Republicans are worried that their Senate candidate in Texas, State Attorney General Ken Paxton, is going to lose precious votes in his tight race against the Democratic nominee, State Rep. James Talarico — yet it's not only Talarico who worries them.
"Democratic operatives believe that some Republican voters won’t feel comfortable backing the scandal-plagued Paxton," The Bulwark's Lauren Egan reported on Wednesday. "They told me that the contentious GOP primary between Paxton and Sen. John Cornyn only deepened the fracture in the party’s base. It piqued a lot of interest when Cornyn posted a local news story to his X account in June about how Libertarian Ted Brown was courting disaffected conservative voters."
Egan then quoted a Texas-based Democratic strategist close to Talarico's campaign who said, “There are a non-insignificant number of Cornyn voters who I think are up for grabs and are uncomfortable with the idea of Ken Paxton—and maybe at this point, after all the ads, could be uncomfortable with [Talarico]. There’s a world where Ted Brown gets 3 or 4 percent of the vote in this thing.”
Egan added, "That would be a significant shift from the competitive 2018 Senate matchup between Beto O’Rourke and Sen. Ted Cruz, when the Libertarian on the ballot received 0.8 percent of the vote. O’Rourke lost that race by 2.6 percentage points."
Paxton is a controversial candidate because of his multiple scandals, which span from infidelity and abusing his office to target political enemies to allegedly accepting bribes, abusing his office to hire a wealthy friend and fighting for a disproportionately light sentence for a convicted child sex abuser.
More recently, Paxton angered fellow Republicans when he was recorded saying at a private fundraiser that he believes President Donald Trump, who helped Paxton win the nomination by endorsing him over the incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, is actually a drag on the ticket.
“Do you feel like he’s a little bit of a drag?” Paxton was asked at the event.
He replied, “So to be honest with you, the numbers — when we did that convention — it dropped our numbers. Everybody’s numbers dropped. Right now, yeah, not good.”
At least one Texas political power broker was furious at the statement.
“Paxton was made and invented by Donald Trump," former Texas House Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry on CNN with Kasie Hunt. "He was his savior. He got him through being impeached as attorney general. He got him the nomination to be senator of Texas. Without, Trump, he's nothing. He's nothing. And this guy is so stupid. He's biting the hand that made him,” McHenry said. “… But Ken Paxton is so stupid that he's biting the hand that made him and invented him. He should say, with enormous gratitude, that he's grateful for the president making fun of the way he looks and the way he dresses, as he should, because he wouldn't be even considered for that in this stage of the election cycle [without Trump].”
