'Weak strongman' Trump is strangling his feeble party: analysis

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U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the press, ahead of departing the White House for Joint Base Andrews en route to Beijing, China, in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 12, 2026. REUTERS Evelyn Hockstein

A political analyst argued on Thursday that President Donald Trump is acting like a strongman dictator, but in so doing he is strangling his own failing Republican Party.

“If you looked just at the percentages of last night’s Senate runoff in Starr County, you would say Trump is still dominating,” wrote MS NOW’s Chris Hayes on Thursday. “His candidate beat Cornyn there by nearly 50 points. But what’s that percentage based on? How many Republicans actually voted in that runoff? The answer: virtually none.”

Hayes continued, “Only 90 votes were cast out of more than 36,000 registered voters in the county, according to the Texas secretary of state’s office. In that same county, in a single Democratic primary for a local judge back in March, more than 13,000 Democrats turned out to vote.”

For these reasons, Hayes observed, Democrats are optimistic both about flipping the Texas Senate seat currently held by Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) but currently contested by Trump-picked Republican nominee Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Democratic nominee James Talarico.

“If you look at a map of Senate races being held this November, Democrats need to hold all their seats and flip four Republican-held seats to take the chamber,” Hayes explained. “That feat looked nearly impossible before Trump endorsed Paxton, the atrociously fraught candidate Democrats hoped they would get. It’s just clearer every day that Trump’s strategy for power has a tighter and tighter hold on fewer and fewer people. You see it in the polls where the president’s approval has plunged to new lows, as Democrats widen their lead on the generic congressional ballot. You see it in the increasing sycophancy of the Republicans who have so far survived Trump’s whims, as demonstrated by the coterie of kiss-ups who dominated Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting.”

Hayes predicted that trend will culminate in the Republican Party alienating everyone except the most sycophantic elements of Trump’s base.

“It is the defining political dynamic right now in the country, and one that really can only be broken through mass mobilization and democratic election, which is why threats to upend democracy will only grow more intense as Trump’s faction of MAGA diehards keeps shrinking,” Hayes argued.

Political experts share Hayes’ view that, at the very least, Paxton is not going to be as strong a nominee against Talarico as Cornyn would have been.

"Paxton has a litany of ethical lapses for Democrats to exploit — from allegations of bribery and misuse of his office to marital infidelity, which led his wife to divorce him on ‘biblical grounds,’” Jessica Taylor, Senate and governors editor for the Cook Political Report, wrote. “Given the national environment, this is a race that certainly may have become competitive even if Cornyn had won, but Paxton’s flaws warrant an immediate move to the Lean column."

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