Megapastor Trump ally’s stunning backpedal just exposed 'bad' GOP candidate

President Trump meets with Pastor Robert Jeffress of First Baptist church in Dallas, Texas. Yuri Gripas / Reuters

While evangelical megachurch pastor and longtime President Donald Trump ally Robert Jeffress has been diehard about MAGA since the movement’s earliest days, in an interview published by the New York Times on Sunday, his comments revealed a surprisingly shrugging stance regarding the upcoming midterms in his home state of Texas. Should a member of his congregation decide to vote for Democratic Senate challenger James Talarico, it’s “fine.”

“I talked to Pastor Robert Jeffress about the Paxton/Talarico race,” wrote Times columnist David French, referring to the Senate race between Talarico and Texas Attorney Ken Paxton, who won the nomination under Trump’s endorsement but is polling behind the Democratic opponent in the general election due to a string of scandals. “He had tough words for Talarico, but he also emphasized individual conscience. So I asked the natural follow-up: What if a church member says, ‘My conscience is telling me Talarico’? His answer was a welcome departure from the ‘my way or hell's way’ rhetoric you see from all too many right-wing Christians on this site.”

“Follow what you feel like God’s leading you to do,” Jeffress responded. “Period. I wouldn’t hesitate to tell them why I’m not voting that way and made sure they were aware of some of the statements he had made about Jesus and the Bible, but if they say, you know, ‘I just can’t overlook the other. This is the way I’m going’? I’d say, ‘Fine, I’ll see you in church next Sunday.’”

This is a decided tone shift for Jeffress, who has previously declared of his ideal candidate, "I don't want some meek and mild leader or somebody who's going to turn the other cheek... I want the meanest, toughest SOB I can find." In the past, while discussing Trump’s scandals, the pastor has handwaved allegations of sexual assault and fraud, saying that evangelicals didn’t need to approve of his “lifestyle” to support his politics. Evangelicals, said Jeffress, were just being “pragmatic.” Trump took 80 percent of the evangelical vote in all three of his elections, but that support has waned over the course of his second term. By January 2026, his approval was down to 69 percent due largely to the overreaches of his mass deportation effort and failure to bring down prices. Then his beef with the Pope dragged his approval down further, which slid further still over the course of the war with Iran as the economy has suffered. As of June 2026, evangelical support for Trump stood around 50 percent.

Now, with the midterms just around the corner, many Texas Republicans are struggling with the idea of voting for Paxton, who brings the corruption and philandering of Trump with none of the charisma. Polls show Talarico firmly ahead, with even Fox News admitting his lead. If he wins, he’ll be the first Democrat Texas elected to the Senate since 1988. Jeffress's words may suggest which way the state is headed. As one commenter put it, “Y’all realize how bad of a Republican candidate you have to be for Robert Jeffress to say this?”

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