to beat Paxton than Cornyn in November’s general election. But even if that doesn’t happen, Trump was unwise to alienate Senate Republicans, who largely backed Cornyn, at a time when his political power is starting to wane.

Members of the Republican caucus are visibly outraged over Trump’s endorsement — and will be livid over Paxton’s victory.

Members of the Republican caucus are visibly outraged over Trump’s endorsement — and will be livid over Paxton’s victory. The National Republican Senatorial Committee backed Cornyn during what has turned out to be the most expensive Senate primary in the country’s history, with over $120 million spent, mostly by Cornyn supporters. This isn’t just because they understandably don’t want to work with Paxton, who has a long history of being unpopular with many of his Republican colleagues. It’s widely believed that Paxton is a much weaker candidate against Talarico, whose Boy Scout demeanor will make him a more appealing choice compared to the highly corrupt Paxton, especially for swing voters weary of the president’s non-stop scandals.

Trump is already paying for his choice to endorse Paxton over Cornyn. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has barely hidden his exasperation, complaining to reporters, “none of us control what the president does.” Multiple Republican senators have refused to answer questions or expressed displeasure at the prospect of losing Cornyn, a fundraising powerhouse for the party. As the New York Times reported, there is already growing restlessness among many Senate Republicans, who have blocked Trump’s efforts to secure $1 billion in taxpayer money for a White House ballroom and are fighting his attempt to create a $1.8 billion slush fund to pay legal bills for people who commit crimes for him.

Now they have one more reason to resist Trump: He has proved he will not return any loyalty shown to him by legislators. Cornyn has been a loyal MAGA foot soldier, voting with Trump 99% of the time. His only real resistance has been in refusing to agree to the Big Lie that Joe Biden stole the 2020 presidential election, but even then, he still refused to vote for Trump’s impeachment over the Jan. 6 riot. Trump keeps the Republican caucus in line with fear he will endorse their primary opponents, and his endorsement of Paxton over Cornyn is that anxiety made manifest. But showing that even fierce loyalty to Trump won’t guarantee Republicans safety also removes much of the incentive to stick by him.

Cornyn now joins a group of sitting Republican senators dubbed the “YOLO caucus,” because they are leaving at the end of this year and so they no longer have to worry about angering Trump. Sen. Bill Cassidy lost his primary race in Louisiana earlier this month after Trump deemed him “disloyal” for his vote to impeach after the Jan. 6 insurrection. Like Cornyn, Cassidy has been a rubber stamp for Trump’s agenda this term, even providing the decisive vote in favor of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., but the famously narcissistic president didn’t care. Former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who protected Trump through two impeachment trials, is retiring as Kentucky’s senior senator at 84 after many high-profile conflicts with the president over some of his dumber political decisions. North Carolina’s Thom Tillis is — by Senate standards anyway — a spry 65, but he is retiring after being abused by Trump for years for occasional votes against his agenda.

Trump’s inadvertent creation of a YOLO (You Only Live Once) caucus  is looking to be a poor decision on his part. Free from having to placate the infamous bully in chief, these Republicans are causing far more problems for him than they ever did when they were trying to stay in his good graces. They are trying to derail his slush fund, attacking and helping push out members of his Cabinet, and it looks like they may even kill the ballroom funding. With only 53 senators in the caucus, adding one more Republican to the list of people who are angry at Trump could make it very hard for the president to will a majority on anything he wants to do, especially if it’s already unpopular.