Everyone Is Edging Away from Ken Paxton

By Jeffrey Blehar

Monday, August 31, 2026

 

Say, what’s happening over in the Texas Senate race? What’s that horrid smell filling the room? Never smelled that before, at least not in the Lone Star State. Ah, now I realize why: That’s the stench of potential electoral doom, something unfamiliar to the Texas GOP since 1994 — and it is now wafting off of Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton in the most unseemly of ways.

 

I have been writing about the Senate race in Texas, and warning in vain against the nomination of Ken Paxton (the spectacularly corrupt, vaguely amphibious-looking state attorney general) for the seat, for well over a year. His vulnerabilities, particularly in a year of epic backlash, were simply too risky to cashier a respected incumbent (and guaranteed winner) — like trading your car for a Powerball lottery ticket.

 

Nearly every single premonition I had about the race has proven out with depressing predictability: National money helped defeat Jasmine Crockett in the Democratic primary, and base anger — cannily stoked by Paxton’s populist campaign — doomed incumbent John Cornyn in his own primary. Now Paxton himself is trailing in the RealClearPolitics averages, down by 1.9 points, and with a clear trajectory in the race to date. (He has led in only one poll since early June, and that only by a point.)

 

What I didn’t expect — perhaps because I’m not a Texan, and had paid no prior attention to Paxton as a campaigner — was for him to be so damn disengaged. As my colleague Jim Geraghty noted, political analyst Mark Halperin — who is not dumb — dropped the hammer two weeks ago:

 

I’ve been talking to Texas Republicans who are not hostile to Ken Paxton. He is lazy. He’s a horrible fundraiser. He cannot answer questions about the controversies that reporters are going to ask him about. He has alienated suburban voters, including suburban women. And he’s running against a guy who’s pretty damn good as a candidate, despite not liking meat, despite all the things he said. And if nothing dramatic changes, it’s not just Paxton [who] has to get it in gear. If nothing dramatic changes, he will lose.

 

I really can’t do better to summarize the situation than the title of Jim’s piece: “If You’re Running for Office, You Can’t Be a Slimeball and Be Lazy.” Texas is one of the most expensive states in the Union to campaign in, with four major media markets (Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio, and El Paso) as well as 18 smaller ones. And Ken Paxton has raised only $9.2 million (with a piddling $1.76 million cash on hand) as compared to James Talarico’s $68.6 million war chest.

 

I don’t know why Paxton has seemed to check out of the race when it’s abundantly possible he could lose. Perhaps he has a natural sense of entitlement that comes from being a Republican in Texas, and just expects the natural lean of the state to carry him to victory regardless of how rotten a candidate he is. (Perhaps he doesn’t give big speeches because his speaking voice — airy and effete — also lisps like a modern-day Percy Dovetonsils.)

 

But either way, John Cornyn has publicly checked out too. Mirroring Halperin’s language, two days ago Cornyn called Paxton “lazy” and a “poor campaigner” — both of which are undeniably true — and announced he had better things to do than help the slothful ingrate across the finish line. Senator John L. Kennedy (of Louisiana) added some pointed thoughts, stating that “We in the Senate don’t have the money budgeted for Texas. We need help from the president.” (Needless to say, Cornyn was one of the Senate GOP’s top fundraisers himself and universally loved, so there is doubtless no love lost between Kennedy and Paxton.)

 

But Kennedy is also making a point about Trump’s dereliction of duty: He has more money than Croesus, no races to run, he endorsed Paxton, and he is quite literally the entire reason Paxton’s political career still exists. “The president says he has $850 million in his campaign accounts. That’s a lot of jack. I’m hoping that the president’s gonna spend $100 or $200 million in Texas. But he hasn’t committed to it yet.”

 

Knowing Trump, there is very little chance that he will. That’s his money, not the money of some politician freeloading off his popularity. One need only look at the countless politically self-destructive moves Trump has made over the last two years to realize he feels no particular loyalty to the Republican Party’s fortunes, only his own sense of grandeur. I suspect both his and Paxton’s political epitaphs may be as the men who finally Turned Texas Blue.