Paxton's Trumpian Coronation Meets a Suburb That Wants Its Wallet Back

Texas has not sent a Democrat to the Senate since 1988. That is the safest bet in American politics, and Ken Paxton is on the verge of blowing it.

Start with the number that has Republican operatives reaching for the antacids. A Texas Public Opinion Research survey conducted September 19 to 22 found (cite index="1">Democrat James Talarico leading Paxton 49 to 44, with Libertarian Ted Brown pulling three points. It is not an outlier. A Texas Southern University poll taken in mid-September had (cite index="2">Talarico ahead 47 to 46, with only 84 percent of Republicans saying they would actually vote for Paxton against 99 percent of Democrats backing Talarico. Read that again. One in six Republicans will not pull the lever for their own nominee.

Why? Because the man carries a decade of baggage that no ad budget can fully bury. The Texas House impeached Paxton in 2023 on corruption charges, and (cite index="4">the state Senate later acquitted him. A federal corruption probe into whether he abused his office to benefit donor Nate Paul (cite index="3">ended in 2025 when the Justice Department declined to bring charges, saying the case was unlikely to succeed. And his own wife filed for divorce in July 2025, (cite index="5">her lawyers writing flatly that "Respondent has committed adultery". The trial got quietly pulled off the docket in June as the couple pursued a private settlement. Convenient timing for a man on a ballot.

Here is the part that should keep the Paxton camp up at night. In the Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs, the reliable Republican machine is sputtering. The Texas Tribune interviewed more than a dozen GOP voters and former local party leaders in North Texas, and (cite index="6">many said they were struggling with how to vote or planning to leave the Senate race blank, a hesitancy that could also endanger down-ballot Republicans. Jill Tate, president of the Texas Federation of Republican Women, has spent thirty years building the majority. (cite index="6">She said it was the first time she felt "in my bones we could lose the Texas House, and we could lose a statewide seat." When your own grassroots general is scared, the fortress has cracks.

So the cavalry rode in. On September 4, Trump's MAGA Inc. super PAC filed its first general-election spending of the cycle: (cite index="7">a $10 million buy split evenly, $5 million to boost Paxton and $5 million to bludgeon "High Tax Talarico." The choice to open the checkbook in Texas, of all places, tells you everything. (cite index="8">This was MAGA Inc.'s first significant general-election spending, reflecting how a once-safe Republican seat may be viable for Democrats. You do not spend ten million dollars to defend a sure thing.

And the money gap cuts the other way. Through the end of June, (cite index="8">Talarico raised roughly $68 million to Paxton's $9 million. Paxton, the anointed one, has been so passive that (cite index="9">his campaign had logged only about $264,000 in ad spending, mostly digital, while Talarico's campaign alone spent more than $40 million on general-election ads. Trump's own operatives (cite index="8">have criticized Paxton for running a lackadaisical campaign. When your patron's PAC has to bail you out because you cannot be bothered to campaign, that is not strength. That is a welfare check with a cowboy hat on top.

Even the architect of the modern Texas GOP has seen enough. At the Texas Tribune Festival on September 26, Karl Rove said the quiet part into a microphone: (cite index="10">"If John Cornyn were the nominee, this race would be over." Cornyn, the four-term incumbent Paxton crushed in the runoff after Trump's endorsement, is the man Rove says would have already put this away. Instead, Republicans got the guy with the impeachment file and the divorce petition.

Paxton takes his "Protecting the Texas Promise" tour to El Paso on September 30. He will talk about tax breaks and sex-trafficking prosecutions and Big Pharma. He will not talk about the adultery, the acquittal, or why one in six of his own voters can't stomach him. Forty days out, the impeached attorney general is running behind a 37-year-old state rep in the reddest big state in America, propped up by a billionaire's PAC because he couldn't be troubled to sell himself. MUCK YOU, indeed.