Donald Trump’s former campaign manager is warning that last week’s Democratic sweep has handed Republicans an expensive new headache for 2028.
Bill Stepien, who managed Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign, told Politico last week that the midterm results make the mechanics of the next presidential race harder for the GOP, especially after Texas went blue, and political analyst Paul Waldman told The New Republic’s Greg Sargent that it’s “impossible to overstate what an earthquake it was” in the Lone Star State.
“If Democrats win Texas in any presidential campaign in the near future, there is absolutely no way Republicans can win the presidency,” Waldman said on Sargent’s podcast, “The Daily Blast.”
He argued Democrats should pour “a couple of billion dollars — that’s billion with a B” into opening offices in every one of Texas’ 254 counties. “That can be the entire ball game,” he said.
Sargent said it’s unclear how lasting the Democratic gains will be, but Republicans now have to worry about Texas “in a new way.”
“They’re going to, at an absolute minimum, have to spend enormous sums of money to prevent it from slipping away,” he said.
Part of the Democratic surge came from a backlash against Republicans running the state. Waldman pointed to Democrat Gina Hinojosa’s governor’s race, where she campaigned hard against Gov. Greg Abbott’s school voucher plan. The plan was especially unpopular in rural Texas, where there are no private schools and families rely on public schools.
“If you’re not happy, those are the people to blame,” Waldman said, describing the Democrats’ pitch.
National trends also point the wrong way for the GOP. According to New York Times data, Democrats won Latino voters 69 percent to 29 percent, a 29-point swing, and nearly reached parity with white voters. Waldman noted that Texas has a non-white majority, and said there’s little evidence Republicans’ 2024 gains with Latino and Black voters were more than a one-time result.
Texas isn’t the only state worrying Republican strategists. GOP strategist Kurt Steiner told Politico that “Ohio should be considered a battleground” after Democrats won the governor’s and Senate races there. Iowa evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats warned that “you can also die by the brand as well.”