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By Shane Croucher
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We don’t yet know if the stunning decision by Democratic Representative Haley Stevens to endorse Mike Rogers, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Michigan, on the last weekend before the vote will change the outcome of the race. But it might.
Prediction markets noticeably ticked up for Rogers and down for the Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive who defeated Stevens in the party primary, but soon leveled back to roughly where they were. Kalshi gives El-Sayed 79 percent chance; Polymarket 80.
Stevens, who says she remains a Democrat, had pledged to help El-Sayed—until a feud over a dubious ad about Israel made by his supporters (but not with the involvement of his official campaign) got her disinvited from his events.
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Her longtime chief of staff resigned, her state party denounced her, and some House Democrats now want her expelled from their caucus. It was a switching of sides at full volume. But there’s another Senate race where a similar dynamic is playing out quietly.
In Texas, GOP Senator John Cornyn has spent five months performing a silent version of what Stevens has just done.
Back on May 26, Attorney General Ken Paxton beat him by 28 points in the Republican runoff. That night, Cornyn conceded with a promise: "I’ve always supported the Republican ticket and I intend to do so again."
Since then, Cornyn hasn’t endorsed Paxton, and has made clear he won’t campaign or raise money for him. Asked in September whether Paxton deserves to be a senator, Cornyn replied bluntly: "I’ll leave that up to the voters to decide."
In Michigan, Stevens has defected by open declaration. Cornyn has not endorsed the Democrat James Talarico in Texas, but he has defected from Paxton by omission. Each, though, insists their party loyalty survives.
Stevens told reporters, "I’m not turning my back on Democrats. It is this one vote." Cornyn says he remains a good and loyal Republican, and he has continued to raise money for his party’s candidates in Texas and elsewhere.
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But both their parties are discovering, on the same Election Day, that a primary victory doesn’t come with the loser’s coalition attached.
As Texas shows, a defeated candidate needn’t endorse the opposition, like Stevens has done, to wound their own nominee. They only need to decline to hand over his credibility, donors, organization, and following. It’s the loser’s veto.
Cornyn has raised hundreds of millions for GOP colleagues. In August he told the Texas Tribune that he’s raising money for close races in places like New Hampshire, Michigan, and Alaska, and said Paxton is "lazy and doesn’t raise money."
In September, Cornyn and former President George W. Bush—another Texan—headlined a Dallas fundraiser for six Republican Senate candidates in battleground races. Paxton, of course, wasn’t among them.
This all runs more deeply than money alone and sends a useful signal to Talarico. The Democratic candidate, and polls suggest favorite to win, has courted Cornyn’s voters since the day after the runoff, when he launched a five-city bus tour against Paxton.
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Talarico says he would "absolutely" be open to Cornyn’s endorsement. It’s unlikely to arrive. But nine Cornyn primary voters the Tribune interviewed—a window, not a poll—scattered among the options: Talarico, Paxton, the Libertarian, or no Senate vote at all.
An April University of Texas poll looked at "Cornyn-only" Republicans. These are the tenth of GOP voters who’d back Cornyn, but not Paxton, against Talarico. They viewed Paxton unfavorably, 53 percent to 25 percent.
Polling shows how much of an opportunity that fracture is for Talarico. UT’s October survey found Paxton winning 92 percent of Republican likely voters to Talarico’s 98 percent of Democrats, with 6 percent of 2024 Trump voters backing the Democrat.
The latest surveys are knife-edge, separated only by the margin of error or a small polling miss as seen in previous years. YouGov has Talarico up 51-47; Texas Southern University, 49-47.
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The people with the most at stake treat Cornyn’s silence as consequential. In leaked audio from a September fundraiser, Paxton said of Cornyn, "He’s clearly not helping. He wants me to lose."
On October 15, President Donald Trump wrote that if Paxton loses, Cornyn and Karl Rove will be to blame. He urged Cornyn’s supporters to "immediately switch" to Paxton. Presidents don’t ask a man’s voters to switch unless they think he still holds them.
To be clear: Cornyn hasn’t switched sides in the way Stevens has.
He says he opposes Talarico’s policies and wants a Republican Senate. He spent the primary calling Paxton corrupt and unfit for the role—Paxton denies wrongdoing—and embracing him now would arguably be the more cynical act.
His strategist says a Cornyn who wanted Paxton to lose would be more "active in the campaign."
"He has said he supports the Republican ticket," Rob Jesmer, a longtime aide for Cornyn, told CNN. "Given all Ken has said and done, I think that’s a pretty good place for Sen. Cornyn to be."
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Just 26 percent of Texas voters approve of Cornyn’s job performance, hardly kingmaker numbers. His fundraising boycott was pretty survivable; GOP groups funded almost entirely by Elon Musk plowed more than $272 million into the race.
If Paxton loses, his own baggage is where the blame truly lies, as Cornyn had predicted when he lost the primary.
All of that pushback is fair. But it also misreads what a defeated incumbent really controls. Money is replaceable, as Musk has demonstrated. Permission isn’t. The one thing only Cornyn can give his voters is the signal that Paxton is acceptable.
Yet he has tellingly withheld it for five months, while nearly everything he says publicly about Paxton signals the opposite. Stevens sent her message loud and clear from her own mouth. But Cornyn sends his implicitly though what he does—and doesn’t—do.
Whether or not Stevens and Cornyn’s loser’s veto holds the balance of power will be decided on Tuesday. Either way, they have taught the same lesson from opposite ends: a primary win is a title, not an inheritance to support from the defeated candidate.
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