It’s the “worst possible outcome” for Texas Republicans, political strategist Simon Rosenberg said of Tuesday’s primary race.
Incumbent Sen. John Cornyn could not get enough of the vote to avoid a contentious runoff election against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the scandal-plagued Donald Trump loyalist who spent much of his political career fending off criminal prosecution and is now managing the fallout of a divorce that his wife said she filed “on biblical grounds.”
Democratic voters handily elected Rep. James Talarico, who made his Christian faith a focal point of his campaign, as their Senate candidate
“If [Paxton] gets the nomination, Talarico would create a great foil with him in giving Democrats hope they could win,” Rosenberg noted in a 42-minute Substack Live conversation.
Trump apparently recognized the prospects of the runoff as so potentially disastrous that he told Cornyn and Paxton that the race “MUST STOP NOW” and the candidate who doesn’t get his endorsement must concede.
Paxton’s office meanwhile tried to cast a shadow on the Democratic race by sowing confusion inside Dallas polling stations, where Rep. Jasmine Crockett had a home turf advantage.
On Tuesday, a lower court in Texas ordered polling stations there to stay open an additional two hours until 9 p.m. local time, in order to address confusion caused by local voting rules. Paxton’s office successfully petitioned the Texas Supreme Court to reverse that decision, ordering the separation of any ballots by voters who weren’t in line by 7 p.m.
Talarico’s margin of victory was too large for the ballots at issue to play any determinative role in the outcome, but the resulting upheaval stopped many news outlets from formally declaring the outcome that evening.
“They denied James Tallarico a primetime victory speech last night,” Rosenberg said, referring to Paxton’s office.
In a wide-ranging conversation, Rosenberg and I analyzed the effect GOP national and local interventions had on the race and what they might reveal about the party’s legal and electoral strategies in the upcoming midterm elections. We also discussed the sexual misconduct scandal surrounding Trump-endorsed candidate Rep. Tony Gonzalez, who also advanced to a runoff last night, along with other notable results in North Carolina and Arkansas.
