Trump's niece grills GOP over 'unhinged' Texas candidate and bleak midterm future
The Republican Party is in for a rude awakening in the Texas elections, irrespective of which candidate they put forward, Mary Trump has claimed.
The president's niece claimed the GOP will fare worse than the Democratic Party candidate at the midterms, whichever way they turn in the primaries. Neither John Cornyn nor Ken Paxton received the required 50% vote in the primaries, meaning a decision on a representative will not be made until May.
Writing in her Substack, Mary Trump weighed up the current options the Republican Party can choose between, and believes neither option is going to work for the party.
She wrote, "How to describe Ken Paxton? Corrupt, depraved, and essentially a sociopath. In other words, very much in the mold of many people currently operating within the Trump regime.
"Shockingly, considering Cornyn is an incumbent who has served in the Senate for a very long time, he received only 41.9 percent of the vote to Paxton’s 40.7 percent. The man who came in third, Congressman Wesley Hunt, received 13.5 percent.
"There is no way to know in a runoff between Cornyn and Paxton who benefits most from Hunt leaving the race. But the fact that an incumbent failed to win his primary outright should raise alarm bells for Cornyn and for Republicans more broadly. Talarico now has the potential to be a strong Democratic candidate in the general election, and Paxton carries enormous baggage.
"Paxton may energize the most rabid faction of the Republican base, but it is unlikely he would perform as well in a general election as the bland, milquetoast Cornyn. That leaves Republicans in a dilemma. If Paxton becomes the nominee, it may make the race easier for Democrats, but it also risks putting someone as unhinged as Paxton into the United States Senate."
Despite the MAGA-adjacent rhetoric of Paxton, it appears Cornyn is now attempting to appeal to the same voter base and has praised his alignment with Donald Trump on most votes.
Mary Trump added, "Cornyn himself recently posted what he apparently considers a selling point. He proudly announced that he has voted with Donald Trump 99 percent of the time, fighting for border security, law enforcement, conservative leadership—and, though he did not say it, fascism.
"Trump, in classic game show fashion, announced today that he will soon issue an endorsement in the Texas Republican Senate runoff. He even suggested that whichever candidate he does not endorse should simply drop out, because apparently Donald Trump believes he is the boss of everyone in the Republican Party."