Thune says ‘we’re going to need’ Trump to help with pricey Texas Senate race

John Thune saying the party "needs" Trump to open the wallet for Texas tells you everything about where Senate Republicans actually think their bench is right now. Texas isn't supposed to be a nail-biter. It's the second-biggest red state in the country, and if it's expensive and uncertain enough that the majority leader is publicly begging for the president's fundraising muscle, that's not a talking point, that's a warning light on the dashboard.

Part of this is just math. Senate races have gotten absurdly expensive, and Democrats have shown they'll dump money into places like Texas even when the odds are long, because it forces Republicans to spend defensively instead of going on offense elsewhere. But part of it is also self-inflicted. A messy or divisive primary drains resources and energy before the general even starts, and donors sit on their hands when they're not sure who they're actually writing checks for. Thune name-checking Trump isn't an insult to anyone in the field, it's an admission that the party's normal fundraising machinery isn't cutting it on its own.

The upside is that this is exactly the kind of problem Trump is built for. He can move small-dollar money and big donor money in a way almost nobody else in the party can, and if leadership is smart they'll let him do it without turning it into a loyalty test for whoever the eventual nominee is. Texas should not be a state where Republicans are sweating the budget. The fact that it is says less about Trump's necessity and more about how thin the party's fundraising bench has gotten everywhere else.