2025 was a strange year in politics, with a lot of unexpected twists and turns. The second Trump administration began like a bat out of hell but lost quite a bit of momentum by year’s end among the president’s low approval ratings, big GOP election losses, and the ongoing Epstein scandal. The Democratic opposition, meanwhile, spent a good part of the year wringing hands, pointing fingers, and vowing to “fight, fight, fight” without any ammunition. Yet now they’re on the offensive and confident about busting up President Donald Trump’s governing trifecta in the 2026 midterms.

So for a lot of people in Washington, it was a mixed year with some successes and some failures — but a few stumbled spectacularly. Here’s a look at the politicians who had the biggest fall in the past year, in reverse order of loserdom.

5.

The senior senator from Texas has had one of those careers that most politicians can only dream of. Elected as a trial judge at the age of 32, he ascended to the Texas Supreme Court six years later, then became Texas’s attorney general in 1998 after a tough primary, runoff, and general election. It was his last really difficult statewide race until the one he’s in right now. In 2015, he became majority whip of the U.S. Senate. Just over a year ago, after 22 years in the upper chamber, he was even money to succeed his friend and close ally Mitch McConnell as Republican leader. He lost narrowly to John Thune and, before you knew it, he was facing a fierce 2026 primary challenge from the current Texas attorney general, MAGA demagogue Ken Paxton.

Despite Paxton’s continuing legal problems and personal scandals, and massive financial backing from the Republican Establishment in Texas and in Washington, Cornyn immediately fell behind Paxton in the polls. And just as Cornyn was showing some progress, he drew a second viable MAGA-aligned challenger in Houston representative Wesley Hunt. The most recent public polling (from J.L. Partners) showed Paxton leading the field with 29 percent and Cornyn tied with Hunt at 24 percent. A runoff (Texas requires a majority for party nominations) seems certain, and the terrifying thing for Cornyn is that after four terms in the Senate he might finish third.

If Cornyn does survive the primary, he could face a Democratic midterm wave making Texas competitive for the first time this century. No matter what happens, his friends in Washington are going to resent how much money they’re having to........

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