CNN’s John King and Jake Tapper said Tuesday night that Republican struggles in Texas and other states trace back to candidates President Donald Trump helped pick, with King saying a Democratic win in Texas’ Senate race “would be wow history.”
Democrat James Talarico was locked in a tight battle with Republican Ken Paxton in a race the Associated Press had not called as of 10:45 p.m. ET. King noted that a Democrat hasn’t won a Texas Senate race in 38 years or a governor’s race in 36, since Lloyd Bentsen won reelection in 1988 and Ann Richards won the governorship in 1990. He added that nearly half of Texans alive today weren’t born then.
Tapper said Trump “picked Ken Paxton and chased out the incumbent Republican senator, John Cornyn, who was well respected and would have at least been more competitive than this.” Cornyn lost a May runoff to Paxton after Trump endorsed Paxton a week before the vote. Paxton has since faced scrutiny over sparse rally crowds and campaign missteps.
The CNN anchors went on to list other Trump-backed candidates who struggled, including Sen. Darline Graham in South Carolina, who lost to Democrat Annie Andrews, according to NBC News projections. They also named Michael Whatley in North Carolina, Mike Collins in Georgia and Vivek Ramaswamy in Ohio’s governor’s race. They added that Trump drove out Sen. Thom Tillis, whose North Carolina seat Democrat Roy Cooper flipped Tuesday, and that Trump’s team alienated Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, who retired, leaving her seat open.
King also noted that in early returns, Paxton wasn’t matching Trump’s 2024 performance in any Texas county that had reported. Talarico was winning Nueces County, home to Corpus Christi, which Trump carried by 11 points, and leading by nearly 20 points in Kleberg County, which Trump won by 13.
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