George W. Bush has stepped back into Republican politics ahead of the midterms.

But one prominent GOP candidate was conspicuously missing from the effort.

Former President Bush appeared Monday night at a major Republican fundraiser in Dallas designed to help Senate candidates across the country.

The event supported GOP nominees in six states.

Texas Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton was not among them.

That omission stood out for an obvious reason.

The fundraiser was held in Texas.

It was hosted by outgoing Republican Sen. John Cornyn.

And Paxton is running to replace Cornyn after defeating him in this year’s Republican primary.

Bush has not publicly endorsed Paxton in the general election.

Nor has he publicly said that excluding him from Monday’s fundraiser was intended as a rebuke.

But the event highlighted the lingering divide between Texas’ traditional Republican establishment and the Trump-aligned attorney general who defeated Cornyn.

The fundraiser was organized through the Maintain the Majority committee and benefited Republican Senate candidates in Alaska, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, New Hampshire and Ohio.

Paxton’s campaign received no share of the proceeds.

That is particularly notable because his race against Democratic nominee James Talarico has become unusually competitive for Texas.

Recent public polling has repeatedly shown the contest within single digits.

A Sept. 12–14 Emerson College/Nexstar poll of 1,000 likely voters found Talarico at 47 percent and Paxton at 46 percent, a one-point difference within the survey’s three-point margin of error.

A separate Recon MR survey conducted Sept. 8–11 put Talarico at 49 percent and Paxton at 43 percent.

Other recent surveys have produced similarly close results.

The University of Texas Texas Politics Project’s polling tracker shows that some polls have given Talarico modest leads while others earlier in the summer showed Paxton narrowly ahead or tied.

Taken together, the surveys describe a competitive race rather than a settled outcome.

That matters because Texas has not elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since Lloyd Bentsen won reelection in 1988.

Paxton’s nomination therefore created an unusual situation for Republicans.

He has the backing of President Donald Trump and remains popular with much of the Republican base.

But he has also spent years in conflict with prominent figures from the state’s older GOP establishment.

Cornyn is one of them.

Bush is another important name in that political world.

Paxton’s history with the Bush family goes back years.

In 2022, he defeated George P. Bush — George W. Bush’s nephew and the son of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush — in the Republican primary for Texas attorney general.

Paxton won that runoff decisively.

Four years later, he defeated Cornyn in another bitter Republican primary, this time for the Senate nomination.

That race became extraordinarily expensive and exposed deep divisions between Trump-aligned Republicans and figures associated with the party’s pre-Trump establishment.

Cornyn had backing from several senior Senate Republicans.

Paxton had Trump.

Paxton won.

Now Cornyn and Bush are raising money for Republicans around the country while leaving Texas’ own Republican Senate nominee off the beneficiary list.

The event therefore sends an unmistakable visual message, even if neither man has described it as an organized campaign against Paxton.

Bush is willing to help Republican Senate candidates.

Just not Paxton — at least through this particular fundraiser.

The tension comes as other members of Bush’s political circle are also breaking with Trump-aligned Republican candidates in Texas.

Karl Rove, Bush’s longtime political strategist, recently said he would vote for Democrat Jon Rosenthal rather than Republican Bo French in the Texas Railroad Commission election.

Rove made the declaration after French posted remarks about South Asian students at the University of Texas that Rove described as bigoted.

It marked a remarkable departure for a Republican strategist who said he had spent decades voting exclusively for GOP candidates.

Several other Texas Republicans also condemned French’s post.

The Railroad Commission controversy is separate from the Senate race.

But together, the episodes illustrate a broader struggle inside Texas Republican politics.

Trump-backed candidates have increasingly displaced politicians associated with the Bush-era GOP.

Some establishment Republicans have accepted that shift.

Others are drawing lines around particular candidates.

Paxton himself brings substantial political baggage into the general election.

The Texas House impeached him in 2023 on allegations including bribery and abuse of office.

The Texas Senate later acquitted him on all impeachment articles considered at trial.

Those proceedings did not prevent him from maintaining strong support among Republican primary voters.

His campaign now argues that Texas conservatives should unite around him against Talarico.

Paxton has also acknowledged publicly that the general election is highly competitive, recently describing the race as “razor thin” while campaigning with Sen. Ted Cruz.

That makes Monday’s fundraiser potentially more significant.

Republicans are spending heavily to defend and win Senate seats around the country.

Yet a Republican candidate facing one of the party’s most closely watched races did not benefit from a major GOP fundraising event held inside his own state.

Bush’s appearance added symbolism.

The former president has largely avoided day-to-day partisan politics since leaving office in 2009.

He has occasionally appeared at major civic and political events but has not become a constant presence on the campaign trail.

His willingness to help Republican Senate candidates now therefore drew attention.

So did the candidate he did not help.

There is no evidence that Bush intends to campaign for Talarico.

There is no public announcement that he opposes Paxton’s candidacy.

And the fundraiser’s omission should not be described as a formal endorsement against the Republican nominee.

But politics is often about who appears in the room — and who does not.

On Monday night, George W. Bush was back in a room full of Republicans trying to maintain their party’s Senate strength.

Ken Paxton was the Republican Senate candidate from Texas.

And his name was missing from the list.