It’s gone beyond just sweating bullets. The Texas GOP is in trouble. They need Trump’s PAC money and help. Right now, it seems they’re not going to get it. And that’s bad. Well, it’s bad for Ken Paxton. Majority Leader Thune is pretty unhappy and for good reason. Trump is doing exactly the opposite of what he should be doing. He needs to hand out the money, sit down, and shut up.
This year’s Senatorial position is in trouble. Kenny Paxton is wretched. James Talarico is even with or slightly ahead of Paxton in the polls. Yes, those may not mean much, BUT the fact that Talarico is keeping up is a good sign. Republicans weren’t expecting this. Republicans don’t have the money for Kenny’s campaign in Texas. If they don’t have the help from outside, it’s looking more and more possible that Talarico could actually win. And wouldn’t *that* just piss off some people? The explosions would be glorious!
Talarico is also out “earning” and outspending Kenny by a fairly large amount. If they can push the downsides of Paxton, like 18 houses and his crap as Texas’ AG, well, power to them. Let’s do this! Ordinarily, attack ads say more about the person putting them out and not so much the person they are attacking. But we have yet to see anything decent about Paxton, especially after making an ad *against* data centers that was made by AI. That was not bright.
Texas is one of the most expensive states for campaigning. If the Republican and Trump PACs don’t help, it’s looking very bad for Paxton. Talarico is doing *much* better than expected. They need to keep that Senate seat Republican, or that’s one less person to keep the majority in the Senate. The numbers needed to flip Congress are closer than one would think. It’s perfectly possible to flip the Senate now, with all the problems in Texas (and elsewhere). But they need to put a lot more money into it, money that could be used elsewhere.
Texas is not the only state where Senatorial positions are running neck and neck. But Texas is the one making the news just about every day. That does not bode well. It looks like Paxton is going further downhill all the time. Who knows what Trump was thinking to throw his weight behind such a loser. Cornyn would have had a much better chance. But what’s done is done. Here’s a bit from Raw Story:
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) all but conceded in a Tuesday interview on Fox News that they don’t have the money to hold the Senate seat in Texas without help from President Donald Trump and his outside billionaire allies. “We have to win this race,” Thune said in the interview with Fox’s Martha MacCallum. “I think all of our allies out there, including the president and his team and their resources, need to be brought to bear on Texas because it’s not one that we can lose if we are going to hang on to a Republican majority; we flat-out have to win there.”
That sounds like worry and stress. It also sounds cynical and resigned. Since Trump chose Kenny, we would think that he would be helping out with the war chest, at the very least. But Trump is distracted by all his vanity projects and his grifts, so he’s not thinking about that at all. Let him be distracted so we can flip that seat. Talarico is looking good. Paxton isn’t. ‘Nuff said.
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