Ken Paxton, Donald Trump’s endorsed candidate in the crucial Texas Senate race, has been caught badmouthing the president.
The embattled Texas Attorney General was recorded saying Trump’s midterm convention in Dallas earlier this month damaged his election hopes.
“Do you feel like he’s a little bit of a drag?” a person could be heard asking Paxton in audio obtained by The New York Times.
“So to be honest with you, the numbers—when we did that convention—it dropped our numbers. Everybody’s numbers dropped,” Paxton replied. “Right now, yeah, not good.”
The audio was recorded at a private fundraising event in Washington, D.C. Someone who opposes scandal-hit Paxton’s Senate campaign recorded it and passed it to the Times.
Polls have frequently shown that Paxton is trailing Democratic candidate James Talarico in the crucial Texas Senate race. A Marist Poll published last week showed Talarico with a 6-point lead over Paxton (50 percentage points to 44) with the midterms just weeks away.
If Talarico pulls off a shock victory and flips the Texas Senate seat, long considered a red stronghold, it would go a long way toward Democrats seizing control of the upper chamber in the Nov. 3 elections.
Dozens of Republican lawmakers avoided attending Trump’s midterm convention, believing that distancing themselves from the deeply unpopular president would improve their election hopes.
Paxton, a staunch Trump supporter for years, did attend the flop event from Sept. 9-10, where Trump made the dubious vow to hand every American adult $5,000 if Republicans retain control of the House and Senate in the midterm elections.
Trump also bizarrely decided to mock Paxton on stage, saying he “may not talk exactly perfectly, and he may not be the best-looking guy I’ve ever seen.”
Nick Maddux, a senior Paxton adviser, dismissed the Times’ reporting as “manipulated nonsense” to help “create a story that doesn’t exist.”
“Our latest poll from the last week has Ken Paxton leading by three points, and every serious pollster will tell you that our numbers have improved since early September,” Maddux said, referring to a Paxton-sponsored survey which showed the Republican ahead of Talarico by 48 percent to 45.
“Ken Paxton is going to win this race, and he looks forward to closing strong alongside President Trump, including when he comes to Texas this week.”
Multiple Republicans have expressed fears that Paxton will torpedo the GOP’s chances of retaining what is usually a solid-red Texas Senate seat in November.
Paxton won a bitter GOP Texas Senate primary after securing an endorsement from veteran incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, whom many establishment Republicans believe had a much better chance of winning the Nov. 3 race against Talarico.
Paxton was impeached by his own party in 2023 after being accused of a string of corruption, bribery, and obstruction-of-justice allegations. The Texas Senate acquitted Paxton on all 16 articles of impeachment.
Paxton continues to be dogged by numerous scandals, including even more corruption allegations, and his wife filing for divorce last year on “biblical grounds” after rumors of an affair surfaced.
Days after headlining the midterm convention, Trump suggested Paxton’s election chances had improved because the Texas attorney general appeared in Dallas.
“The fact that we had such a successful convention really helped Ken Paxton,” Trump said. “He was a big part of it…I hear that the convention helped Ken Paxton a lot.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
