Thune Urgent Pitch for Paxton Runs Risk
of Offending President as Pressure Tactic
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September 1, 2026
Republican leaders in Washington D.C. could be paving the path for Ken Paxton's demise as a U.S. Senate candidate with an attempts to pressure President Donald Trump into pouring money into the Texas race in a move that could backfire with a leader who takes offense when people tell him what to do.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune put the squeeze on the president on Tuesday in a television interview that he used to sound the alarm about the possibility of Paxton losing the Texas seat without a bailout from Trump.
Thune had backed incumbent John Cornyn in the primary election amid warnings that the GOP could hand the seat to Democrats if Paxton claimed the nomination in a primary runoff in the spring. Now Thune and other Senate leaders who opposed Paxton in the primary and overtime clash are eating crow with the majority leader's urgent pitch for Trump to bankroll the Texas nominee before it's too late to save a seat that could cost the GOP the chamber's majority if Democrat James Talarico wins in November.
"I'm hoping the White House will become engaged," Thune said in an appearance on Fox News. "Texas is an incredibly expensive state, and obviously one that we need. We've got to hold.
"If we're going to keep the United States Senate, we're going to keep a majority with Texas," the powerful South Dakota lawmaker added. "That is, we absolutely have to win that race. So everybody's all in for Ken Paxton."
Thune suggested in an appearance on Fox News that the time has come for Republicans to put the bitterness among themselves to rest for the sake of preserving control of the chamber for the GOP. Thune was one of several Senate leaders to break ranks with Trump in the primary runoff election that Paxton won with 64 percent of the vote a week after a glowing endorsement from Trump. Senate leaders argued that GOP voters could be handing the Texas seat to the Democrats on a silver platter if they fired Cornyn and chose Paxton to represent them in the general election instead.
Cornyn has been attempting to save face with a belated show of dignity and pride after doing his best to cozy up to Trump in a quest for the endorsement that Paxton appeared to have sewn up all along. The outgoing solon has refused to play along with the unity facade - refusing to endorse Paxton, to campaign with him or to go away quietly amid the pain of a crushing defeat.
But Thune said Paxton is a good candidate who has to have an infusion of campaign cash from Trump's $800 million super PAC called MAGA Inc. Thune worded the appeal for Trump help for Paxton in a way that the president could finding demanding and unacceptable as a result.
"The primary is over," the majority leader added. "We're focused now on the general election. But because Texas is such an expensive state, we're going to need the president and his team to be engaged there and to be putting resources into that state."
Trump might suspect that Thune would be in line for the credit if the president doled over a sufficient amount of his own donors' cash to give Paxton an opportunity to compete against a Democrat who'd raised a record-setting haul of $68 million in his first 10 months as a Senate candidate.
Talarico raised $30 million in the second quarter alone - and he ended June with almost $22 million in the campaign bank. Paxton reported $1.6 million in new money to the FEC for the same three-month span - pushing his total take for the Senate race to $9.2 million in 14 months as a candidate for the federal post.
Paxton has been anticipating a substantial money boost from the president, who's set to appear at a novel midterm rally on September 9 and 10 in Dallas where Trump plans to speak both days. Paxton has envisioned the event that the Republicans are calling a midterm convention as a launching pad to an eventual victory with gushing plugs from the president and photos with the two together. But the AG also appeared to expect to have funding from Trump and other major donors long before September when his own fundraising effort proved to be a flop.
But the money has yet to materialize for a campaign that could have used Trump's help with the money more effectively if he'd had it during the summer months. Trump's camp has reportedly cut an ad or two for Paxton without confirming that publicly. Talarico in the meantime is blasting Paxton on TV sets and computers across the state with a new spot attacking Paxton as the most corrupt politician in Texas. A super PAC that backs Paxton has spent $15 million on ads that go after Talarico but have yet to air.
more to come ...
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