Ken Paxton is just one of several problematic right-wing candidates gaining traction this summer
Election season seemingly never ends in America, but this year’s midterms are already shaping up to be a clash of unrestrained forces. The electoral anger of Americans stoked by increasing costs and disapproval over the Trump administration’s first two years of governance versus an increasingly erratic Donald Trump attempting to keep his stranglehold on the GOP and their congressional majority.
With no presidential race on the ballot, the midterms are a chance for political hopefuls to step into the spotlight, but that doesn’t mean Trump isn’t trying to make them about himself. The president has already made clear that he intends to use the midterms as a mechanism to punish and expel Republicans who have been anything less than obsequiously loyal to him. He has managed to oust some of his more vocal crickets, like Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), and even reliable Republican stalwarts like Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.), by backing their MAGA primary challengers.
In some cases, extreme MAGA diehards have stepped in to fill the void, crystallizing the transformation the party has undergone under the leadership of the president. We’ll find out in November whether Democrats can take advantage of Trump’s sinking approval numbers and stop more of his loyalists from making their way into Congress.
Here’s who we’re keeping an eye on going into the summer:
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is about as Trumpian as they come. Endorsed by the president, Paxton and Trump teamed up to oust long-term incumbent GOP Senator John Cornyn under the promise of making the Lone Star State even more MAGA. The first entry on his campaign website’s policy page declares that he will continue to “carry the torch for Trump’s agenda” and “champion President Trump’s legislative priorities, including cutting taxes, securing the border and deporting illegal aliens, ending the weaponization of government, and draining the Swamp.”
Paxton was a critical ally to Trump in his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, filing the Texas v. Pennsylvania lawsuit before the Supreme Court which sought to throw out the electoral votes of Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
As attorney general, Paxton has aggressively enforced Texas’ near complete ban on reproductive choice, and used his office to file lawsuits against a whole host of national progressive organizations, watchdog groups, and aid groups assisting immigrants, LGBTQ+ individuals, and other groups targeted by the Trump administration.
If loyalty to the president wasn’t enough, Paxton and Trump share plenty of overlap in magnetism for personal scandal. The attorney general was divorced by his wife amid allegations of multiple affairs, indicted on charges of securities fraud in 2015 (he ultimately secured a non-prosecution agreement in 2024), was accused by his own staff of participating in bribery schemes in 2020, and impeached by his own party in 2023 over allegations of misuse of his office — he was ultimately acquitted.
Trump’s hand-selected pick to oust his predominant Republican critic in the House easily won his primary in Kentucky’s 4th congressional district, which means Rep. Thomas Massie’s (R-Ky.) is on his way out of Congress.
Ed Gallrein is a retired Navy SEAL officer who served on SEAL Team Six, and a generational farmer from Shelbyville, Kentucky. Gallrein gained the attention of the Republican Party — and the president — when he first attempted to run for the state Senate in 2024, narrowly losing the primary despite significant support from local GOP officials.
Trump selected Gallrein to run as a MAGA hardliner against Massie — a vocal critic of Trump’s foreign policy and one of the leaders of the House push to release the Epstein files. Under the national spotlight, the race became the most expensive primary in House history, and reaffirmed Trump’s ability to exact revenge upon his critics (it’s an open question if that translates to November’s general election).
Gallrein has stated that he believes the president’s war against Iran is justified an a form of “5D chess” by the president, has described Trump as a “spring chicken,” who looks “20 years younger in person,” and loves touting the high-level security clearances he’s held throughout his career. He also opposes reproductive choice, diversity policies, and increased funding for DHS and ICE.
Brandon Herrera is a YouTuber who loves guns. Known as “The AK Guy” on social media, Herrera amassed millions of followers online through videos testing out different weapons, dissecting the firearm logistics of prominent shootings, and commenting on firearms regulations. Herrera hosted Kyle Rittenhouse for the launch of Kenosha protest shooter’s own YouTube channel, and recreated the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. shortly before being endorsed by Trump.
Herrera first attempted to run in Texas’ 23rd congressional district — which encompasses large swaths of West Texas — in 2024, and was narrowly defeated by then-incumbent Rep. Tony Gonzales (D-Texas). Herrera sought the rematch in 2026, and was delivered a major boon after Gonzales resigned from his reelection campaign and the House after allegations of improper sexual behavior with staff, and the suicide of a former aid with which he allegedly had an affair.
In the heavily Hispanic district, Herrera is running on a decidedly Trumpian agenda, endorsing increased funding for border security, opposing reproductive choice, the use of public funding for private education and homeschooling, and of course unrestricted access to firearms. Herrera is currently running in a special election to fill Gonzales’s vacant seat, and is expected to continue to campaign through the general election. Democrats have fielded Katy Padilla Stout, a little-known attorney, as Herrera’s challenger. Given that Trump’s support among Hispanics in West Texas and the Rio Grande border counties seems to be eroding, Herrera may still be in for an uphill climb to the House.
Former MAGA queen consort Marjorie Taylor Greene left the House of Representatives this year after her relationship with Trump collapsed over disagreements regarding the Epstein scandal and Israel. Her replacement, former Georgia District Attorney Clay Fuller, is running to keep his seat on more than an interim basis against Democratic candidate Shawn Harris.
Fuller is a former Air Force officer and National Guardsman who rose to GOP prominence as a DA in Georgia’s Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit. So far, his campaign has embraced many of the culture war trappings that worked so well for his predecessor. He suggested former Rep. Eric Swalwell should face the death penalty over the accusations of sexual assault. He supports “mass deportations now,” ending the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship, and has described “anchor babies” as a “deliberate invasion.” He regularly touts the repeat endorsements given to him by Trump.
If Trump wanted a Representative from Georgia to replace the sycophantic admiration of Greene, he has one in Fuller. Fuller even insisted last month that “the Strait of Hormuz is open and crude oil prices are dropping,” despite the ongoing war in Iran. “The signals are clear, President Trump’s economy is strong.”
He and many other Republicans, may be delivered a reality check at the ballot box this November.
Groyper-aligned candidate James Fishback is attempting to leverage the overtly racist and antisemitic online movement headed by far-right influencer Nick Fuentes — who has endorsed him and praised his candidacy — into a stint as Florida’s governor.
A former investment banker, Fishback’s is vying for outgoing GOP Florida Governor Ron Desantis’ office within a crowded Republican primary field. He’s built name recognition through a sensationalist digital strategy designed to rage bait. Fishback has referred to his frontrunner opponent — Black Florida Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) — as “By’rone” and said the three-term representative wanted to “turn Florida into a Section 8 ghetto.” After political commentator Don Lemon was arrested after protesting inside a church in Minnesota, Fishback said that he was lucky he hadn’t been “hanged in the public square.”
Fishback is a vocal opponent of abortion rights without exceptions, has proposed a “sin tax” for OnlyFans creators, and wants to use the National Guard to remove homeless people from the streets. He has said that if elected governor, he would abolish the H-1B visa program and fine companies who hired or contracted workers under the system.
The good news is he’s still polling double digits behind Donalds — whom Trump has endorsed. The bad news is the online right seems committed to propping up his candidacy.
While you’ve probably never heard of Marty O’Donnell, you’ve definitely heard the TV jingles and video game soundtracks he’s composed. The soundtracks for Halo and Destiny and the Mr. Clean jingle are just a few of his productions. O’Donnell first ran for Congress in 2024, and was flattened by three other primary opponents attempting to oust Rep. Susie Lee (D-Nevada) out of her seat in Nevada’s 3rd congressional district.
Trump endorsed O’Donnell’s 2026 run, calling him a “a World-Class Composer and Entrepreneur who knows the America First Policies required,” to execute on Trump’s agenda. O’Donnell has compared reproductive rights and legal abortion to the Holocaust, and opposed women in Nevada’s 3rd having sex outside of marriage, warning that if women “sow their wild oats,” society “collapses.”
His candidacy is not without controversy, even among Republicans. O’Donnell held a vocal disdain for Trump during his 2016 campaign, writing on social media that he “loathed” the then-candidate and considered him an “idiot.”
He’s clearly gotten over his hangups, but it hasn’t stopped prominent Trump allies like Roger Stone from describing O’Donnell as “even dumber than Joe Lombardo and trust me that’s dumb!”
O’Donnell has also courted controversy on his podcast after interviewing Charles Cornish-Dale — better known by his online pseudonym “Raw Egg Nationalist” — a fitness obsessed right-wing influencer who has posted content lauding Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party, and embraces racist conspiracies. O’Donnell later claimed that he had no idea who Cornish-Dale was before interviewing him.
Former The Hills reality TV star Spencer Pratt is generating headlines for his LA mayoral fund through AI advertisements depicting the cultural capital of the Western United States as an apocalyptic hellscape overrun by drug addicts, and himself as an underdog hero sent to rid the city of decadent Democratic governance.
From TV villain to InfoWars guest, Pratt’s political trajectory has seen him slide into stylistic trapping of the ultra-online right. A center point of Pratt’s campaign has been his experience in the aftermath of the 2025 Palisades Fire, in which his $2.5 million coastal mansion burned to the ground. Pratt and his wife — fellow reality TV star Heidi Pratt née Montag — said in interviews following the fire that the house would likely be too expensive to rebuild, nevertheless Pratt has repeatedly blamed the devastation on state and local officials. While Pratt is attempting to portray himself as a riches-to-living-in-a-trailer crusader on a redemptive mission, his reckless spending and lavish lifestyle have already become a bruising point in his campaign.
Pratt has reportedly spent over $15,000 at the Hotel Bel-Air in little more than a month, and campaign filings unearthed by the The Los Angeles Times show that the campaign also spent $1,800 on Tequila for a single event. While Pratt may have landed Trump’s endorsement through his AI slop ads and commitment to portraying Los Angeles as the disaster zone imagined by Fox News republicans, voters might want to think twice before electing the guy who blew through $10 million in two years to run one of the biggest and most complex local governments in the country.
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