Redstate warns about Texas Senate Race

quote:

---

Political strategist and former Harris County, TX, Republican Party precinct chair Rebecca Trahan sees this as a problem, she tells RedState. Trahan surmised that local and state GOP are the ones driving voters to Talarico and other Texas Democrat candidates. This could be occurring out of spite from the GOP establishment's bitterness over Sen. John Cornyn's (R-TX) primary defeat, utter distaste for Paxton, or the illusion that Texas will always be red, and the national GOP thinks they have it in the bag.

All of those elements could well lead to the flip Democrats desire. Trahan warned that if the local and national Republican Party does not quickly course correct, Talarico will win. In a phone conversation and email correspondence with Trahan, she said:

As someone who has been involved in politics over 30 years, I have seen this trend, and every time Republicans have gotten wiped out.

[In the past,] Texas has had overwhelmingly more registered Republicans, but now Democrats hold the majority. [There are] so many frustrated, abandoned, and disaffected Republican voters who have been driven to the Independent Party, who right now are leaning towards Talarico, but could still vote for Paxton. The Independent Party today comprises 16.24 percent of Texas voters.....

---

quote:

---

Funding appears to be a major problem for Paxton. Talarico's fundraising advantage is more than three-to-one over the TX AG. The Talarico campaign has raised a total of $72 million, including quarterly totals of $31.6. Paxton has only raised a total of $16.8 million, which includes $9.3 million from that prior quarter.

As alluded above, Cornyn donors who poured tons of money into seeing Paxton defeated, have now pulled their purse strings tight. It seems they prefer to see Paxton, and in some ways Trump, lose this national contest. Their focus doesn't appear to be about saving the republic, but saving their political power. So, they figure they can let the Democrats have six years with Talarico, watch him crash and burn, while they shape and fund a Republican candidate more to their liking to pick up the pieces in 2032. Of those Cornyn donors, the [Ross] Perot family, John Nau, a Houston beer distributor and longtime political donor, and Dallas real estate developer Harlan Crow, have decided to send their money in other directions.

Even former MAGA stalwart Leonard Leo, whose legal strategies helped influence Trump's picks of Constitutional originalists for the United States Supreme Court, has stepped away from Paxton. ...

In one of this year’s most competitive Senate races, Republicans are refusing to spend money — so far.

That peculiar dynamic is playing out in Texas, where the fate of the Republican nominee, Ken Paxton, will help decide which party controls the U.S. Senate. But Mr. Paxton has struggled to raise cash, and no one has stepped in yet to help him.

Mr. Paxton finds himself in a unique situation among Senate candidates, according to interviews with a dozen Republicans with ties to his campaign. Republican donors still hold grudges from a bruising primary. The state, with its 18-plus television markets, is an epically expensive setting. And his Democratic opponent, James Talarico, has proved to be a particularly strong fund-raiser.

Perhaps the most striking piece of Mr. Paxton’s money woes is the high-stakes game of chicken that two of the Republican Party’s biggest money committees, along with their allied donors, are playing.

Both of those groups, the Senate Leadership Fund and MAGA Inc., are not so secretly hoping that the other one swoops in to boost Mr. Paxton with tens of millions in spending, the Republicans said. Neither group has reached for its wallet yet.

“Somebody is going to have to spend big money,” said Dan Eberhart, an oil executive who is raising contributions for Mr. Paxton. “We’ll see who blinks.”

---