It’s never great when the two people most crucial to your political survival struggle to simply say nice things about you.
It’s worse when one of those people is the president, and the other is your estranged wife.
Less than a month from the midterms, that’s the story of Ken Paxton, the scandal-prone Texas state attorney general.
Paxton’s Senate race has turned into the biggest Republican gamble of 2026, a brawl that could cost G.O.P. outside groups $200 million or more. It has become a major headache for the party as its candidates struggle across the map — though no other Senate candidate has as much baggage as Paxton does.
“When you have a national climate like this — plus a candidate facing all these tough questions — then it’s just a recipe for potential disaster in the state,” Brendan Steinhauser, a Republican consultant in Texas who has worked closely with Angela Paxton, Ken’s wife, told me.
Republicans’ heavy spending has yet to reverse the apparent momentum of James Talarico, the Democrat who held a six percentage-point lead over Paxton in the most recent poll by The Times and Siena University. That could change, though, as Paxton and his supporters drench the airwaves in the final month of the campaign. Talarico, for his part, has been off the campaign trail since he came down with the flu last week.
Tonight, we look at how things got so tricky for a Republican in Texas — a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1988 — and where Paxton is turning for help.
Character attacks
Paxton, who has never lost an election, has been a fixture of Republican politics in Texas for a quarter century — though often a tawdry one.
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In 2015, in his first year as attorney general, he was arrested on felony fraud charges. (He later cut a deal to drop the charges in exchange for performing community service and paying restitution.)
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In 2020, some of his top deputies accused him of bribery and abuse of office. Those accusations eventually led to his impeachment by the Texas House in 2023, although he was acquitted by the State Senate.
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Last year, Angela Paxton filed for divorce “on biblical grounds.” Detailed allegations of his infidelity had figured prominently in his impeachment trial.
President Trump endorsed Paxton over Senator John Cornyn in the spring — handing the G.O.P. a nominee who has been relentlessly attacked over his character.
Polls suggest those attacks are landing.
“He was acquitted in the Republican Senate, found guilty in the Republican House, and now it’s in the court of public opinion,” the Republican strategist Karl Rove said late last month. “And that’s why this is a race.”
The Trump factor
Paxton is hoping that Trump can fire up enough voters in the Republican base to get him over the line. Tonight, the president is supposed to do just that at a rally in San Antonio — though the choice of location, in a heavily Democratic city, has left some Republicans scratching their heads.
Trump hasn’t been a perfect surrogate for Paxton. He tends to pair his compliments of the candidate with insults.
“He may not dress right. He may not talk exactly perfectly, and he may not be the best-looking guy I’ve ever seen,” Trump told the crowd at his midterm convention in Paxton’s home state last month. “But you know what he is? He’s the greatest attorney general in America.”
In a possible sign of unwillingness to appear alongside Trump and Paxton, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas — who is himself locked in an unexpectedly tight re-election race — is skipping the rally. (The governor said he had a scheduling conflict.)
The estranged wife
It may fall to Paxton’s estranged wife to boost his candidacy, as my colleagues Beth Reinhard and Lisa Lerer wrote today.
Angela Paxton, a state senator who watched (but could not vote in) the impeachment trial that detailed her husband’s infidelity, has cut a television ad urging voters to support the Republican ticket.
It’s not exactly a ringing endorsement. It doesn’t even mention her husband’s name.
“Either we hold every Republican seat, or we hand the future of Texas to the other team,” she says in the ad.
Angela Paxton has her own political future to think of, Lisa and Beth note. The question is how her soon-to-be ex will figure into the state’s political landscape as she pursues it.
Get Caught Up
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The Democratic National Committee filed a lawsuit against Trump and the White House over the taxpayer-funded ads praising the president. It asks the court to stop the ads from continuing to air.
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Representative Max Miller’s re-election campaign seemed in peril after his ex-wife accused him of abusing her and their young daughter. Then aides close to Trump stepped in, telling critical Republicans to quiet down and Miller to stop talking about his family.
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Mike Rogers, the Republican candidate for Senate in Michigan, breaks with Trump in a new ad: Rogers says the U.S. needs to “end the tariff war now,” and adds, “Canada is not our enemy.”
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Trump says the Kennedy Center is so dilapidated that it poses a danger to anyone who goes inside. The National Symphony Orchestra still rehearses there almost every day.
Debate Week
This is a busy week for Senate debates, with five in three days across battleground states. The festivities kicked off last night in Maine, where Senator Susan Collins, the Republican incumbent, is trying to fend off a challenge from Troy Jackson.
Jackson “held his own against a five-term senator in a duel that was, at times, quite testy,” my colleagues reported. Here are a couple of takeaways from the night:
Collins was on the defensive over Trump. She criticized the president’s tariffs and boasted, “I am not exactly his favorite senator.” But Jackson hit back, saying that despite her criticisms of the president, she had failed to actually stand up to him.
Her vote for Kavanaugh was under the spotlight. Collins, one of the few Senate Republicans who supports abortion rights, voted to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh — who later helped overturn Roe v. Wade. Jackson brought it up in his opening statement, asking voters, “Would you trust her to pick the next Supreme Court justice?”
Tonight the focus shifts to Iowa, where Representative Ashley Hinson, a Republican, is trying to help the party keep control of an open seat. She leads Josh Turek, the Democrat, by just one point, according to a recent Times/Siena poll.
Quote of the Day
“I do not have any idea who else they work for but will, on reflection, ask them and, if there’s a conflict, I will terminate them, immediately!”
That’s Trump, talking about James Blair and Chris LaCivita. They run the president’s congressional campaign operation. At the same time, a Times investigation discovered, they were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to help a small, pro-Russian government in a territory called Republika Srpska tighten its grip on power.
Voters’ Voices
Early voting has begun in some states, and our reporters have been out at polling sites talking to voters. Here’s what a few had to say.
“Our taxes are high, our health insurance is out of reach, gasoline, fuel. I want somebody in there that will stop the pain.”
— Alan Swett, 70, of Waterville, Maine. Swett considers himself a Democrat but voted for Republicans in statewide races, including Senator Susan Collins.
“We all need change, and she’s been there for long enough.”
— Kevin Russell, 56, of Augusta, Maine, said of Collins. Russell voted for Troy Jackson for Senate.
“It’s just devastating what’s been done to our community.”
— Maureen Stanton, 52, of Cleveland, Ohio. She said she voted for Democrats up and down the ballot because she was dismayed with Republicans gutting social safety net programs.
ONE LAST THING
A candidate bares it all
Last month, photos of Chris Gallant, a Democrat running for a House seat on Long Island, were splashed across The New York Post, accompanied by a sensational headline: “NY Dem House candidate modeled for XXX-rated BDSM ads while serving in National Guard.”
The photos of Gallant, taken when he was not yet 21 years old, were the kind that could sink a politician’s career. But Gallant’s Republican opponent, Representative Nick LaLota, hasn’t addressed them. And Gallant, an openly gay Black Hawk helicopter pilot and volunteer firefighter, seems to have decided that the photos are a chance to show that a person in public life can contain multitudes.
“I mean, all my friends know I’m kinky,” he told The Times’s Jacob Bernstein. “I make Christian Grey look like amateur hour.”
Maybe, he said only half-jokingly, this could be his “Kim Kardashian moment.”
Sydney Cromwell, Patrick Cooley and Kevin Williams contributed reporting.
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