From Axios:
Still a crook any way you look
A new private GOP poll is showing Republicans facing a growing problem in the Texas Senate race, the third such survey in just a month.
Why it matters: Republicans haven’t lost a statewide race in Texas in more than three decades, but party officials concede they may need to spend millions to keep the seat this year.
- “The problem is nobody with the necessary gravitas seems to be willing to state the obvious: this is shaping up to be a f***ing disaster,” a senior GOP Senate aide told Axios.
Zoom in: Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) trails state Attorney General Ken Paxton by 16 percentage points in a new survey conducted by veteran Republican pollster Chris Wilson. A copy was obtained by Axios.
- But Paxton trails a generic Democrat by three percentage points in a general election matchup.
- The establishment-aligned Cornyn performs far better than Paxton in a general election, leading a Democrat by seven percentage points.
- The survey results are similar to recent surveys conducted by the GOP-aligned Senate Leadership Fund super PAC and the American Opportunity Alliance, a network of influential Republican donors.
Between the lines: Paxton was impeached by the state House of Representatives in 2023 on bribery and corruption charges but was later acquitted by the state Senate.
- “If the goal is to maintain a GOP Senate majority and maximize Trump’s down-ballot coattails in Texas, Paxton’s nomination is a strategic liability,” Wilson, who has advised Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), said in a memo accompanying the poll.
- “If Paxton wins the primary, the GOP is on a path to hand Democrats their best Senate opportunity in a generation,” Wilson added.
See here for more on that previous poll. Without seeing the data, it’s hard to say what the magnitude of the threat for Republicans is. As I said before, it’s a different situation if Paxton is underperforming Cornyn while the Dem level stays more or less the same than it is if some amount of Cornyn’s support is getting transferred to the Dem. We also don’t know how well an actual named Democrat – there are plenty to choose from at this point – would do compared to the idea of a Democrat. This is all suggestive and no doubt a big part of the reason why so many Dems are circling around this race, but there’s a vast distance between these two insider polls and a Dem victory in this race.
Also, too, and with all due respect to my Republican pals, I have no idea who this person with “the necessary gravitas” might be that could calmly and persuasively explain to the seething horde that is the Republican primary electorate why voting for Ken Paxton might not be a great idea for them. Like, seriously, this isn’t 2002 and the whole reason why there’s so much fear of what those crazy primary voters might do is exactly because Republicans have been taking a blowtorch to all forms of the establishment for decades. Allow me to put this in simpler terms:
Me sowing: Haha fuck yeah!!! Yes!!
Me reaping: Well this fucking sucks. What the fuck.
— The Golden Sir (@screaminbutcalm) 4:14 PM – 12 March 2019
You’re welcome.
(Here’s another article about who’s publicly musing about running for this or that. It name-checks outgoing San Antonion Mayor Ron Nirenberg but otherwise doesn’t have much in the way of new information.)