'Paxton is cooked': Eyes widen as new polls add to GOP's worst fears in Texas
By: Matthew Chapman (Raw Story)
Why would Republicans give up incumbent advantage just because Donald Trump is butt-hurt? John Cornyn wasn't primary'd as a political purity test. Ken Paxton got Trump's endorsement out of spite. So now Texas Republicans are stuck with a weak candidate whose only merit is loyalty to Trump.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
May 29, 2026 -- Texas Republicans got an ominous new sign on Friday that they have a competitive U.S. Senate election.
According to the newest poll from the Texas Public Opinion Research, Democratic state lawmaker and Presbyterian minister James Talarico is leading Republican state Attorney General Ken Paxton 47 to 43 — notably, being one of the first polls to show Talarico relatively close to the 50 percent threshold, meaning Republicans would have to win a very large majority of undecided voters to overcome this lead if it is true.
One of the other trouble signs for Republicans in the poll is that a significant percent of Republican voters who backed incumbent GOP Sen. John Cornyn, who recently lost in a blowout runoff election after Trump endorsed Paxton, now plan to vote for Talarico.
Moreover, this appears to be driven by Paxton's long history of personal scandals, including a previous criminal indictment, impeachment, and accusations of an extramarital affair.
According to the poll, almost one in three Cornyn runoff voters "say that they would vote for Talarico, while 44% would vote for Paxton — 23% remain undecided or say that they will not vote." Of the Republican runoff voters backing Talarico, "More than half ... cite Paxton's criminality or corruption as their primary reason."
This comes just two days after another poll suggested Talarico has a lead among Latino voters in Texas — a plurality of the state population — by 27 points.
"If the actual result of the Texas Senate race among Latinos ends up anywhere close to this, Paxton is cooked," election forecast analyst G. Elliott Morris said of those results.
Republicans are fearful that even if they can hold the Texas seat, it will require hundreds of millions of dollars in political spending, draining resources from other battleground states.
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Can money overcome stupidity? Looks like Texas will be the laboratory for that lab rat experiment. And the heck of it is Donald Trump won't share the cheese.
No doubt Paxton is cooked, ask senator beato and governor abortion Barbie how easy it is to win in Texas with out of state money and media cheering you on.
The biases of Raw Story are quite obvious. But that doesn't explain why the value of incumbency was sacrificed out of spite. Donald Trump may provide coattails with certain factions of the Republican Party but Trump is now too damaged to easily sway general elections. And Trump's weakening popularity with Republicans suggest that nominating candidates based upon superficial loyalty to Trump could prove very costly to win general elections.
Another example of Trump's stupidity fueled by a 5th grade maturity and a vindictive personality.
He would rather punish Cornyn for a few minor variations from 100% following of Trump by endorsing a slimy sycophant (who is almost as corrupt as Trump). He just put a Senate seat in play for the Ds.
Trump is an idiot. How can anyone support this fool?
After having another political ad pop up, the billionth in the last few weeks, and considering how much money they spend on these ads, I thought "What would happen if everyone decided to vote for the LEAST heard of candidates that still represent each voters wants/needs?".
If that happened, I think a lot of these people throwing money around might start rethinking their strategies. I think America will be a much better country once our legislators are decided by the people's own choices and not just going to the candidates that spend the most money. Of course, that would also take more Americans getting educated and not being so easily manipulated by flashy ads and misleading rumors and personal attacks, so I don't really have a whole lot of hope for the broken system ever getting fixed since that would take legislators voting to stop multinationals and massive corporations from giving them money. That's like asking a panel of foxes to vote between hiring a fox or a hound dog to guard the chicken coup. I wonder which they'll pick? /s