DALLAS — Texas Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton was scheduled Monday night to make his first appearance at a campaign rally since announcing his U.S. Senate candidacy 10 months ago, part of his effort to unseat four-term Republican Sen. John Cornyn and add a MAGA devotee to the Senate — a bid that has set up one of this year’s most contentious GOP primaries.
Paxton has been waging a lower-wattage campaign, spending relatively little money and drawing attention primarily by pursuing conservative causes as the state attorney general. But with early voting scheduled to start Tuesday for the March 3 primary, Paxton is scheduled to make stops across Texas this week. He also has begun airing ads linking him with President Trump as he takes on Cornyn and Rep. Wesley Hunt.
Despite being the target of millions of dollars in attack ads from Cornyn and his allies, and opposition from Senate Republican leaders who say Cornyn is the stronger candidate in a general election, Paxton is heading into the GOP primary with the look of his party’s front-runner.
“I wish they’d stop sending money from Washington, D.C.,” Paxton told “Fox News Sunday.” “They are sending the money from D.C., and they’re helping John Cornyn. And it’s going to be … a lot of money spent, and he’s going to end up losing.”
Paxton’s political survival would appear to defy convention, much like Trump’s did. Paxton beat impeachment on fraud charges in 2023, and today is shadowed by claims of marital infidelity made by his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton.
The three-term attorney general is betting that defiance of his party’s leaders and aggressive litigation for conservative priorities will help him overcome ethical and personal questions that voters in the Republican-leaning state have, at least until now, forgiven.
Stepped up campaigning
Paxton’s four-day series of rallies this week is being put on by Lone Star Liberty PAC to publicize the start of early voting in Texas.
His previous campaign stops were lower-profile events, including county GOP gatherings with other candidates. He traveled to five Texas college campuses in the fall to speak with Turning Point USA chapters after the conservative Christian group’s national founder, Charlie Kirk, was killed.
But until this week, that’s essentially been it for Paxton’s public campaign efforts, outside of a handful of podcasts with friendly hosts.
Until Friday, the only television advertising on Paxton’s behalf in Texas, according to the ad-tracking service AdImpact, was a spot that attacked Hunt, a two-term House member from the Houston area. Like Paxton, Hunt is trying to appeal to primary voters looking for an alternative to Cornyn.
By criticizing Hunt, Paxton allies are trying to peel off some of his voters in hopes of winning 50% of the primary vote — the threshold needed to win the GOP nomination outright. If no candidate receives 50%, the top two finishers would advance to a May 26 runoff.
Paxton’s campaign began airing an ad Friday that features video clips of Trump praising Paxton and images of them together. Trump as of Monday has not endorsed any of the three Republicans in the race.
Promotes conservative goals
Paxton has relied on his office in Austin to remain at the center of conservative efforts.
Last year, he sued Texas physicians over claims they violated the state’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors.
In October, just weeks after Trump implored pregnant women repeatedly, “Don’t take Tylenol,” Paxton sued the pain reliever’s manufacturers for deceptive marketing and asserted unproven claims that early exposure to its active ingredient increased risks of autism.
Most notably, Paxton led numerous legal challenges against the Biden administration over immigration and border policies, often succeeding and burnishing his credentials as a conservative crusader. Paxton, who was elected attorney general in 2014, also sued the Obama administration regularly.
“I think Ken Paxton is a fighter,” said Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas), adding that Paxton had sued the Biden administration more than any other U.S. attorney general.
The steady stream of litigation has kept Paxton in the headlines in Texas, as Cornyn and his allies have spent heavily to try to bloody his image among Republican primary voters.
As of Friday, Cornyn’s campaign and allied super PACs had spent more than $54 million on television advertising since last year, according to AdImpact. Much of it was reminding voters of Paxton’s impeachment trial and his wife’s divorce claim on “biblical grounds,” alleging extramarital affairs. The groups have spent millions more on digital ads, text messaging and direct mail, also attacking Paxton.
In one ad, sponsored by Texans for a Conservative Majority, a narrator says at the outset, “Ken Paxton isn’t just corrupt. He’s weird.”
Senate GOP leaders are worried
Republican Senate leaders in Washington have been sounding an alarm about Paxton for months. They say Paxton as the GOP nominee would require hundreds of millions of dollars more to defend in a general election, given expected attacks, than Cornyn would. And they say that’s money the party shouldn’t have to spend in Texas, a state Trump carried by more than 13 percentage points.
Democrats must net a total of four seats to overtake Republicans’ Senate majority in November. The minority party is expressing renewed confidence in vying for Republican-held seats in Alaska, Maine, North Carolina and Ohio.
In Texas, U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett and state Rep. James Talarico are seeking the Democratic nomination. Paxton would perform worse than Cornyn in the November election against either Democrat, strategists for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the campaign group led by Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), said in an memo this month obtained by the Associated Press.
“Cornyn wins the general election,” the memo states. “Paxton puts the seat at risk.”
Beaumont writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Joey Cappelletti contributed to this report from Washington.
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