Karl Rove says the Republican Party is being taken over by ‘Nazis’ and predicts they will lose the Senate race in Texas

Former George W. Bush White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove used a one-on-one interview at The Texas Tribune Festival in Austin on Saturday, Sept. 26, 2026, to say the Republican Party is being taken over by “Nazis.” Speaking with Patrick Svitek, Rove also said the GOP would already be winning Texas’s U.S. Senate race if Sen. John Cornyn were the nominee instead of Attorney General Ken Paxton.

According to the San Antonio Current, Rove said Republicans are increasingly worried about major losses in the 2026 midterms as Democrats, including state Reps. James Talarico and Gina Hinojosa rise in the polls. He said the surveys that put Talarico, a former San Antonio public school teacher, against Paxton appear to be accurate.

Rove said both Sen. Ted Cruz and Paxton had contacted him within the previous two days. “In the last 48 hours, Ted Cruz has reached out to me and says, ‘We’re losing,’ Ken Paxton has sent me several emails saying, ‘I’m losing, I need your help,’” Rove said. “Even the Republicans are admitting that they’re behind.”

Rove ties Paxton’s scandals to the Senate race and criticizes Bo French and Nick Fuentes

Rove said Paxton is still struggling even after the conservative Senate Leadership Fund poured more than $100 million into the contest. His legal issues have been extensively covered, such as in a Fox News interview where the host detailed a long list of his legal troubles.

He linked that trouble to what he called a laundry list of past scandals, including a messy public divorce and a bribery scandal in which Paxton’s own staff reported him to the FBI.

He then set Paxton against Cornyn. “If [U.S. Sen.] John Cornyn were the nominee, this race would be over. But when you’ve got a guy that has multiple girlfriends and $200,000 worth of improvements in his house from a corrupt business guy whom he does favors,” Rove said. “Can you make this s–t up? I mean, really.”

Rove said he would cast his ballot for Democrat Jon Rosenthal in the Texas Railroad Commissioner race rather than Republican Bo French. He described French as a “bigot.”

That statement followed a Wall Street Journal op-ed in which Rove attacked French over an X post from earlier this month. French shared a photo of South Asian students celebrating at a University of Texas football game and implied that foreigners were displacing American students.

“My party is being infiltrated by people like Bo French,” Rove said. “Nick Fuentes goes to Dallas and meets with a bunch of Republican leaders. This guy is a Nazi. We’ve got all these people getting on their little podcasts and so forth, saying: ‘We’re just asking questions about the Jews.’”

Rove said letting figures such as French and far-right podcaster Fuentes into the Republican Party will hurt conservatives later. “We didn’t labor in the wilderness to build a conservative party that was inclusive and welcoming … to see it taken over by a bunch of bigots,” Rove said.

Texas voters have until Oct. 5 to update their voter registration for the 2026 midterms. Early voting runs from Oct. 19 to Oct. 30. Election Day is Nov. 3.