Tillis Says Trump's Backing of Paxton Turned a Safe Texas Seat Into an Expensive Fight
Retiring Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina said President Donald Trump "made a colossal mistake" by backing state Attorney General Ken Paxton over four-term Sen. John Cornyn in the Texas Senate Republican primary.
Tillis made the comments to host Jake Tapper on CNN's "State of the Union" on September 27, 2026. He called the endorsement an "unforced error" that put the seat at risk for the GOP. The Guardian
Tillis said "John Cornyn's a great member of the U.S. Senate." He added that "Paxton has his challenges." The price, in his account, will be campaign spending. Republicans, he said, would not be spending "tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in Texas if Cornyn had won." CNN transcript
Trump endorsed Paxton just days before Paxton beat Cornyn in the May Texas primary. A primary is the party vote that picks the nominee. That loss ended Cornyn's two decades in the Senate and sent Paxton to the general election on 3 November against Democratic state legislator and pastor James Talarico. The general election decides who holds the seat. If Talarico wins, he would be the first Democrat in more than 30 years to win statewide office in Texas.
The primary followed an open split between Trump and Cornyn. Cornyn said during the 2024 presidential campaign that Republicans should move on from Trump. Trump said in a social media post before election day that Cornyn had been "VERY disloyal" to him.
Paxton heads into the general election with a record Democrats say they plan to use against him. He was impeached in 2023 on corruption accusations, meaning formally charged, and later acquitted, meaning not convicted, in a trial in the Texas Senate. He was indicted on felony securities fraud charges, meaning formally accused, but the case was dismissed after a 2024 pretrial diversion agreement, a deal that lets a defendant meet conditions instead of going to trial. In July 2025, Angela Paxton filed for divorce from Ken Paxton after 38 years of marriage, citing adultery "on biblical grounds."
Looking at what this means for Senate Republicans, Tillis is pointing to a money problem as well as a candidate problem. A seat once held by an incumbent now needs defending. Money spent in Texas cannot be spent in other states. For strategists who run a national map, that choice affects ad buys, field staff and fundraising in the final five weeks.
The broader context here is the familiar pull between primary loyalty and general-election risk. Trump's late endorsement settled the Republican primary for Paxton. Tillis, who is retiring and will not face primary voters again, is making an electability case that sitting Republicans often avoid in public. His words were direct. They were also limited. He did not ask Paxton to drop out. He framed it as cost and strategy.
In my view, the Texas race will test two ideas. One is that Texas leans Republican enough statewide to absorb a flawed nominee. The other is that a well-funded challenger with a different life story can make Republicans pay full price for those flaws. Tillis has taken the second view. November will give the answer.
