She is all but invisible on the campaign trail for U.S. Senate in Texas, seen only briefly in bystander videos, never mentioned in ads and whisked away from the prying eyes of the political press.
Tracy Duhon, an aspiring Christian influencer, came into Ken Paxton’s life just before he announced his Senate run and is building a life with him — traveling abroad and celebrating holidays together.
Aides to Mr. Paxton, whose wife, Angela, has filed for divorce on “biblical grounds,” take pains to keep Ms. Duhon away from the Senate race, where he has struggled to draw support from independents and even some fellow Republicans. Mr. Paxton, the state’s attorney general, now trails his Democratic opponent, James Talarico, in most polls.
But it is clear that Ms. Duhon, now deep in the inner circle of one of the most powerful politicians in Texas, has brought Mr. Paxton close to a world of online influencers and Christian self-help, where vulnerable public admissions and promises of redemption come in social media posts.
It makes for an odd incongruity in the final stretch of one of the most competitive Senate races in a generation. The woman at the center of his new life, while mostly out of sight in Texas, has maintained a public profile in her home state of Louisiana as she continues building her own public brand based on her religious beliefs.
This month, Ms. Duhon swept into a gala in the grand ballroom of a New Orleans hotel in a black gown and elbow-length gloves. The gala was hosted by a Christian nonprofit she founded with her ex-husband, a prominent car dealer and philanthropist.
Mr. Paxton was not there. But just outside the ballroom, in the hotel bar, his campaign ads played on repeat.
The two have been seen together only in brief snippets of video during the campaign: hopping a plane to Iceland; or walking hand in hand in London; or, in an old clip that surfaced this month, celebrating New Year’s Eve in 2024 alongside two U.S. fugitives in Dubai.
In a recently published book, Ms. Duhon talks about how faith got her through her personal struggles, including the loss of two children and three divorces. She tells her own story as one of salvation — the sort of message that may resonate with someone like Mr. Paxton, who has endured turbulent times of his own. During his decade as attorney general, Mr. Paxton has been indicted on securities fraud charges, investigated for bribery and self-dealing and impeached — and has survived each. Mr. Paxton has denied any wrongdoing.
“I never could have prepared myself for the dark, painful path God would lead me down to realize my heart’s desire,” Ms. Duhon wrote in her book, which was published in 2025. “It is the story of loss and betrayal and ultimately finding my way again.”
“God’s plan is better than my own,” she wrote, “even when it includes suffering.”
Ms. Duhon did not respond to requests for an interview. Madison Cercy, Mr. Paxton’s campaign spokeswoman, did not answer questions for this article and instead raised questions about Mr. Talarico’s dating history.
“This is a disgusting, invasive story that has nothing to do with the issues Texans care about,” Ms. Cercy said in an email. “The attorney general’s personal life is not a campaign issue, and we won’t dignify it with a response.”
Mr. Paxton’s allies have defended him as a good but imperfect Christian man. They have called his ongoing divorce a private matter.
“Just because you personally don’t live every biblically based value doesn’t mean you won’t fight for it when it comes to a political stance,” Landon Schott, the senior pastor of Mercy Culture, a Fort Worth megachurch, said in a video of support for Mr. Paxton.
Ms. Duhon and Mr. Paxton are linked to a five-bedroom home in a gated community in Frisco, a suburb north of Dallas, according to local government records and two people with knowledge of their relationship who requested anonymity to avoid discussing a private matter publicly. The house, which Mr. Paxton recently used as his mailing address, was bought in February by a trust whose beneficiaries are not identified in public records. Police records show Ms. Duhon was contacted when false burglary alarms were tripped at the residence several times this year.
Ms. Duhon does not appear to be registered to vote in Texas. In Louisiana, state records show, she is registered as a Democrat.
A Power Couple in New Orleans
At the gala in New Orleans hosted by their nonprofit this month, Ms. Duhon sat separately from her ex-husband, Troy Duhon. More than 100 tables filled the room. Guests ate ribs and Chantilly layer cake.
After prayer, the governor of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, took the stage to praise the Duhons’ nonprofit, Giving Hope NOLA, which operates food pantries in several states and has helped open orphanages around the world.
“Next year, Troy and them should need a room twice as big,” Mr. Landry, a Republican, said.
During their marriage, the Duhons established themselves as a local power couple. They built relationships with politicians and sports stars, including some with the New Orleans Saints.
Their influence stemmed from Mr. Duhon’s car dealership empire, which spans eight states and reports annual sales of more than $1 billion. Mr. Duhon is also the president of the nonprofit, which in its most recent tax filings reported $20 million in donations, grants and other revenue. He helped start a Christian film production company.
During her marriage, Ms. Duhon created networking groups for Christian women and presented herself as an authority on maintaining family and faith through adversity.
Ms. Duhon, who grew up just outside New Orleans and has a distinctive local accent, was twice divorced by 20. She and Mr. Duhon overcame early struggles with drugs and alcohol by rededicating themselves to God, she wrote in her book. Central to her story, as she tells it, is how faith got her through the deaths of two of her children shortly after birth, as well as Hurricane Katrina, which inspired the Duhons to start their nonprofit. They have four surviving children, including one adopted from China.
In 2023, the Duhons co-hosted an $799-a-couple, religiously infused marriage retreat.
“I could say with great confidence that she loves the Lord, and that is very loud in her life,” said Brittney Serpell, a Christian parenting and marriage coach who spoke at the retreat.
In March 2024, the couple appeared in a news article about Mr. Duhon’s dealership business and posed for photos in a vintage Cadillac, with Ms. Duhon shown reclining on his arm. Two months later, they went to Louisville for the Kentucky Derby.
There, wearing a towering fascinator, Ms. Duhon posed with her husband, several women and a man in a pink-and-blue windowpane blazer: the attorney general of Texas, Ken Paxton.
Two Marriages Fall Apart
Ms. Duhon filed for divorce two months later, after 35 years with her husband, according to her book.
She wrote that she had lived in her husband’s “shadow,” not realizing “that God doesn’t want us to shrink ourselves or give up our voices to fit into our marriages.”
It is unclear when Mr. Paxton and Ms. Duhon first met, or whether their relationship factored into the end of her marriage. The divorce records are not public.
In her book, Ms. Duhon does not mention Mr. Paxton or his wife. Instead, she accuses her husband of infidelity. A person familiar with the Duhons’ marriage disputed her account. The person asked for anonymity to avoid discussing a private matter publicly. Mr. Duhon and Mrs. Paxton declined to comment.
Mr. Paxton has previously been accused of having an extramarital relationship.
In 2023, during Mr. Paxton’s impeachment by the Texas House on corruption charges, Mr. Paxton was accused of accepting a bribe from a real estate developer and campaign donor, Nate Paul, in the form of a job for a woman Mr. Paxton had been accused of seeing outside of his marriage. He was acquitted after a trial in the Texas Senate. He never directly addressed his relationship with the woman.
Mrs. Paxton stood by him at the time.
But in July 2025, after “earnestly pursuing reconciliation,” she said, she had had enough.
“In light of recent discoveries, I do not believe that it honors God or is loving to myself, my children, or Ken to remain in the marriage,” Mrs. Paxton said at the time.
In a divorce filing, she said the couple had not lived together “as spouses” since June 2024, a month after the Kentucky Derby. Mrs. Paxton did not attend, according to one of the people familiar with the event.
By that point, Mr. Paxton and Ms. Duhon appeared to be spending more time together.
Mr. Paxton has visited the New Orleans area at least five times since mid-2024, according to state travel records.
The office of the attorney general provided records showing that Mr. Paxton had official business for two of the trips. The agency had no records for the other three trips, for which the state was billed more than $13,000 for Mr. Paxton’s security detail. Mr. Paxton had not visited the city with his security detail at all in the previous four years.
By the summer of 2025, the divorce attracted intense scrutiny of Mr. Paxton and his personal relationships. But Mrs. Paxton has appeared uninterested in letting the end of her marriage undermine Mr. Paxton’s chances in next month’s election.
“In a general election, it’s not as much about the individual players on the team,” she said in an ad paid for by a political action committee affiliated with Senate Republican leaders. “It’s about getting the whole team across the finish line.”
Mrs. Paxton did not mention her husband by name.
The post The Christian Influencer at the Center of Ken Paxton’s New Life appeared first on New York Times.
