First, there was this.
Big John Cornyn
President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he will soon make an endorsement in the heated Texas Senate Republican primary, as Sen. John Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton head toward a runoff election in May.
Trump also expressed his desire for the non-endorsed candidate to concede.
“The Republican Primary Race for the United States Senate in the Great State of Texas, a State I LOVE and won 3 times in Record Numbers (the HIGHEST vote ever recorded, by far!!!), cannot, for the good of the Party, and our Country, itself, be allowed to go on any longer. IT MUST STOP NOW!” Trump wrote on his social media platform.
“I will be making my Endorsement soon, and will be asking the candidate that I don’t Endorse to immediately DROP OUT OF THE RACE! Is that fair? We must win in November!!!” Trump wrote.
The president’s post came hours after Senate Republican leadership urged Trump to back Cornyn, a four-term Republican senator, over Paxton, a conservative firebrand who has become popular among Trump’s MAGA base despite being involved in several scandals.
They are, perhaps, a little worried about this race, and for sure worried about all the money that will be incinerated in the runoff. It’s a little hard to imagine Ken Paxton just rolling over, however, and as such we next got this.
Attorney General Ken Paxton on Wednesday said not even President Donald Trump could push him out of the Texas Senate contest, telling a right-wing cable news show that he still plans to stay in the GOP primary runoff against Sen. John Cornyn even if he does not earn Trump’s endorsement.
“I’m staying in this race,” Paxton told Real America’s Voice. “I owe it to the people of Texas. I’ve spent a year of my life campaigning against John Cornyn because John has not represented the people of Texas well. He’s been against Trump in both of his elections, said he shouldn’t run last time. The people of Texas, at least the Republicans, would like something different.”
[…]
But even the hint of suggestion that Trump would force out Paxton—a MAGA darling who has litigated right-wing culture war issues and helped aid in Trump’s failed quest to overturn the 2020 election—enraged some of Trump’s biggest supporters, who said it was wrong for Trump to deny GOP voters the chance to choose their own candidates.
“This is wrong and the people of Texas should be able to vote for WHOEVER THEY WANT!!! NOT the candidate Trump demands,” former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote Wednesday in a post on X. “People are furious over this and if Trump does this, it could actually be the real reason Texas Senate seat flips blue. Stealing people’s opportunity to elect their leaders by force will definitely piss off voters and will lead to even more sitting it out.”
Objectively and separating this all from the Trump stuff, it is weird to ask someone who got over 40% of the vote and trailed the leader by one point to drop out of the runoff. You can argue that Paxton underperformed, but you can also argue that nearly sixty percent of voters wanted not-John Cornyn. Seems like having the runoff is the way to settle it at this point. (*)
And then we settled on this.
Attorney General Ken Paxton said Thursday he would consider dropping out of the U.S. Senate race if Senate GOP leaders agreed to abolish the filibuster and pass a priority piece of legislation for President Donald Trump.
Paxton made the statement in a social media post that also criticized his opponent in Texas’ Senate Republican primary, incumbent John Cornyn, for being against scrapping the filibuster to pass the bill, known as the SAVE America ACT. It would require people to provide proof of citizenship — such as a birth certificate or passport — when they register to vote and present photo identification at the polls, among other new election-related rules.
Cornyn is a supporter of the legislation, though he and other Senate Republicans have long bristled at talk of abolishing the filibuster, a parliamentary tool that, in practice, requires support from 60 senators in the 100-member chamber to bring a bill up for a vote. CNN reported last month that Cornyn would not say whether he backed ending the filibuster to pass the proposal, which the Senate’s 53 Republicans cannot pass amid unified opposition from Democrats.
“I repeat what I have consistently said: I support the bill and have encouraged Senate Republicans to get it done,” Cornyn said in response to Paxton’s post, without addressing his position on the filibuster.
Paxton’s offer to drop out appears designed to make a political point, more than anything else, by drawing attention to Cornyn’s reluctance to get rid of the filibuster. But it marks the first time he has raised the prospect of leaving the race amid intense lobbying by Senate GOP leaders for Trump to endorse Cornyn.
It could mean Paxton is feeling some pressure, or it could mean he’s just being a troll. He’s good at that. By the time this runs in the morning there could have been another two or three twists in the story, much like the Tony Gonzales saga. They’re all gonna do what they’re gonna do, we just have to do our thing and roll with it.
(*) Yes, yes, instant runoff voting, but that isn’t a thing here.
Wouldn’t be surprised if Paxton’s price to dropout is actually USAG.
He’d be even worse than Bondi, which is fitting for this clown show.
the only kind of law Impeached and Criminally Indicted Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton likes: an unconstitutional one
So Paxton will drop out of the race for the nuclear option and to SAVE America? No thanks, I hope those two spend another hundred million burning each other down.