‘Foolish, Foolish Decision’: GOP Donors Slam Trump’s Texas Endorsement as Pressure Mounts for Him to ‘Rescue’ Ken Paxton

(AP Photo/LM Otero and Eric Gay)

GOP donors were not pleased with President Donald Trump’s decision to back Texas Senate candidate Ken Paxton — but now pressure is reportedly mounting for Trump to “rescue” Paxton’s struggling campaign.

Half a dozen Republican donors and operates spoke with Politico for a report published on Friday that showed just how strained things have become when it comes to the Republican Party’s major backers and Paxton.

“The message to Trump world is, ‘You broke it, now you own it. You gotta spend some of your money to defend him because we’ve got bigger fish to fry,’ ” one GOP donor said.

Trump gave Paxton a major boost when he decided to back the controversial Republican over incumbent Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), who has held that Senate seat since 2002.

Paxton is now in a surprisingly tight race with Democrat candidate James Talarico, and donors are sweating over the possibility of Democrats potentially earning such a major win in a deep red state.

“The general view is that’s Trump’s responsibility to bankroll, especially since Paxton took out one the GOP Senate’s best fundraisers and is currently running a lackadaisical campaign,” a second GOP donor said.

MAGA Inc. is the pro-Trump Super PAC that could jump in and help in the race, but thus far it has not spent its $400 million-plus war chest on any races.

“While MAGA Inc is committed to retaining and building the GOP majorities in the House and Senate, we are not in the habit of sharing our battle plans,” a spokesperson for the Super PAC said.

A person close to Trump’s team also noted that donors have been open about not wanting their money to go to Paxton, preferring to focus on other races instead.

“It’s just been an ‘Oh, I’m not going to be in Texas this time around,” the person said.

A third donor called it a “foolish, foolish decision” to turn a Texas Senate race into a toss up.

“To make Texas a toss-up is just a foolish, foolish decision,” the donor told the outlet.

The person urged that money be spent in other states, noting just how much resistance there is to Paxton on his own side.

“There’s a lot of people that, one, don’t really like Paxton at all, they think he’d be a terrible senator or they were loyal to Cornyn – or both,” the donor said. “This is a situation that we didn’t need to spend this money at all. We need it in North Carolina, in Georgia.”

An Emerson College survey that dropped last week found Paxton polling at 47% against Talarico’s 46%, with the poll carrying a 3% margin of error.

Fox News this week updated their “Power Rankings” for the midterms and shifted the Texas Senate race from Lean R to Toss Up. The Cook Political Report similarly called the race a “toss up” as Paxton and Talarico have been polling in a near-dead heat.

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