Politics
Bannon blasts Trump campaign aides in Texas Senate showdown
DALLAS — When President Donald Trump pops up in Texas for an event at the Port of Corpus Christi on Friday, he’s not expected to put his finger on the scale in the closely watched Republican Senate primary between incumbent John Cornyn, state Attorney General Ken Paxton and Rep. Wesley Hunt — all of whom will be in attendance.
But Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign team’s involvement with Cornyn’s reelect is opening a fresh wound for some pro-Paxton MAGA types.
Tony Fabrizio, Trump’s top pollster, is working for Cornyn’s campaign, and Chris LaCivita, one of Trump’s top campaign hands, works as a senior adviser for the pro-Cornyn super PAC Texans for a Conservative Majority. Steve Bannon, the longtime MAGA torchbearer, has taken issue with Fabrizio and LaCivita’s involvement.
“My belief is the Trump team should have stayed out of this race, absolutely,” Bannon told Blue Light News from a rented ranch in North Texas, where he’s been broadcasting his “War Room” show.
Asked about Bannon’s criticism of their involvement with Cornyn’s reelection efforts, Fabrizio did not respond — but LaCivita texted Blue Light News a fiery reply: “Associating with Senator Cornyn is better than being a lacky [sic] for Epstein,” he said, an apparent reference to Bannon’s newly surfaced ties to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The Justice Department’s release of documents in January revealed extensive exchanges that Epstein had with Bannon as he mounted a political influence campaign across Europe. Bannon has said little publicly about his relationship with Epstein, but he did previously call for an independent investigation into the files. Bannon didn’t respond to a request for comment on LaCivita’s response.
The intraparty conflict also foreshadows what’s likely to be an increasing number of such battles for the future of the Republican Party. Bannon, who’s all in for Paxton, is portraying the expected runoff between Paxton and Cornyn as nothing less than the battle for the soul of MAGA.
“The Paxton situation is critical, because he has been the MAGA guy since Day One,” Bannon told Playbook. Paxton, Bannon said, is more than just a candidate in a contested GOP primary. “He is a symbol of the heart of the grassroots MAGA movement.”
A White House official told Blue Light News “the president is neutral until he’s not,” and added that “John Cornyn votes with the President.”
LaCivita declined to share the backstory of how he and Fabrizio ended up working with Cornyn.
But the White House doesn’t seem bothered. “We don’t regulate the business/political choices of private individuals — if they are a part of our world — in a race where the President is neutral,” the White House official said.
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Liberal groups have spent millions in a handful of battleground state supreme court races ahead of Tuesday’s elections, looking to lay the groundwork for Democrats to win control of more courts ahead of a crucial redistricting cycle.
At the center of the fight are races for Republican-majority state supreme courts in North Carolina and Ohio, where this year’s results could set the stage for Democrats to flip the makeup of the benches in 2028. National groups are also spending to defend the liberal majority on Michigan’s court and on an open seat in Montana, where voters will also decide whether judicial elections remain nonpartisan.
The investments are yet another reflection of how state supreme court elections have become national political battlegrounds. The high court justices have become arbiters of major disputes, from abortion rights to election integrity and redistricting. Those who win in the coming cycles will likely preside over challenges to congressional and legislative maps that are drawn in a handful of states after the midterm election — and then nationwide after the 2030 census.
Nowhere are the contests more heated than in North Carolina.
Democrats’ defense of a seat currently held by Anita Earls is “step No. 2” to flip the North Carolina Supreme Court, said Anderson Clayton, the state’s Democratic Party chair. “In 2028, we’re looking at being able to take three Republican seats on that court.”
Democrats lost four seats on the state supreme court in the 2020 and 2022 elections, and the Republican majority cleared the way for a Republican-led gerrymandering in 2023.
Clayton said her group has spent more than $1 million on the state supreme court race. Earls has also drawn support from national Democrats like Pete Buttigieg and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore.
“If we had won a state Supreme Court race then in 2020 in our state, Hakeem Jeffries would be speaker of the House right now,” said Clayton, adding that her group is trying to build the foundation for congressional majorities “in 2032 and beyond.”
The ACLU is among the groups making long-term investments in state supreme court races. It has poured $8 million into state supreme court races in North Carolina, Michigan and Montana this year, in addition to Georgia and Wisconsin races earlier this year, said Deirdre Schifeling, the group’s chief political and advocacy officer, making it one of the top spenders in these contests.
The ACLU’s multi-cycle strategy to build “pro-civil rights, civil liberties majorities” is also targeting Arizona, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Ohio, Schifeling said. The group already set aside resources for supreme court races in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania in 2027 and will begin fundraising for the 2028 races early next year.
More than $14 million has been spent on television ads in North Carolina, Michigan, Ohio and Montana, most of it benefiting Democratic and liberal-leaning candidates, according to estimates from the liberal-leaning Brennan Center for Justice. Most of the liberal candidates have also outraised their conservative competitors.
By contrast, the electoral headwinds have forced Republicans to defend statewide offices and state legislatures they currently control, leaving fewer resources for the judicial races.
Republican-aligned groups like the Republican State Leadership Committee — the party’s chief downballot campaign organization — have largely stayed on the sidelines this cycle after warning for months they were being swamped by Democrats. The organization’s judicial affiliate reported more than $5 million in expenditures across 2024 and 2025.
“Democrats understand what is at stake, and have dumped massive amounts of resources into these contests,” said RSLC President Edith Jorge-Tuñón in a statement. “The RSLC is fighting back with smart and targeted spending because the investments we make today will determine whether we are positioned to protect our majorities, compete in the next redistricting cycle, and secure Republican victories for years to come.”
The National Democratic Redistricting Committee — the party’s main redistricting-focused group — declined to discuss this year’s total spending in judicial races this year, but NDRC President John Bisognano said in a statement that “the upcoming 2026 and 2028 state supreme court elections are critical to the long-term fight to protect democracy.”
And those involved in supreme court fights said they believed spending will only increase down the road, particularly from major industry players.
“I think that the money flowing into those races from external interests tells the tale of what big money, big pharma, big data recognize about the next areas that they can seek to leverage and control to their benefit,” said Tish Gotell Faulks, the state courts director at the liberal Alliance for Justice Action. “Those interests are now turning to the state courts and seeking to capture those courts as well.”
Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens endorsed Republican Mike Rogers in the Michigan Senate race on Sunday — a stunning break with her party that derails Democrats’ attempts to create a united front for Abdul El-Sayed.
Her endorsement comes just a few days after she said she was going to vote for El-Sayed.
The two former primary rivals have been locked in a public, escalating feud over El-Sayed’s and his allies’ criticism of Israel.
“Abdul said that I was no longer welcome in his campaign and that I should stay away. And he’s right,” Stevens said in a video posted to social media on Sunday after she appeared at a Detroit church alongside Rogers.
“And that’s why I am endorsing Mike Rogers for the United States Senate today,” she said. “I don’t belong in Abdul’s campaign.”
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