The Texas Republican Primary: the Tremors Before the Earthquake

Republicans are facing the worst case scenario in Texas after chaos up and down the ballot put typically no-brainer incumbents into defense mode.

I’m not sure that the Texas primary could have gone worse for Republicans. Both John Cornyn and Ken Paxton failed to reach the 50% threshold to stave off a runoff. That means three more months of infighting between the two that all but guarantee their favorability ratings will tank between now and that election.

This is already the most expensive Senate primary ever. Cost estimates put it at almost $130 million. The Republican side accounts for $90 million of that. So now, instead of spending money going after the Democratic nominee, James Talarico, Republicans are going to dump God knows how much more money into knifing each other.

John Cornyn, who hasn’t lost an election since he set up shop in the Senate in 2002 outspent Paxton by $65 million, and he still couldn’t beat a guy who was impeached by the Texas legislature for fraud. I mean hell, Paxton’s wife just filed for divorce due to his multiple affairs. (Although, that’s probably an asset if you’re trying to make yourself in the image of Trump.)

It was a mess down the ballot, too. The 4-term incumbent, Trump suck-up Dan Crenshaw lost to a rightwing challenger, MAGA acolyte Steve Tot, despite outspending him by almost $2 million.

What this says is that Texas Republican voters don’t like what they see and are no longer predictably breaking for the incumbents. The old playbooks aren’t working anymore.

The fact that Republicans have to pour this much money into Texas is a major red flag for the party. If it takes almost $100 million dollars to triage the situation in a supposed slam dunk red state, imagine what that means for North Carolina, and Alaska, and Maine, and Ohio - states where the margins are much slimmer. And those are states where we’ve got extremely strong candidates: Mary Peltola, Sherrod Brown, Roy Cooper, and either Graham Platner or Janet Mills.

These people can win. I’m even more confident that they can win in places where Democrats are overperforming 12, 14, 16 points and more relative to 2024.

In true Trumpian fashion, Republicans seem hellbent on employing their patented Wile E. Coyote strategy, lighting TNT only to have it blow up in their faces. They are doing a spectacular job driving down their favorability among voters by going back on just about every campaign promise that swept them into office in 2024. Costs have been rising for a year since Trump launched his trade war, then surged again this week after he launched an actual one in Iran. The ongoing Epstein coverup, exploding gas pricing, a plunging stock market. It’s like these conditions were engineered in a lab to drive up enthusiasm for the opposition. Which is impressive for a party that has embraced a wholesale denial of science (re: climate change, vaccines, everything RFK Jr. has ever said, etc.)

As long as Republicans keep shooting themselves in the foot, day after day, they put their candidates in the line of fire when it comes time to explain to voters why they should continue to support bad policy that’s actively hurting them. The true cost of bad strategy will play out come midterms, and the Republicans may be left holding a hefty bill.