Donald Trump waited until the last minute to make an endorsement in the Texas Republican primary. In addition to his chosen candidate —scandal-plagued state Attorney General Ken Paxton — the main beneficiary is the Democrat in the race.
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After sitting on the sidelines while the two Texas Republican heavyweights competing in the Lone Star State’s Senate primary pummeled each other for months, Donald Trump finally endorsed one of them on Tuesday. One week before voters head to the polls, he backed the state’s scandal-plagued Attorney General Ken Paxton over incumbent Sen. John Cornyn.
The cost of waiting this long is high. The two candidates have spent a combined $120 million in the race — money that could have gone toward attacking Democrat James Talarico, who wrapped up his nomination weeks ago and has been able to focus on the general election.
As a result, no matter who prevails next Tuesday, it is now much more likely that the GOP could lose a seat it has held since the 1960s and that could prove to be crucial in deciding which party controls the Senate next year.
So why did Trump wait so long? The most likely explanation is that he wanted to maintain his near-spotless record of only endorsing winners in GOP primaries. Recent polling had swung in Paxton’s favor, making him a fairly safe bet now.
And, while Senate Republicans wanted him to back Cornyn because he is viewed as having a better chance to defeat Talarico, the attorney general was always a more natural fit for the president — and not because he was impeached, was charged with felony security fraud, was the target of an FBI investigation (triggered by attorneys in his own office) to determine whether he committed bribery and abused his office, and committed adultery.
It’s much simpler than that.
In the first sentence of his endorsement announcement, Trump made it clear that Paxton’s extreme loyalty to him made the difference, a point he stressed again when trying to say something nice about the incumbent.
“John Cornyn is a good man, and I worked well with him, but he was not supportive of me when times were tough,” the president wrote, adding that the senator was also “very late in backing” his 2024 presidential bid.
Although Trump previously said that he expected that the person he doesn’t endorse would drop out of the race, that won’t happen with days to go before the election.
Instead, Cornyn said on Tuesday that he trusts GOP voters to make the right choice.
“It is now time for Texas Republican voters to decide if they want a strong nominee to help our GOP candidates down ballot and defeat Talarico in November, or a weak nominee who jeopardizes everything we care about,” he said.
Well, it certainly looks as though they will pick the (far-)right candidate, in which case Trump can consider himself lucky that not every Republican is as petty and vindictive as he is.
Because if Cornyn and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), whose Senate career the president ended this weekend, carried grudges the same way he does, he could kiss his agenda goodbye for the rest of the year.
However, since most Republicans surrendered their spines to Trump a long time ago, there is only a small chance of this happening.
