Welcome back to The Best & The Brightest. I’m Leigh Ann Caldwell.

President Donald Trump said today, “I don’t care about the midterms,” pertaining to the domestic impact of his stalemated negotiation with Iran. But Trump was also articulating publicly exactly what congressional Republicans have been worrying about privately, as I reported on Sunday—an unmistakable subtext of his politically confounding decision to endorse Ken Paxton over incumbent Sen. John Cornyn. Unsurprisingly, Paxton crushed Cornyn in the Texas runoff last night, creating a huge headache for Republicans in the general election against Democrat James Talarico.

One other notable and underappreciated subplot of the Texas mess is that Cornyn’s loss was also a big loss for Chris LaCivita, the former Trump campaign manager, in his proxy battle with Axiom Strategies founder Jeff Roe, his political-operative archrival who helped to run Paxton’s campaign. Rep. Chip Roy, another Roe client, didn’t fare as well, badly losing his race for attorney general. Can’t win ’em all…

For more on the Cornyn fallout, tonight’s issue is helmed by Texas native and Longhorns expert Abby Livingston, who has an inside look at the mood among G.O.P. operatives and whether Democrats can actually flip the Lone Star State. Plus, Marianna Sotomayor investigates the Lean Left PAC mystery and the incredible shrinking Freedom Caucus.

Also mentioned in this issue: Vinny Minchillo, Caleb Crosby, Judd Legum, Rafael Anchía, Gina Hinojosa, Byron Donalds, Lyndon Johnson, George W. Bush, Ted Cruz, Beto O’Rourke, Jasmine Crockett, and many more.

The Cloakroom

Marianna Sotomayor

Whither the Freedom Caucus?: Several of the most clamorous members of the House Freedom Caucus won’t be returning to Congress next year, including Chip Roy, who decisively lost his race for Texas attorney general yesterday. He’s not the only one to forego reelection to the House in pursuit of statewide office—Reps. Byron Donalds, Andy Biggs, Tom Tiffany, Harriet Hageman, and Ralph Norman are each running for governor in their respective states of Florida, Arizona, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and South Carolina. Rep. Barry Moore is the G.O.P.’s nominee for Senate in Alabama. And while former H.F.C. chair Scott Perry is running for his Pennsylvania seat again, he may find himself ejected, depending on how strongly voters rebuke the G.O.P. this year.

The string of high-profile departures—or possible departures—calls into question the future of the H.F.C., the flamboyant bloc of roughly 35 MAGA members who provided G.O.P. leadership with colossal headaches during the past decade. In truth, the group had already splintered over the years. Only a handful are repeat offenders who rebuke their party, including notorious flexes like nuking the political careers of Speakers John Boehner, Paul Ryan, and Kevin McCarthy. Several G.O.P. aides and consultants I interviewed agreed that the exodus will accelerate a transition already underway within the caucus. As one aide told Leigh Ann, the H.F.C. is “in a holding pattern.”

How it moves forward will depend on its composition. Some incumbent firebrands—such as Reps. Lauren Boebert, Andrew Clyde, and Randy Fine—aren’t going anywhere, though they also often wind up supporting leadership in the end. Meanwhile, the most recent G.O.P. freshman class is more pragmatic than grandstanding, and Republican strategists tell me that leadership has been intentional about recruiting like-minded candidates. As Speaker Mike Johnson told me, “We need less people running for Congress because they want to be famous.” All of which suggests a possibly mellower H.F.C. in the future.

In any event, the House Freedom Fund has endorsed five candidates ahead of November who would presumably join H.F.C. if elected. Whether the group shrinks or stays at its current strength of roughly three dozen, it will likely remain more powerful than moderate G.O.P. factions such as Problem Solvers and the Republican Governance Group—both of which are likely to lose membership this cycle as swing-district lawmakers flounder.

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Campaign Memo

Marianna Sotomayor

The Lead Left mystery: For weeks, suspicions swirled around the mysterious Lead Left PAC, a political action committee that surfaced a month ago claiming to support Democratic-primary candidates. Its spending patterns suggested Republican backing, but the group’s dark money structure obscured its true identity.

Then Judd Legum, of Popular Information, traced the group’s address to G.O.P. operative Caleb Crosby and his political compliance firm, Crosby Ottenhoff Group, in Tallahassee. Crosby also serves as treasurer of the Congressional Leadership Fund, the principal campaign arm for House Republicans. (Democratic groups have boosted less-electable Republicans, too, a potent strategy in previous election cycles.) Neither the Crosby Ottenhoff Group nor the Congressional Leadership Fund responded to requests for comment.

In the end, however, the Lean Left effort may have been mostly for naught. Bob Brooks, the Democratic favorite in a Pennsylvania swing district, handily won his primary despite the PAC throwing $1.7 million behind challenger Lamont McClure. The group also lost big in Texas, where Lead Left infamously spent $900,000 to elevate congressional candidate Maureen Galindo, a sex therapist whose repeated antisemitic remarks drew sharp criticism from Democrats. (Sheriff’s deputy Johnny Garcia clobbered her by roughly 30 points.) Lean Left did back a winner in Nebraska’s 2nd district, where political organizer Denise Powell secured the Democratic nomination to replace retiring G.O.P. Rep. Don Bacon over State Sen. John Cavanaugh. But Powell had Dem support, including the endorsement of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, which made this interference odd. Plus, Democratic operatives believe either one of them could have helped flip the seat.

And now, here’s Abby…

Texas Hold ’Em

John Cornyn’s humiliating 28-point wipeout has Republicans spiraling over donor flight, Senate math, and whether scandal magnet Ken Paxton just handed Democrats their dream matchup.

Abby Livingston

By the time Sen. John Cornyn suffered his 28-point runoff rout last night, operatives in both parties had already resigned themselves to the likelihood that Ken Paxton, the Trump-blessed, scandal-pocked Texas attorney general, would be the Republican standard-bearer in the nation’s largest red state this fall. When I caught up with a pro-Cornyn Republican last week, an hour after the president endorsed Paxton, he was already on his second vodka tonic. “I’ve been day-drinking since about 1 p.m.,” he said. “The mood is, ‘Holy shit.’ The F-word has been dropped a dozen times. It’s over.”

Given the margin, Trump’s last-minute benediction may not have been the deciding factor—though the Cornyn Republicans, like many close observers of the race, saw the writing on the wall when Trump declined to endorse Cornyn after his initial primary victory, in March. Either way, it’s cold comfort for Cornyn supporters and allies, in Texas and Washington, who are now grappling with the national implications of his loss. “People don’t understand the amount of power and respect he wielded in D.C.,” a Texas Republican officeholder told me grimly this morning.

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As the senior senator from Texas, Cornyn had raised hundreds of millions of dollars for his colleagues. Cornyn had inherited that donor infrastructure through George W. Bush’s presidential rise, then spent years parceling the money into Republican campaigns, as a two-time N.R.S.C. chairman, Senate whip, and ambitious leadership contender. When I asked which Texas Republican could succeed him, several Republicans pointed, improbably, to Ted Cruz, once the bane of both Texas Republicans and the Senate itself.

None, naturally, saw Paxton stepping into that role, though it may be just a matter of time before Texas Republicans reconcile themselves to the candidate, as they did to Cruz and Trump. Republican strategists are betting that donors, at least, will come around, even if Paxton is reviled in blue-blooded Highland Park and River Oaks. But others may simply check out. “Some donors are clearly frustrated and weighing whether to remain involved at all,” one Texas G.O.P. operative told me.

“Sometimes the Batshit Candidate Wins”

Yes, Texas is still a conservative state, and the Senate seat is Paxton’s to lose. But there’s no question that Republicans are now starting the general on the back foot, after Cornyn allies deployed nearly $100 million on negative ads whacking Paxton—a nine-figure prologue to what is likely to be the nastiest, most expensive Senate race in American history. Texas Democrats are already joking that Republicans did a helluva job helping them get an early start on negative messaging now that the A.G. will face James Talarico, the Presbyterian seminarian turned Democratic phenomenon who has emerged as the party’s greatest hope in Texas. “He’s a scary candidate,” said Texas Republican consultant Vinny Minchillo. “He’s a guy I’m taking very seriously.”

As of April, Talarico had raised $40 million, compared with the $13 million Beto O’Rourke had amassed at the same point in the 2018 cycle. Serious Texas Democrats speculate that Talarico could raise as much as $150 million before Election Day. And now, without Cornyn’s incumbency advantage, Republicans fear they’ll have to pull money from other states simply to defend Texas. Alas, there are numerous Senate races where the G.O.P. needs the funds—to protect seats in Maine, North Carolina, and even Alaska and Ohio, in particular. Even if Talarico loses, he may help Democrats win a Senate seat this cycle.

Beyond buying him space to fundraise, the messy Republican runoff gave Talarico time to pursue his other main objective—outreach to Black voters after his contentious primary battle against Rep. Jasmine Crockett, who has still not endorsed him. Barack Obama’s recent trip to Austin, where he campaigned alongside Talarico and Democratic gubernatorial nominee Gina Hinojosa, was widely interpreted as a signal to Black Texans to consolidate behind Talarico, and to national Democrats to take the race seriously.

Cornyn’s attack ads—and Paxton himself—have set them up nicely. The most salacious chapters of his oppo file are well known: the stolen Montblanc pen, the indictment, the impeachment, his wife filing for divorce on “biblical grounds,” etcetera. The latest attack on him—pushed hard of late by the Cornyn folks—involved a bizarrely lenient plea deal that his office struck with a Texas man accused of repeatedly sexually abusing a young boy. In the end, the central goal for Democrats will be trying to offer a candidate that demoralized Republicans and independents find less odious.

Not that Talarico lacks oppo himself. A pro-Paxton super PAC recently released a montage of what Republicans framed as Talarico’s biggest weaknesses—on immigration, gender (“God is non-binary”), and veganism (electoral kryptonite in Texas and a charge his camp flatly denies). If Talarico proved his mettle to some extent during his primary rumble with Crockett’s allies, said Minchillo, “with national Republicans coming, he needs to buckle up.”

Indeed, many Texas Republicans, even Cornyn-philes who could vote for Talarico, are already arguing that the candidate’s past statements are beyond the Texas mainstream—even if he is dispositionally moderate. “Republicans are going to pour a ton of money into Texas and peel back the onion on Talarico,” said a Texas Republican officeholder. “I just don’t think Texans are gonna go for it.”

Still, no one is certain anymore what kind of opposition research sticks, thanks in part to a lowering of the bar by Donald Trump himself. Republicans’ secret messaging sauce from 2024—that Talarico was a transgender advocate—may land differently when gas costs $4 a gallon in Texas. “They’re refusing to believe Talarico could win—stubbornly, despite every number pointing the other way,” said a Houston Republican. “Polling, fundraising, all of it points to his ability to win. And they still refuse.”

It’s true that at every structural turning point—the endorsement fiasco, the runoff, Paxton’s nomination—the race has broken Democrats’ way, often with an unwitting assist from the president. And yet, curiously, it’s Democrats who remain the most skeptical, nearly to the point of fatalism after so many past defeats. “It’s going to be an uphill battle,” said one Texas Democratic operative. “Ken Paxton has won handily statewide multiple times. I’m just not sure Democrats can win statewide at this point—no matter who the candidate is.” Democrats are so skittish that it was hard to find one who openly rooted for Cornyn’s demise. As a former Democratic officeholder put it, “A younger me would be delighted, but older me knows that sometimes the batshit candidate wins.”

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