The Republican Senate campaign arm is frantically trying to erase its anti-Ken Paxton content after its desperate bid to save Sen. John Cornyn from being ousted in a runoff with the Texas attorney general failed.
The four-term GOP Texas senator was dramatically ousted by the MAGA diehard by more than 27 points Tuesday despite Cornyn and the National Republican Senatorial Committee spending tens of millions of dollars to try and hold off the challenge.
The NRSC waged a nasty war to hold Paxton at bay before President Donald Trump decisively tipped the race against Cornyn, 74, with a late-in-the-game Paxton endorsement.
With Cornyn out of the race and Paxton, 63, heading toward a heated general election against Democratic state Sen. James Talarico, 36, the NRSC has been quickly trying to remove its most vicious lines of attack on Paxton.
But social media users have been quick to post the NRSC’s anti-Paxton ad in the wake of the runoff results, using the Republican campaign arm’s own words against their freshly nominated Texas candidate.
The NRSC’s attack ad against Paxton claimed that while he was Texas attorney general, homicides in the state hit a nearly 30-year high, rapes were up 40 percent, and aggravated assaults were up nearly 30 percent.
“Saved this for you, @NRSC,” Senate Democrats wrote, posting the ad again.
Multiple Trump critics also shared the video as Republicans struggle to unite behind the candidate that some in their own party waged an all-out war on.
The Cornyn Lonestar Victory Fund, which was a joint venture with the GOP Senate campaign arm, also ran ads accusing “crooked Ken Paxton” of cheating on his wife, sleeping with another married mother of seven, and increasing his net worth by 7,000 percent while in office.
As the results on Tuesday showed Paxton would clinch the nomination and winning nearly every county in Texas, Democratic political operatives pointed out that the NRSC’s furious attacks on Paxton since last summer had been removed from its website.
Screengrabs of NRSC headlines show it had taken aim at Paxton not just for cheating on his wife but also for lying, using taxpayer dollars on donors, being delinquent on taxes, an demonstrating incompetence as the top law enforcement officer in Texas.
The NRSC’s communications director blasted Paxton’s infidelity in a statement last summer, calling it “truly repulsive and disgusting.”
The NRSC even shared a report about him claiming three primary residences just as the Trump administration targeted the president’s Democratic foes for alleged mortgage fraud.
But as of Wednesday, all mentions of Paxton and his “crooked” ways had been scrubbed from their website completely. The Daily Beast has asked the NRSC for comment.
After the change was pointed out, Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz snarkily wrote on X, “That’s a bummer I guess they are gone forever.”
Former Republican Rep. Barbara Comstock pointed out that the NRSC did “a nice job telling Texans what a hideous person” Paxton is.
In response to the runoff results, the NRSC released a statement, but it noticeably did not mention Paxton or Cornyn by name. It also was attributed to a staffer rather than NRSC chairman Sen. Tim Scott or Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who stuck with Cornyn to the end.
“A state President Trump won by nearly 14 points isn’t going to elect James Talarico—a radical leftist who thinks God is nonbinary and that Texas should be a welcome mat for illegals,” NRSC regional press secretary Samantha Cantrell said in a statement. “He is the most dangerous flank of the far left. Texas isn’t swapping brisket for open borders.”
Republicans are now gearing up for an expensive general election in Texas after the most expensive Senate primary in U.S. history. Cornyn, with the help of the party, spent more than $92 million alone in the primary and runoff only to come up short.
While Democrats have not won a Senate race in Texas since 1988, the matchup with Paxton is giving them fresh hope that they have a potential opening to flip the seat blue. Polling during the primary showed Cornyn trailing the Texas attorney general, but he did better in the general election matchup.
