Trump Gives Democrats a Texas-Sized Gift

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It’s been six weeks since Texas Republicans sent the Senate primary between incumbent John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton to a runoff, and it will be another six weeks until they choose their candidate for the midterms. That means that Democrat James Talarico can spend three months campaigning, raising money, and watching the two GOP rivals maul each other instead of attacking him.

And they have. There is no love lost between Cornyn and Paxton, and while they have largely kept their powder dry since the first round of voting on March 3, they (and their allied groups) had already burned through more than $100 million combined by then.

This is a scenario that GOP leaders had hoped to avoid because, while the Lone Star State has been solidly red, there is a chance that Talarico could be swept into office in a blue wave, and not drawing any fire right now will only boost his chances.

Therefore, senior Republicans were delighted when Donald Trump announced on March 4 that he would finally make an endorsement in the race. They had been urging the president to back Cornyn, who is viewed as the stronger candidate in the general election.

However, Trump had previously refused to do so because Paxton is a loyal supporter and, more importantly, this race is completely up in the air — and he he wants to keep pretending that all of his endorsed candidates win.

The day after the first vote, however, the president certainly made it sound as though he would step in and end this messy fight.

“The Republican Primary Race for the United States Senate in the Great State of Texas, a State I LOVE and won 3 times in Record Numbers (the HIGHEST vote ever recorded, by far!!!), cannot, for the good of the Party, and our Country, itself, be allowed to go on any longer,” he wrote in a social media post. “IT MUST STOP NOW! We have an easy to beat, Radical Left Opponent, and we have to TOTALLY FOCUS on putting him away, quickly and decisively!”

At this point, we imagine that Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and other Republicans hoping to cling to control of the Senate were nodding along vigorously.

It got even better.

“Both John and Ken ran great races, but not good enough. Now, this one, must be PERFECT! My Endorsements within the Republican Party have been virtually insurmountable! It is such an honor to realize and say that almost everyone I Endorse WINS, and wins by a lot, especially in Texas!” Trump added. “I will be making my Endorsement soon, and will be asking the candidate that I don’t Endorse to immediately DROP OUT OF THE RACE!”

Well, that would certainly have settled it and allowed Republicans to train their fire on Talarico.

There is just one problem: Trump never made that endorsement. We suspect it’s because it isn’t a sure thing, and he wants to maintain that purported near-perfect record (which isn’t even close to perfect – there are plenty of candidates that Trump has backed that have gone on to lose).

In other words, out of his personal vanity, Trump is kneecapping the GOP’s chances of retaining the Senate (and out of our own personal vanity, we’d like to point out that we wrote on March 4 that the president had put himself in a no-win situation in the Lone Star State).

He could end this at any time, before Cornyn and Paxton beat each other up more and waste even more money that, from a Republican perspective, would be better spent on attacking Talarico.

For example, by making ads like this one:

Then again, that clip isn’t for Texas voters. A political action committee supporting Paxton ran it in the West Palm Beach market so that the president would see it when watching Fox News at Mar-a-Lago.

But even that hasn’t worked to get Trump off the sidelines, which means that, as things stand now, the two candidates will have to settle the race the old-fashioned way… at great expense to both campaigns and the GOP overall.

Well played, Mr. President; another masterful gambit!