In approximately 14 months, voters will once again head to the polls to vote. The 2026 midterm elections are sure to be contentious with so much at stake. Up for grabs: every seat in the House, 35 seats in the Senate, and 39 gubernatorial elections. Historically, the midterm elections are a referendum on the current president and his performance. The party in power plays up the strengths and successes of the first two years. The minority party is eager to do the opposite and point to perceived failures and weaknesses. This further extends to incumbents or new candidates up for election on either side. And voters must decide if they want more of the same or a course correction. 

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For undecided or disgruntled voters, the power of opposition research can be a deciding factor in who to vote for. This truth makes it necessary for the Republican Party to support and select the best candidates who not only align with the party’s objectives but who are also free of serious ethical and moral problems. This is easier said than done. 

Candidate quality is an uncomfortable topic for political parties. If the end goal is beating the ideological adversary, then little matters beyond that. At least this is the going attitude. However, picking better candidates not only makes tactical sense but also removes much of the opportunity for the other side to tear them down. Democrats will always oppose Republicans for their policies and platform. But Republicans should question their own members who fail in other areas that require adherence to basic standards of conscience and competence. 

The GOP simply can’t afford to be sloppy heading into the midterm elections. There is enough stacked against the party and president that every effort should be made to remove opportunities from the opposing party. 

Scrutinizing Republican candidates, whether new or well-known names, is a job that should not be left to the Democratic Party. The quality of candidates should be at least as important as their party affiliation. Supporting the best candidates and filtering out the worst is necessary for both the short-term and long-term health of the party and country as a whole. Winning well, not just winning, should be the ultimate goal. This requires a sharp eye and harsh conversations about who is representing the Republican Party. 

In Texas, the race for U.S. Senate between Attorney General Ken Paxton and Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) is close. Cornyn, the incumbent, is being challenged by Paxton, a controversial yet popular Republican who carries with him enough baggage that it should give voters serious pause. Paxton’s history of misconduct is years in the making. It is enough to question whether he deserves the role of senator representing the great state of Texas. It has been enough to question whether he continues to deserve the state office he occupies at present. It is not enough that he is a Republican. Attached to Paxton is a long list of ethical and moral problems. These are not fantasies drummed up by the Left despite claims from Paxton and his most ardent supporters. Instead, they exist because of Paxton’s own knowledge and involvement. 

Paxton’s legal problems include criminal charges related to securities fraud in 2015. Paxton was arrested and pleaded not guilty. After a series of delays, including regarding where the trial should be held, it was set to commence in the spring of 2024. Instead, the trial was avoided with the following agreement: “Under the 18-month agreement, the special prosecutors would drop three felony counts against Paxton as long as he pays full restitution to his victims, and completes 100 hours of community service and 15 hours of legal ethics education.” This nearly decadelong saga took place in the midst of other legal troubles. 

In late 2020, seven whistleblowers, all of whom worked for Paxton, contacted the FBI with a list of serious claims about their boss. According to the Texas Tribune, they alleged their boss “had personally directed his powerful agency to take unusual and probably illegal actions to help a friend and campaign donor, Austin real estate investor Nate Paul, who was under federal investigation for fraud. Paxton’s interest in Paul’s plight was bizarre, obsessive and so far beyond normal operations at the attorney general’s office that the agency’s top officials struggled to convey their concerns during the hourslong meeting with two FBI agents. In addition to obstruction of justice, harassment and abuse of office, they added, Paxton had apparently accepted bribes from Paul.” Not long after the allegations were made public, all seven whistleblowers had either resigned or been fired. The allegations of deep corruption led to an impeachment recommendation in May 2023. The House General Investigating Committee, led by Republicans, unanimously agreed to bring forth 20 articles of impeachment. These articles included “attempts to interfere in foreclosure lawsuits, improperly issuing legal opinions to benefit real estate developer Nate Paul, and firing, harassing and interfering with whistleblowers on Paxton’s staff. Bribery charges stem from Paul allegedly employing a woman with whom Paxton had an affair in exchange for legal help and Paul allegedly paying for renovations to Paxton’s home.” In the vote to impeach, Republicans overwhelmingly joined with Democrats in a 121-23 vote. By the time the impeachment trial commenced, the top-down pressure from prominent, national Republicans could be seen and felt. On Truth Social, President Donald Trump concluded the trial was election interference and also said, “Hopefully Republicans in the Texas House will agree that this is a very unfair process that should not be allowed to happen or proceed — I will fight you if it does.” By the end of the trial in September 2023, Paxton was acquitted and resumed his duties as attorney general. 

In early August, the Daily Caller reported more ethical concerns. Despite going after investment firms like BlackRock and Vanguard in a lawsuit joined by other states, Paxton owns “thousands of shares in six Vanguard mutual funds valued between $1.6 million and $6.25 million.” This contradicts the language Paxton has used when discussing these and other firms. In the past, he has called them an “investment cartel” and decried the combined effects on Texans and their finances. As the piece noted, Aaron Whitehead of a pro-Cornyn super PAC said of the situation, “The fact that Paxton profits off the very practices he condemns shows he’s more interested in personal gain over principled leadership.” Voters are also well aware of the personal problems that plague Paxton. In July, Angela Paxton filed for divorce from her husband, citing adultery in the filing and mentioning “biblical grounds” in a post on X. Conversely, the attorney general pointed to “political attacks” as a main reason for the breakdown of his marriage.

While Paxton is the most high-profile of current candidates with a questionable past or present, he is certainly not the only one in recent years. There have been several Republican senatorial candidates who have caused major headaches for the party. The concerns colored their respective candidacies to the point that key races were lost. 

In 2017, Roy Moore faced Doug Jones in the Alabama special election for U.S. Senate to replace Jeff Sessions, who had been nominated by Trump as attorney general. Moore’s primary runoff victory against the Trump-endorsed Luther Strange made a general election victory against Jones seemingly inevitable. But in early November 2017, sexual misconduct allegations against Moore derailed his candidacy approximately one month out of the mid-December general election. The credible allegations concerned Moore engaging in sexual conduct with more than one teenager when he was in his 30s. The claims were so damning that well-known Republicans such as Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Mike Lee (R-UT), and then-Gov. John Kasich withdrew support or called for Moore to leave the race entirely. An editorial at National Review called for Moore to drop out, too. Close to the general election date, Trump endorsed Moore, and the Republican National Committee backed him as well. But on Dec. 12, 2017, Moore lost to Jones, and the GOP lost a Senate seat. 

In 2022, former NFL running back Herschel Walker became the Republican nominee running for U.S. Senate in Georgia against incumbent Raphael Warnock, who had won a special election in 2020. Trump’s encouragement of Walker was enough to spur him into the race, though Republicans as a whole were hesitant, given Walker’s lack of experience and standing as an unknown quantity among GOP voters. Walker’s candidacy was odd, to say the least. His unpolished demeanor and inability to grasp the issues presented a challenge. But most concerns centered on his personal life. In 2008, Walker revealed in a book that he had a diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder. Walker also admitted to having “violent urges” throughout his life. And following the release of his book, his ex-wife “told ABC News that at one point during their marriage, her husband pointed a pistol at her head and said, ‘I’m going to blow your effing brains out.'” The combination of strange comments, a clear lack of education and experience, and a disturbing personal history with mental health struggles and domestic problems doomed his campaign. The election ended in a primary runoff in which Warnock defeated Walker 51.4% to 48.6%, retaining the seat for Democrats. 

That same year, Mehmet Oz sought to defeat Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman for the Pennsylvania U.S. Senate seat. Dr. Oz was well known to many people after having spent years on television programs like The Oprah Winfrey Show. Oz was less of a glaring problem when it came to his personal and professional life. But Oz’s move back to Pennsylvania not long before running for Senate came across as insincere. There were sure to be some who objected to Oz and his embrace of pseudoscience. But some of his campaign’s reactions to Fetterman’s stroke in May 2022 hurt his chances even more. Among others, communications adviser Rachel Tripp said, “If John Fetterman had ever eaten a vegetable in his life, then maybe he wouldn’t have had a major stroke and wouldn’t be in the position of having to lie about it constantly.” This did not play well with voters. In the general election on Nov. 8, 2022, Fetterman beat Oz 51.17% to 46.27%. And the seat held by Republican Pat Toomey turned from red to blue.  

There is no such thing as a perfect candidate, no matter how much one aligns with a party’s stated values. It’s an impossible task. Anyone presenting oneself as such is simply campaigning for your vote. But it is not unreasonable to ask for and prefer candidates whose pasts and presents are largely free of significant problems. What’s more, if there is a checkered past, it is imperative that the candidate owns up to these mistakes and pursues rectification to the fullest extent possible. 

These matters concerning candidate quality are nothing new. However, political intensity appears to be approaching a zenith as the internet dominates the ways in which we consume and converse about our news. It’s not an exaggeration to say American culture has transformed in recent years and at an alarming rate. Former President Barack Obama’s tenure marked a turning point. Culture has transformed. Leftism has grown exponentially since then. The social contagion by which these ideologies spread has allowed them to seep into the mainstream and directly threaten our foundations. 

These factors should never be a cause to abandon principles, but this is exactly what is occurring. And candidates are a prime example of this fevered partisan phenomenon. 

Well-known conservative talk radio host Erick Erickson has not been shy about his feelings regarding Paxton. In May 2023, when articles of impeachment were brought against Paxton, Erickson posted on what was then Twitter, “Regarding Ken Paxton, if you do not police your own house, eventually the voters will do it for you and you won’t like that very much.” Now that Paxton is running to unseat Cornyn in what is both a close and contentious race, I asked Erickson his thoughts: 

“I think Paxton is a symbol of the Republican base’s reflexive focus on the short term instead of the long term. He’s a deeply flawed, morally corrupt man who the base wants to use to punish John Cornyn for disloyalty. In the process, he makes Texas more vulnerable to Democrats, and while I suspect he can win the general election, the amount of money it will take to get him over the finish line will starve North Carolina and Georgia of funding. Instead of the base trying to find a better candidate to challenge Cornyn, they’d rather go this way and bully anyone who points out how bad an idea it is. Back in 2016, when you raised Trump’s character issues, the response from social conservatives was that Trump won the primary, it was the best they can do. Now we are seeing many of them never really cared about character at all.”

Pointing out problem candidates among the GOP is not to say that Democrats have great candidates and just bad ideas. On the contrary, conservatives and Republicans don’t vote for Democrats for a wide range of reasons that include policy stances and issues related to basic morality. But it is already clear why Democrats don’t get the votes of committed Republicans. As Erickson and many others have stated, policing our own house is a much-needed routine that, as of yet, has failed to materialize. It is painful and can feel brutal, but it should be mandatory. It matters that Republicans are not just the alternative to Democrats but actually better across the board. 

TRUMP FLOATS REPUBLICAN CONVENTION AHEAD OF 2026 ELECTIONS

Integrity continues to matter in a world that treats it as optional. When it comes to politics, it should be a leading consideration, not an afterthought. This failure to care is a feature, not a bug, of the major political parties. Politics is treated as team-versus-team entertainment to the detriment of us all. 

Electoral victories matter. Simultaneously, this winning must be done with integrity. If not, how are Republicans any different from their Democratic counterparts? Guiding principles, both personal and professional, are just as crucial as having the right policy goals. Whether or not the GOP ever puts this into practice remains to be seen. But one thing is certain: The Republican Party can’t afford to wait on Democrats to make the first move. 

Kimberly Ross (@SouthernKeeks) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog and a contributor to the Magnolia Tribune. She is a mother of two and lives in the Southern United States.