Sometimes you have to be cautious, and sometimes you have to be audacious, and the correlation of forces and events happening right now gives us America First Republicans an opportunity that could pay big dividends in November 2026 if we are audacious. Instead of betting on incumbents, the safest choice, there are two major targets for a Senate primary from the right. We should go for it. It will be risky, but it’s worth the risk. We can build a stronger, more cohesive Senate majority while also demonstrating the fate of spineless Republicans who dare to defy the will of the people. I say we roll the dice.
I’ve previously explained why Thom Tillis deserves to be primaried. He’s one of those guys you can always count on not to be able to count on. The guy is a buffoon, but he’s our buffoon, and if challenging him would put that North Carolina seat at an unreasonable risk, we’ve got to stick with him and endure another six years of his tiresome backstabbing. But it’s becoming clear that the risk is not as risky as we may have thought because there’s a candidate who can kick him into the obscurity he so richly deserves. Perhaps it’s worth being audacious and seeing if we can not only win but win with somebody who’s not a goofy half-wit sporting the same kind of scraggly beard recently popular with the likes of Chris Murphy and Pete Buttigieg. Every time I see a picture of Tillis these days, he looks like a middle-aged dentist who just got divorced, bought a Porsche 911, and moved into a condo in Marina del Rey with his 31-year-old hygienist, Sherilyn.
We also have a chance to do better than John Cornyn, the painfully generic Republican squish from my soon-to-be adopted state of Texas. Texas would be a huge prize for the Democrats. They’ve been furiously working to win a statewide seat in Texas for decades. Cornyn is bad, and more than that, he’s annoying. He looks like the stuff-shirt father of every girl in every 80s teen movie. But if Cornyn is the only one who can hold the seat, then we have to stick with him, as awful as this gun control-supporting, less shiny version of Mitt Romney is. However, the facts on the ground indicate that maybe we can not only keep the seat but get a senator who is more interested in our agenda than the one embraced by corporate donors, the Washington Post editorial page, and the Bushie stiffs he hangs out with at the country club.
We should not primary incumbents lightly; we should think it through coldly and dispassionately. First, we need to look at the political environment in November 2026. If it’s bad for Republicans, we should lean toward sticking with incumbents. Senate races are much more volatile than House races, where incumbency is usually determinative, and backing a soft incumbent is sometimes the smart play. And we need to be smart, not emotional.
But here’s the thing. Trump is doing great. Look at your 401(k). Unless you sold it off in a panic, it’s pretty close to where it was before Trump launched the tariffs. The tariffs have been paying off – we’re getting good trade deals. Inflation is way down, and jobs are up. Wall Street doesn’t think we’re going to have a recession anymore. If the GOP manages to get the big, beautiful bill passed, America will be pumping next year. And if the economy is pumping, that will help anybody with an (R) behind his name – even the right-wing winner of a primary in North Carolina or Texas. If Trump comes through with tax cuts, peace overseas, closed borders, and a banging economy, we’ll clean up in the midterms. And that means we have the option to try to do better than just limbo under the low bar that is the mediocre likes of Tillis and Cornyn.
Second, we have to look at the incumbents. Are they even likely to win? I’m no expert on North Carolina or Texas, so I reached out to people who are. I’ve also looked at some of the polls, though you should generally trust polls as far as you can throw the governor of Illinois. The bottom line is that Tillis and Cornyn are vulnerable in general. Why are they vulnerable? Because conservatives hate them. Why do conservatives hate them? Because they hate conservatives. Tillis stabbed Trump in the back on Ed Martin, and he’s always there, in the background, being a problem. Nobody in North Carolina likes him. They tolerate him, or at least they did. Will the base come out for him next year? Do you want to risk the Senate on that?
It’s the same for Cornyn. The only thing he’s known for is crossing the aisle to help Democrats do things like gun control. What kind of Republican has anything to do with Democratic gun control proposals? A bad one, a Republican just waiting for the chance to please the regime media by supporting some idiotic comprehensive immigration amnesty bill, refusing to cut spending, or some other atrocity. We don’t need mavericks. We need soldiers who follow orders. We need them to vote reliably, the way we want, and to make the public case for what we want, not to grandstand and posture while clutching pearls because Trump offends their tender, girlish sensibilities.
The problem for Tillis and Cornyn is that they’ve done so much grandstanding and posturing while clutching pearls that their constituents are tired of them. Both races will draw a ton of money and a ton of attention, so every vote counts. They’ve managed to alienate a bunch of Republican voters who can’t control their gag reflex yet again and pull the lever for these guys. We need candidates that the base doesn’t hate, but that normal people will vote for.
Here’s what voters need to do in North Carolina. Replace him with a North Carolina congressman named Patrick Harrigan; he’s a freaking superstar. Don’t believe me. Listen for yourself to his recent visit with the fellas from "Ruthless." He looks like he’s out of central casting, he’s young, and he’s not having a weird midlife crisis. He was a West Pointer, and, despite that, I totally support him. A legit Afghanistan Green Beret war hero, this guy gets it. He’s the first guy I’ve seen who sees what Xi and Putin are doing to America as the same thing America did to the Soviet Union – trying to bankrupt us in an arms race. He is solid. He won’t fold like a house of cards as Tillis will if the WaPo threatens to say mean things about him. He’s also in a safe red seat, so we won’t lose it if he runs.
I do need to know more about him. He grew up in Wyoming and San Diego, and I need to know his favorite Mexican place before I commit (Roberto’s; I will also accept Alberto’s). I’ve also been told he shares some consultants with Thom Tillis. If so, he needs to find new ones who don’t want to go down with a sinking ship. This mission is not optional. His country needs him. He has answered the call before. He needs to answer it again. North Carolina deserves a senator like Patrick Harrigan.
And Texas deserves an upgrade in the form of its current Attorney General, Ken Paxton, who has already announced. The Republican base in Texas loves him. The Republican establishment, not so much. But the last time we had an outsider rebel against the GOP establishment in the Lone Star State, we ended up with Ted Cruz. That worked out well. Maybe we can repeat that success.
My sources say that Paxton is absolutely competitive in the general and point out that no good Democrat candidate for Senate has announced. Maybe he’ll get lucky and perennial loser Beto will run again, hoping that a coalition of pinkos, wine women, and furries will sweep him into office on a tsunami of Hollywood dough. I’ve been told that a competitive Texas race will cost $500 million, about as much as a Qatari 747. But Ken Paxton knows how to raise money. Texas will always be a long shot for any Democrat, but if this is a marquee race, the race will draw cash that could be better spent on other seats around the country. In other words, the upside is not just an upgrade in the Texas seat; Paxton might help us win other contested seats around the country.
Our goal is winning with the most conservative who can win, the old Buckley Rule articulated before National Review turned into whatever the hell it is now. It is usually good enough to merely keep these seats, but is good enough really good enough this cycle? Not if we have a reasonable chance of doing better. We’ve got two reasonable chances right here. Sometimes you have to play it safe. Sometimes you have to be audacious, and it’s looking like that time is now.
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