Jackson has spent more than $80 million of his own fortune on TV ads, many of which have tied him to Trump, but Trump has been clear that he does not support Jackson, who is now headed to a runoff.
“There’s a lot of confusion. Everyone’s saying I endorsed them. I didn’t. I endorsed a man named Burt Jones, your lieutenant governor,” Trump said this month. “Vote for Burt Jones. He’s just an incredible guy who has my complete and total endorsement in the race.”
What’s unclear, however, is how Trump’s GOP primary dominance will play out in the midterm general election, with Republicans trying to hold on to slim House and Senate majorities. Democrats could take the House and are trying to challenge for the Senate, even as that is considered a much more difficult endeavor.
Some Senate Republicans think that what could be seen as a Trump “win” Tuesday, ahead of yet another primary, actually hurts Republican chances.
The most notable example is Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, as of Tuesday the Trump-endorsed Senate candidate in his state. If he wins next week’s GOP primary runoff, as is expected, Paxton will enter the general election at a significant fundraising disadvantage against Democratic nominee James Talarico. And he also comes with significant political baggage, including a 2023 impeachment by the GOP-led state House before his acquittal in the Senate. Then there is the fact that his wife filed for divorce on “biblical grounds.”
A number of Republicans fear that Paxton was the inferior candidate compared with Sen. John Cornyn, and they believe national GOP groups will now have to spend money in Texas that otherwise could have been used to boost Republican Senate candidates in other key states.
“You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out the pathway for Paxton is there, but it’s more uphill,” Sen Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told reporters Tuesday afternoon.
Democrats need a net gain of four seats to flip the Senate — a tall order but one increasingly seen as doable because of Trump’s tanking approval ratings among independent voters.
It excites Democrats about their prospects of flipping the chamber.
“While the Texas GOP has been embroiled in a ‘bitter,’ ‘costly intraparty war’ that has fractured their base and left them drained of resources, Democratic enthusiasm has surged to its highest level in decades,” said Maeve Coyle, spokeswoman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
“James Talarico is building the campaign to win, and Texans will send him to the U.S. Senate in November,” she said.
