Paxton Foresees Trump Active Role in Bid
Despite Double-Edge Sword Possibilities
Capitol Inside
June 3, 2026
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's attempt to wrap himself in President Donald Trump for the U.S. Senate fight this fall appears loaded with the potential to backfire at a time when the nation's leader is historically unpopular and hemorrhaging support among Latinos and independents who backed him in 2024.
Paxton emerged from a meeting at the White House on Tuesday with a prediction that Trump would be heavily involved in his fight against Democrat James Talarico in the Texas Senate race that could determine which party has the majority in the upper house of Congress next year.
"I LOVE President Trump!" Paxton exclaimed in an interview with Fox News after the Oval Office visit. "Every time I'm around him, it's infectious - his love for this country - and he certainly understands this race really well.
"We spent a lot of time talking about it today," the AG added. "He's gonna be behind this campaign. He's gonna lend his support in all kinds of different ways. I suspect he'll show up a few times in Texas to campaign with me. And I think there's a very good chance we're gonna be seeing his great involvement because he cares about the state of Texas and obviously cares about America."
Paxton huddled on Wednesday with Senate Majority Leader John Thune as an olive branch after being vilified by him and other members of the Republican Senate leadership for months. Thune and other Senate Republicans pleaded for months with the president to endorse the longtime incumbent John Cornyn in the primary runoff election that Paxton won last week with 64 percent of the vote. Senate leaders argued that Paxton couldn't beat Talarico as a result of record baggage that he carries into the race.
Trump transformed a race that had been relatively close on paper into a Paxton rout in round two with an endorsement for the attorney general a week before the overtime vote. Cornyn desperately needed to have Trump in his corner to have a realistic chance of winning the runoff on May 26. Trump endorsements had been prerequisites for GOP primary victories in 2026 until the candidate he backed in the Iowa governor's race lost on Tuesday night in the competition to replace outgoing GOP Governor Kim Reynolds. Trump supported U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra in the Iowa primary that Zach Lahn, a farmer, won as the underdog who had substantial disadvantages in fundraising and name identification.
A Trump endorsement proved to be a prerequisite for victory in the Texas GOP primaries this year. Two other Texas Republicans who had Trump's formal support in congressional contests on the runoff ballot - Carlos De La Cruz of San Antonio and Alex Mealer of Houston - beat foes in overtime last week. De La Cruz and Mealer will be representing the GOP in the general election in districts that were safely Democratic until Republicans in Austin redrew them last summer for conversions to red.
But there no potential downside to a Trump endorsement in the primary season here like there undoubtedly be in the midterm elections this fall. A Trump endorsement was the gold standard in 2024 when he carried Texas by a larger margin than he'd had here in his first two White House runs. Trump garnered record support from Hispanic voters in South Texas and other parts of the state. Trump won in counties on the border that had been Democratic bastions until the past few years.
But the conditions have changed dramatically in Trump's second term - and polls have shown the Republican president's support collapsing within the voting blocs that could swing the Senate race and some down-ballot contests to the Democrats - voters who are independent or Hispanic or both - in fights that are close.
The 2026 midterms have the potential for a blue wave in the league of the vote halfway through Trump's first term as president in 2018. U.S. Senator Ted Cruz was leading Democrat Beto O'Rourke by a half-dozen points in the polls on the general election in a re-election race that year.
But Cruz was extremely worried about the threat O'Rourke posed - and Trump rode to the Republican solon's rescue with a rally that he held in Texas on his behalf in the stretch before the vote. While Cruz beat O'Rourke by less than 3 percentage points in the 2018 midterm election, Democrats rode the Democratic Senate nominee's coattails to victories in 12 Texas House districts, two state Senate races and two congressional districts that they flipped that year.
Cruz wasn't married to Trump the way Paxton appears to be at the outset of the fight with Talarico. The attorney general is hoping that Trump can inspire a maximum turnout among Republicans here this fall. But it could also cost Paxton support beyond the conservative base that any winning candidate at the statewide level in Texas has always had to have.
The united front that Governor Greg Abbott has been pushing has looked more in the early going like a wagon-circling effort, however, than an attempt to court support from outside the conservative base. Paxton's close association with Trump will galvanize his support among voters he already has locked up. But he runs the risk of alienating those that he needs who are not fans of Trump. Unity alone won't be enough to keep the Texas Senate seat in the red column.
more to come ...
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