President Donald Trump notched more wins Tuesday in his revenge campaign against Republican lawmakers who’ve crossed him. But his victory lap may be short-lived.

In another stunning display of the president’s electoral power, Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie lost his primary Tuesday night to Trump’s favored candidate, just days after the president’s sway knocked Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy out of his re-election race.

Trump on Tuesday also officially put Texas incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in his crosshairs by endorsing his primary challenger, scandal-plagued Ken Paxton, ahead of next week’s run-off in that state.

But several congressional Republicans are worried the president’s payback whims will cost the party control of the Texas seat as the GOP fights to retain the Senate. And some Republicans may be more willing to gum up Trump’s agenda after watching their colleagues, or themselves, get picked off by his hardball tactics.

— TEXAS IN TROUBLE: Trump’s long-awaited announcement backing Paxton over establishment Republicans’ preferred pick of Cornyn was met with shock and dismay among Republicans on Capitol Hill. Many of them now fear that keeping that Texas seat will be a more expensive and potentially futile endeavor.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski said she was “supremely disappointed” by Trump’s decision, which she said “puts that seat in jeopardy.”

Democrats quickly seized on Paxton’s likely nomination to say the party has a chance to win a Texas Senate race for the first time since 1988.

Rep. Ro Khanna told Blue Light News matching up Democratic nominee James Talarico with Paxton would create a “perfect storm” for Democrats, who already saw an opening given Talarico’s relatively broad appeal, massive fundraising haul and the political headwinds Republicans face.

— A DEFIANT CASSIDY: Trump’s primary retribution may also embolden lawmakers facing his wrath to hand the favor back to him.

Since losing his primary to Trump-backed Rep. Julia Letlow and state Treasurer John Fleming, Cassidy has both publicly opposed funding in the GOP-only reconciliation bill for Trump’s ballroom project and voted to rein in the U.S. military conflict in Iran (more on that below).

Murkowski said the president’s campaign against incumbents is “unprecedented.”

“Even though Bill Cassidy lost his primary, he is still a voting member of the Senate until January,” Murkowski said. “There are still many, many weeks — many months — to go before the election. And this president is going to have to continue to deal — and work with and partner with or battle with — this group of lawmakers.”

“Maybe he doesn’t think he needs us. But I don’t know, last time I checked, the laws don’t just appear before his desk to sign. The funding just doesn’t come,” Murkowski added.

Also Read: Donald Trump’s GOP revenge tour is complete

What else we’re watching: 

— TRUMP’S BALLROOM FUNDING SUPPORT WANES: A critical mass of Senate Republicans are publicly objecting to spending taxpayer money on a White House ballroom project. Sens. Cassidy, Murkowski, Thom Tillis and Susan Collins have all raised concerns about the ballroom security funding, possibly enough to eject the provision from the GOP’s fast-moving immigration enforcement bill. And several senators are privately opposed, according to five people granted anonymity to disclose private deliberations.

— SENATE WAR POWERS VOTE DEALS BLOW TO TRUMP: Senators voted Tuesday to advance legislation to rein in Trump’s military action in Iran, handing a surprise victory to Democrats. The legislation will need to clear several more steps before it can pass, giving Republicans opportunities to kill the measure in the coming days. But Democrats picked up another GOP defector in Cassidy, who supported the move to limit Trump’s power just days after the president’s efforts sunk his re-election campaign.

Liz Crampton, Andrew Howard, Connor O’Brien and Jordain Carney contributed to this report.

After House talks imploded this week over the fate of a college athletics bill, senators now believe they have the upper hand in shaping a sweeping package that would enact new rules for a multibillion-dollar industry that has been destabilized by years of political and legal battles.

Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Maria Cantwell of Washington, the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee, have been spending hours every day for the past week at the negotiating table.

“Both of us, I believe, want to get to ‘yes,’” Cruz said in an interview Tuesday. “There’s a real crisis in college sports and if Congress doesn’t act, we are going to see continued damage.”

Cantwell, in a separate interview Tuesday, agreed talks were progressing: “Everybody’s working hard.”

It would be a major achievement if Cruz and Cantwell can land a deal that their House counterparts have repeatedly fumbled. The stakes are especially high for Cruz, who still isn’t ruling out a presidential bid in 2028 and has sought to use his chairmanship of the Commerce Committee to flex his policy chops.

The two senators also would solve a dilemma for Congress, which is being called upon by President Donald Trump and sports officials to pass legislation that would set new limits for how athletes can be paid for their name, image and likeness.

Colleges and universities have been lobbying lawmakers for years to preempt a patchwork of competing state laws governing compensation of student athletes, which is increasingly difficult to manage.

“College sports have been an incredible avenue for millions of young men and women to get scholarships, to go to college, to get an education, to build life skills,” said Cruz, but all that is in “in jeopardy right now” as higher education lacks a fair and consistent set of standards.

“The current path is unsustainable,” he added.

But it remains to be seen exactly how the senators will square their own policy differences — or craft a proposal that would pass muster in the House and avoid the same pitfalls that doomed efforts in that chamber.

“I hope there’s a landing spot,” Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota said Tuesday of Cruz and Cantwell’s efforts.

He also acknowledged there remained sticking points that still needed to be hammered out, including how to address whether “student athletes are the employees of the universities and colleges, or not, and the question of unionization.”

For months, House GOP leaders have been looking to build enough support for their own legislative solution to this problem, the so-called SCORE Act. They had to pull the bill from the floor last December amid various complaints from hard-liners, including from Rep. Byron Donalds, a gubernatorial candidate in Florida who doesn’t think regulating the college sports industry is the job for Congress.

Since that time, leaders have been working to overcome opposition on their side of the aisle, including by offering concessions to conservative holdouts like Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) on matters like coach salaries and recruitment requirements.

Leaders planned to put a revamped SCORE Act back on the House floor this week, believing they were close to reaching necessary consensus — but other Freedom Caucus members wouldn’t commit to supporting a procedural vote to advance it.

At the same time, the entire Congressional Black Caucus announced Monday night it would boycott a package “benefiting major athletic institutions that continue to remain silent” amid efforts by red states to redraw congressional maps and eliminate majority-minority districts across the South.

That meant two original Democratic cosponsors — CBC Reps. Janelle Bynum of Oregon and Shomari Figures of Alabama — would no longer support the legislation.

A House Democratic aide granted anonymity to share private deliberations said that Republican leaders were relying on only a handful of Democratic votes to try to pass the bill this week after changes to the legislation tilted it farther to the right. The CBC’s blanket opposition killed those chances.

Republican leaders also lost Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.), a former college volleyball player who had been trying to negotiate with Republicans but was unhappy with where they landed. She declared on a press call Tuesday that the SCORE Act as currently written “bails out the NCAA and the Power Two conferences by silencing athletes and rolling back the rights that they fought so hard to win.”

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise in an interview last week stressed last-minute changes were possible, like with any big bill, and that “it’s taken months to build this coalition.”

A Scalise spokesperson declined to comment Tuesday.

Back in the Senate, there’s no guarantee Cantwell and Cruz’s efforts won’t also be overtaken by political pressures related to the redistricting wars — or that the two lawmakers will be able to bridge their own differences. Both were tight-lipped about the status of their discussions Tuesday and where their visions might diverge.

Cantwell said she’s pushing provisions that would protect student athletes and expand revenue for schools of all sizes — provisions from her bill known as the SAFE Act, which would promote women’s and Olympic sports and help smaller schools compete with the traditional sports powerhouses.

It’s unclear whether Republicans will agree to incorporate these ideas but Cruz on Tuesday suggested he was sympathetic to the underlying concerns.

“Women’s sports is in jeopardy, Olympics sports is in jeopardy, and most schools are hemorrhaging cash,” he said. “I believe Congress should act, and I believe we will act.”

One thing Cantwell did make clear is that no matter what proposal she and Cruz come up with, it shouldn’t be associated with the House’s product that’s been so mired in drama.

“It’s definitely not a companion bill,” Cantwell said.

Jordain Carney contributed to this report.

Ralph Alvarado, a former state senator who earned support from President Donald Trump and House GOP leadership, won the Republican primary to replace outgoing Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.) Tuesday.

Alvarado, a physician and a longtime Trump supporter, resigned as commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Health to run for Kentucky’s 6th District. The seat became open when Barr announced he would not run for reelection to instead run for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by retiring Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

Alvarado was the first Hispanic state lawmaker elected in Kentucky, serving eight years as a state senator. He spoke at the 2016 Republican National Convention in favor of a border wall.

“RALPH HAS BEEN WITH US FROM THE VERY BEGINNING!” Trump said in a statement endorsing Alvarado.

In 2024, Barr won the district by 26 points and Trump by 15, but Democrats see it as a potential battleground and have added it to their target list.