Despite warnings, President Donald Trump threw his support behind scandal-plagued Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and now the entire GOP is having to live with the consequences.
In a column for the conservative National Review, analyst Jeffrey Blehar reminded readers that he has long opposed replacing Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) with “the spectacularly corrupt, vaguely amphibious-looking state attorney general,” and, based upon recent polling, he has been proven right.
According to Blehar, having been stuck with Paxton, Republicans are now “edging away” to avoid the “the stench of potential electoral doom.”
On Monday, he reminded readers that he has long opposed replacing Sen. John Cornyn with "the spectacularly corrupt, vaguely amphibious-looking state attorney general," and recent polling suggests he's been proven right.
According to Blehar, his predictions have "proven out with depressing predictability."
"National money helped defeat Jasmine Crockett in the Democratic primary, and base anger — cannily stoked by Paxton’s populist campaign — doomed incumbent John Cornyn in his own primary," he wrote before adding, "Now Paxton himself is trailing in the RealClearPolitics averages, down by 1.9 points, and with a clear trajectory in the race to date."
What he does find surprising has been Paxton's reluctance to ramp up his campaign in the face of a possible defeat.
"I don’t know why Paxton has seemed to check out of the race when it’s abundantly possible he could lose," he wrote. "Perhaps he has a natural sense of entitlement that comes from being a Republican in Texas, and just expects the natural lean of the state to carry him to victory regardless of how rotten a candidate he is."