Texas Republicans have their candidate. Now they have to campaign for him

A curious thing took place Tuesday night. Shortly after networks began declaring Ken Paxton the winner of Texas’ Republican Senate primary runoff election, things started disappearing. Like a grid of city lights powering down during a blackout, Republicans across the American political landscape began purging their websites and timelines of content criticizing the scandal-plagued nominee. Search results turned up 404 errors, or nothing at all. You could see the party resign itself to the Trump-approved state attorney general in real time. 

The National Republican Senate Committee deleted months of press releases criticizing Paxton — an alleged philanderer and kleptocrat — as a liability to Republicans with too many skeletons in his closet. 

“Ken Paxton’s Lies and Incompetence Keep Piling Up.” 

“VIDEO: Ken Paxton is Standing in Conservatives’ Way.” 

“Ken Paxton Caught Using Taxpayer Dollars to Buy Hotel Rooms for Donors. 

In a great loss to the cultural archive of Texas politics, the NRSC deleted their response to the viral moment when state Senator Angela Paxton — Paxton’s ex-wife — announced that she would be divorcing her husband on “biblical grounds” following years of infidelity. “What Ken Paxton has put his family through is truly repulsive and disgusting,” the Senate campaign arm wrote at the time.

Majority PAC — a Democratic political action committee — noted that several other prominent GOP accounts on social media, including the NRSC, Senate Leadership Fund, and their leadership — had seemingly scrubbed their X accounts of mentions of Paxton. 

There’s a deep cynicism behind it all. The NRSC had rallied to protect incumbent Texas Senator John Cornyn, who despite narrowly defeating Paxton in the state’s March primary, was dealt a blowout defeat in Tuesday’s runoff following Trump’s endorsement of Paxton, and will now lose his seat in the upper chamber. 

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With Cornyn officially out, the priorities of the GOP campaign machine must shift to keeping his seat in Republican hands, regardless of how flawed they think the candidate is. But boy, is Paxton flawed. 

In his over 20 years of involvement in Texas politics, Paxton has been accused of a myriad of abuses ranging from the petty to behavior that should be disqualifying in a public official. In 2008, he was accused of profiting off of his office by voting in favor of government contracts for companies in which he had a financial interest. A man with sticky fingers, Paxton once nabbed a $1,000 Montblanc pen left in a metal detector tray by a lawyer at a courthouse (and later returned it after the lawyer asked that security footage be reviewed). He was indicted in 2015 on charges of fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The case dogged Paxton for nine years until he paid out $300,000 and performed some community service in exchange for the case being dropped.

It was by no means the last time he would find himself in the shadow of the laws he claimed to enforce. In 2020, Paxton was sued by four former employees who alleged that the attorney general had retaliated against them for reporting alleged instances of bribery to the FBI. The federal investigation into the accusations was quietly dismissed by the Justice Department shortly after Trump was sworn into office. 

As a result of the whistleblower debacle and the allegations it exposed, Paxton was slapped with 20 articles of impeachment by the Republican-controlled Texas state legislature. These included abuse of office, the acceptance of bribes, retaliation against whistleblowers, making false statements to the State Securities Board, and violating his oath of office. Paxton was impeached by the Texas House, but acquitted in the Senate after a two week trial. 

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Paxton was also an instrumental force in supporting Trump’s efforts to overturn the result of the 2020 election, suing several states before the supreme court in an effort to have their electoral results invalidated. The Texas bar later sued Paxton on allegations of professional misconduct, only to be rebuked by the Supreme Court. 

The list of Paxton’s scandals goes on.

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Throughout the primaries, polling consistently showed that Paxton underperformed Cornyn in a matchup against Democratic nominee James Talarico — a former schoolteacher and seminarian who has served in the Texas House since 2018. While Cornyn was about as committed a Republican as they come, Paxton has made a point to style himself as a Trump-aligned MAGA loyalist. In an election year when the president is incredibly unpopular, and large swaths of Americans are experiencing the fallout of his erratic governance and the economically devastating war on Iran, proximity to Trump while attempting to fend off your own liabilities could be a recipe for disaster in a general election. To that effect, Republican strategists have estimated that it could cost the GOP’s various fundraising entities up to $250 million to avoid losing the seat. The price tag reflects the burden of the candidate.

Less than 24 hours into his campaign as the official Republican nominee, Paxton is attempting to paint his opponent as a soft, trangender-obsessed radical leftist who doesn’t eat meat and wants open borders. It’s similar to the manner in which Republican candidates campaigned in 2024. But a lot has happened since Trump retook office, and the political landscape has shifted drastically. Trump once gloated that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose any voters, and he may have been right. But what he hasn’t been able to do is tank the economy and not feel the sting of public rebuke, and it’s safe to say that while some conservatives and independents may be willing to forgive many of the president’s blunders, that same grace is not guaranteed down the ballot.