As Gov. Greg Abbott prepared to hold a campaign event this week at a steakhouse in Wichita Falls, Texas, his campaign received a request. Ken Paxton was also going to be in town, the embattled Republican attorney general’s team said. Could they join his event?
Mr. Abbott agreed, but the rally was something less than a joint appearance. The two men did not take the stage together. During his speech, Mr. Paxton thanked Mr. Abbott for hosting him. “We’ve never had a stronger advocate,” Mr. Paxton said of the governor.
Mr. Abbott, who headlined the event, did not mention Mr. Paxton.
This year’s election has put new tension on the relationship between the two most prominent Republicans in Texas. With Democrats showing unusual strength in the state, Mr. Paxton and Mr. Abbott are now both fighting for their political lives, their fates tied to the willingness of Republicans to turn out on Election Day.
That has not helped Mr. Abbott, according to interviews with a dozen Republican political consultants, campaign operatives and former aides to the governor.
Mr. Abbott, an able campaigner who has raised more than $200 million for his re-election campaign, has been hurt by the generally sour mood of the country, the consultants and aides said, and by the lack of enthusiasm among some Republicans for the U.S. Senate candidate at the top of their ticket, Mr. Paxton.
“There is not a person involved in politics in the state of Texas who does not acknowledge the challenges that Ken Paxton has, has ramifications for the rest of the ticket,” said John Colyandro, a consultant and former policy director for Mr. Abbott.
For Mr. Paxton, long scarred by scandal, the feeling is familiar. He has been challenged by Republicans in tough primary races, accused of crimes by fellow Republicans in Texas courts and impeached by other Republicans in the Texas Legislature. Though Mr. Paxton avoided conviction in both cases, his legal and ethical troubles have left him particularly vulnerable this year.
Mr. Abbott, who is running for what would be a record fourth term, is not used to close races. He has been running an aggressive campaign; traveling the state himself; deploying an extensive network of field operatives; and even developing his own app that allows individual voters to see whether their contacts have voted during the two weeks of early voting, and to urge them to go to the polls.
“Our sole mission is to turn out the vote,” Mr. Abbott’s longtime political adviser, Dave Carney, said. “There’s nothing more important.”
Mr. Carney declined to discuss any possible effect Mr. Paxton’s run might be having on Mr. Abbott’s own campaign. “He’s on our team,” he said of Mr. Paxton. “We all want everyone to be successful.”
Nick Maddux, a top political adviser to Mr. Paxton, said the idea that the two campaigns were not getting along was a “clown car story.”
“Our entire campaign team is pushing the Abbott Impact app,” he said, referring to the publicly available app developed by Mr. Abbott’s team, “and has been using it to our own friends.”
Despite his campaign’s efforts, Mr. Abbott now finds himself ahead of his Democratic opponent, Gina Hinojosa, by only a few points in most public polls. Some Republican consultants put the blame in part on Mr. Paxton, who has, remarkably for Texas, been trailing James Talarico, his Democratic opponent, in public polls for months.
As Mr. Talarico established his lead over Mr. Paxton, Mr. Abbott’s lead over Ms. Hinojosa narrowed.
Aside from the event in Wichita Falls, a Texas prairie town near the Oklahoma border where Mr. Abbott was born, the governor and the attorney general have not campaigned together.
Several people familiar with the governor’s approach said this was unsurprising given Mr. Paxton’s waning popularity in the polls, calling him a drag on the entire ticket. Like most of the Texas Republicans interviewed for this story, the people requested anonymity to discuss the race before it was over because they work in Republican politics and did not want to anger either leader.
Others suggested that Mr. Abbott’s efforts had been succeeding despite the potential impact of Mr. Paxton on the race. They cautioned that it remained unclear whether Mr. Paxton would drag Mr. Abbott down or whether Mr. Abbott would help carry Mr. Paxton to victory.
But Mr. Paxton remains popular with many in the party’s base, and he has been strongly endorsed by President Trump, who has held four large-scale rallies in Texas since last month seeking to help the attorney general. Mr. Abbott, the consultants said, has long been wary of getting on the wrong side of the party’s MAGA base.
Mr. Abbott has not publicly criticized Mr. Paxton and has urged voters to support Republicans up and down the ticket. He brought the major statewide Republican candidates, including Mr. Paxton, into his office for a photo after the primary, to show party unity.
“He’s navigating it by saying nothing,” said Kel Seliger, a former Republican state senator from the Texas Panhandle who endorsed Mr. Talarico this week.
Mr. Abbott, who was state attorney general before Mr. Paxton, has long had misgivings about Mr. Paxton, according to multiple Republican consultants who have worked for statewide elected officials.
The governor did not endorse Mr. Paxton during his tough Republican primary in 2022, which took place after Mr. Paxton was indicted on securities fraud charges and several of his top aides accused him of corruption. And Mr. Abbott was silent as Senator John Cornyn lost to Mr. Paxton in this year’s primary, his first race since he was impeached by Republicans in the Texas House. (Mr. Paxton was acquitted by the Texas Senate, and settled his criminal case.)
The differences between the two candidates have been evident in some of their campaign events this year.
At an afternoon rally on Thursday in El Paso, a mostly Hispanic and largely Democratic city, Mr. Abbott attracted several hundred people. There were no other speakers at his event. He asked the room — crowded and muggy from the rains outside — to join him as he prayed. Afterward, he gave himself the sign of the cross, and exclaimed, “Thank you, Jesus, thank you, God, thank God Almighty.”
The governor stayed to pose for photos with supporters and to take questions from reporters, who asked about the closeness of his race.
“One thing I feel confident about is all the polls show me ahead,” Mr. Abbott said.
Mr. Paxton, who has historically been a less aggressive campaigner, has been far more controlled. He has not held a news conference in months. When he has posed for photos with supporters at recent events, his staff has not permitted reporters to approach the area to observe those interactions, citing security concerns.
On Friday, Mr. Paxton packed a room at a Houston restaurant with scores of supporters and several other candidates who also spoke, including Mayes Middleton, the Republican running to succeed him as attorney general. Mr. Paxton was introduced first by his son-in-law and one of his daughters, Mattie Hayworth, and then by Alice Johnson, a onetime drug convict who was pardoned by President Trump and who now serves as “pardon czar” in the Trump administration.
“We all have made mistakes,” Ms. Johnson told the room. “But I’m going to tell you what Ken Paxton did. He got back up. He got back up on his feet.”
Mr. Paxton thanked her and others for supporting him before delivering his speech.
“We love you, Ken!” a man called out, a glass of wine in his hand.
“I appreciate you,” Mr. Paxton replied.
Mr. Abbott’s organizing and campaign spending may end up helping Mr. Paxton indirectly by boosting turnout among Republicans. At a Paxton event in Abilene, Texas, this week, several attendees sat around a table comparing their contacts on the governor’s app to see who among their friends and family had not yet voted.
Members of the Paxton campaign have also been using the Abbott app, including on Friday, the last day of early voting in Texas, texting voters who had not turned out to try to get them to the polls.
The governor’s former aides pointed out that Mr. Abbott, a former judge, has always been an aggressive campaigner and a cautious politician — carefully weighing when and whether to put himself into politically fraught positions. That approach has appeared to be especially true in his handling of Mr. Paxton.
Mr. Paxton has been a much different type of politician, one whose supporters praise for his willingness to throw himself into fights where others would not. His daughter, Ms. Hayworth, said it directly at the campaign event in Houston.
“Most people have this point where their convictions become too uncomfortable for them, and they aren’t willing to keep going with it,” she said. “But not my dad. He doesn’t have that point.”
Mary Beth Gahan contributed reporting from Wichita Falls, Texas, and Reyes Mata III from El Paso.
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