President Donald Trump was warned in May that if he endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for the U.S. Senate, he'd end up having to bankroll the candidate to repair his image. Trump didn't listen, and now he's either going to have to give Paxton a lot of money or watch as he loses.

CNN's Dana Bash asked her panel about the failures of the Paxton campaign on Monday, and they all agreed that he's in a tough spot unless he can raise more money.

Paxton's fundraising is so bad that his Democratic opponent James Talarico has been on the airwaves since June, and Paxton hasn't made a peep since the primary.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tx.) made it clear to the Texas Tribune last week that he tried to warn Republicans that this would happen.

“Paxton’s a poor campaigner,” he said. “He’s lazy and doesn’t raise money. And he basically is not offering a very compelling case for his election. He’s making this harder than it needs to be. But so be it — we are where we are.”

Already, Paxton has been caught taking international vacations in the middle of his campaigns. First, he jet-setted to Iceland with his girlfriend. The couple was spotted in London afterward.

He's assuming that MAGA Inc., the president's super PAC, will dump in all the money he needs to be successful in the race, but so far, Trump has held back spending any of the money from his groups.

Talarico has thus far been introducing himself to voters. That is, until Saturday, when he launched his first negative ad about Paxton, targeting his corruption.

Paxton is playing into the narrative too, taking photos of himself with voters wearing a watch worth $41,000. Bash said that after the Talarico campaign posted the comment about his watch, he was seen on the campaign trail without it.

Puck congressional correspondent Abby Livingston told CNN that she's never in her career heard both sides saying "this race is Talarico's to lose."

"There's hope that the billionaire's not just MAGA, but, like, Texas billionaires who've been on vacation are ready to start engaging and spending. But it hasn't really happened yet," she said. "But I think the most important thing to think about this is 20 years ago, when Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who I once worked for, was running in a Democratic wave, she won by 27 points as a Republican. I think this is 5 percent Talarcico talent, 5 percent environment, and 90 percent Republican self-inflicted problems."

She explained that Paxton certainly isn't the only one in this position; he's just "the most glaring one."

She called it a candidate quality issue, going along with fundraising problems and Trump's redistricting project.

"Texas Republicans knew [it] was a bad idea a year ago and went along with it anyway," Livingston continued, noting it is "causing incredible problems throughout the state. And none of this had to happen."

Trump used his 2024 election turnout as the guide for how to redraw the lines in Texas in an effort to draw more Democratic seats. As AlterNet wrote last week, the scheme is backfiring as Trump continues to lose the coalition that got him elected. Now the Texas seats are more Democratic after trying to spread Democrats into more districts. It's one of the major reasons that Indiana shut down Trump's demands to redistrict there.


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