Senator Tillis criticizes President Trump’s endorsement of Paxton — The Guardian

US Senator from North Carolina Thom Tillis said that President Donald Trump’s endorsement of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the Republican primary for the US Senate seat in Texas was a “colossal mistake”. In May, Paxton defeated incumbent Senator John Cornyn and advanced to the general election.

As The Guardian reports, Tillis told CNN that had Cornyn won, Republicans would not have had to spend “tens or hundreds of millions of dollars” in Texas. The senator, who is leaving the Senate, called Trump’s decision to endorse Paxton “an avoidable mistake” and said it had put the Republican Party’s retention of the seat at risk.

The primary and the general election

Trump endorsed Paxton days before he defeated Cornyn, who had served four terms as a senator. During the 2024 presidential campaign, Cornyn said that Republicans should move forward without Trump. Ahead of the vote, Trump wrote on social media that Cornyn had been “VERY disloyal” to him and urged Texas voters to remember this.

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In the general election on November 3, Paxton will face Democratic Party candidate James Talarico, a pastor and state legislator. The Guardian notes that if Talarico wins, he will become the first Democrat in more than 30 years to win election to a statewide office in Texas.

Scandals surrounding Paxton

Paxton has been accused of a number of political scandals. In 2023, he was impeached on corruption charges, but was later acquitted by the Texas Senate. Paxton was also charged with felony securities fraud, but the case was dismissed after he entered into a deferred prosecution agreement in 2024.

In July 2025, Paxton’s wife Angela, to whom he had been married for 38 years, filed for divorce “on biblical grounds”, citing adultery.