Abbott Admits to Donors that Republicans
May Be in Trouble after Writing Off Talarico
U.S. Senate General Election Polls
Capitol Inside
May 20, 2026
Governor Greg Abbott served up conflicting messages on Tuesday night in Houston where he sought to raise cash for a highly-publicized push to turn the area red while warning donors in private conversations that Republicans could be on the brink of a disaster in Texas this fall.
After passing the hat for the crusade in Harris County at a fundraiser at the home of Tilman Fertitta - the Houston Rockets owner who's the U.S. ambassador to Italy - Abbott reportedly went off script and admitted to some contributors that the GOP could lose critical races around the state in November from the statewide level down.
Abbott and the Republicans in Texas are especially worried about Democrat James Talarico as the party's U.S. Senate nominee and the newly-minted favorite in the aftermath of the endorsement that President Donald Trump bestowed on Attorney General Ken Paxton on Wednesday for the U.S. Senate race. Trump led incumbent John Cornyn for months to believe he might be his pick for an endorsement the veteran solon desperately needed to salvage the re-election bid.
Trump's choice of Paxton despite immense baggage that he carries was tantamount to a stake through the heart for Cornyn. Abbott wanted voters to think he was neutral in the Senate primary even though he'd appeared to be helping Cornyn behind the scenes. Abbott may have been wagering that Trump would rally behind Cornyn over Paxton because of the widely-held belief among Republicans that the incumbent would have been Talarico-proof. Polls have shown Talarico leading both Cornyn and Paxton in hypothetical general election pairings. The Democrat has had a slightly larger advantage over the attorney general in possible fall matchups.
A candidate for a new term himself in 2026, Abbott is worried first and foremost about down-ballot wreckage for the GOP in the event of a Talarico win that would snap a losing streak of 32 years at the statewide level for the Democrats. But the governor may have set himself up for considerable embarrassment by assuring GOP voters that it would be all but impossible for Talarico to win in the Lone Star State. The Texas leader suggested that Democrats were delusional in an interview on Fox News early this month.
"Texas has the longest winning streak of any state in America. Republicans statewide in Texas have gone undefeated for more than 30 years," Abbott said during the appearance. "And I can tell you right now, Republicans are going to win every statewide seat this November, and especially in that race against Talarico."
It's possible that Abbott believed that President Donald Trump would endorse Cornyn for the Texas Senate runoff by virtue of the fact that the chamber's GOP leaders and the party establishment feared that Democrats could win with Talarico. But Trump demonstrated with the pitch for Paxton that he doesn't care what's best for the GOP.
Capitol Inside predicted in March that Paxton would get the nod from the president at some late stage in the runoff. Cornyn had been a critic who expressed doubts about Trump's ability to win in 2024. Cornyn had been more unpopular with the conservative MAGA base than any Republican official in Texas for years. Delegates at the state GOP convention in Houston tried to boo Cornyn off the stage when he appeared there after fashioning compromise on gun control legislation.
Paxton in contrast had been one of Trump's most devoted and tested allies - having sought to overturn the 2020 election for him with a lawsuit at the U.S. Supreme Court. Paxton has been a regular visitor at Mar-a-Lago ever since. The Texas AG met with Trump at the retreat in Florida shortly after the president said he'd be making an endorsement in the Texas race. But Trump dangled the endorsement in a way that led Republicans to think that Cornyn would be the beneficiary if he could convince the president that he'd been his number one ally when Paxton may have had it locked up all along.
CNN reported late Tuesday night that White House officials told Senate Republican leaders a week ago that Trump would endorse Cornyn for the runoff. So it appears the president was playing all of the Republicans who'd pressured him for months to get behind the incumbent in Texas to save the seat.
Abbott in the meantime had quit talking about the Harris County blitz that he'd promised back in November as Trump grew more and more unpopular and the Republicans' prospects darkened as the year unfolded in direct correlation. But he felt compelled to insist that Talarico had no chance in the Senate race.
"He's crazy, and we are not going to allow the Talarico takeover of the state of Texas," Abbott vowed during an appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Grapevine on March 30. "We're going to keep Texas red. We're going to safeguard the values that keep Texas Texas."
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