On Monday, a prominent party insider warned his fellow conservatives that President Donald Trump’s latest move will “do to the entire GOP what he did to Texas Republicans.” According to longtime political commentator Charlie Sykes, Trump’s decision to elevate Stephen Miller to White House Chief of Staff mirrors his endorsement of the wildly unpopular Ken Paxton for the Texas Senate race, which was a major contributing factor in Republicans’ historic midterm disaster.
Trump could have picked anyone to run the White House, writes Sykes, but “he chose Miller, the architect of the Administration’s ICE regime that has killed Americans in the streets, and is one of Pete Hegseth’s best friends in the White House. In other words, Miller embodies everything that voters rejected so decisively last week. So, his appointment is a huge F-You both to the electorate and Republicans who had hoped for a pivot from the viciousness. But this follows a now-familiar pattern.” According to Sykes, MS NOW host Ari Melber summed up the situation accurately when he claimed, “Trump is pulling another Ken Paxton,” as Miller, like Paxton, is willing to do whatever the president wants “even if it costs the public or his party or ultimately even his own self-interested political power.”
Sykes argues that Trump’s endorsement of Paxton cost the GOP significantly more than a mere Senate seat as it wiped out Texas Republicans across the board, losing every statewide race on the ballot and control of the state House. What’s more, notes Sykes, it was not just “the deeply corrupt and deplorable Paxton that crushed the Texas GOP. It was also the policies designed and executed by Stephen Miller which backfired spectacularly in the Lone Star State.” As Sykes elaborates, the brutality of ICE and Trump’s mass deportation campaign – which was pushed by Miller and cheered on by the Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott – destroyed Hispanic support for the GOP. Republicans had hoped to build upon Trump’s strong performance among South Texas Hispanics in 2024. Instead, Democrats scored “eye-popping numbers,” with candidate James Talarico winning the borderland counties of Hidalgo by 46 points, Cameron by 38, and Webb by 47 — all which Trump had won narrowly just two years earlier.
“Trump’s response?” writes Sykes. “To make the architect of that fiasco the face of his presidency. Texas Republicans can tell you how that worked out for them.” As Sykes notes, Texas was “red as blood” on November 2, the day before midterms, and now it’ll have a Democratic governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, comptroller, land commissioner, agriculture commissioner, Texas House, and U.S. senator. Talarico won by double digits over Paxton, and Gina Hinojosa — the state’s first Latina governor — delivered a shock upset to three-term Governor Greg Abbott. Democrats also won all four state Supreme Court seats on the ballot and are poised to flip Texas’ Board of Education.
