Yes, Ken Paxton could lose Texas
But it's not for the reasons you expect
Over the coming months a lot of ink will be spilled about Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s many scandals. As if that is possible considering how much Senator John Cornyn and the NRSC already did that. It is certainly easy to focus on those and frankly gets more eyeballs.
But just under the surface of all that are the issues that Paxton is running on — or more appropriately, not running on.
We don’t need to litigate why costs and inflation are the key concern of Americans heading into the midterms. We all feel it in some form, and it is a concern that has bedeviled just about any incumbent democratic government anyplace on Earth. But what is Ken Paxton focused on heading into the general election phase of his race against Democratic State Rep. James Talarico?
Other than coming up with nicknames for Talarico, his actual policy proposals are nowhere near what’s on the minds of the voters of Texas. His talking points are to “carry the torch” for Trump, America First foreign policy, border security, blaming Joe Biden for the national debt, and supporting cryptocurrency.
His own website says:
The radical left is determined to undermine our conservative values, and too often there are RINO Republicans willing to help them do it. We’ve seen an unprecedented assault on our Constitutional freedoms — like our 2nd Amendment rights — from “Republicans” and Democrats alike. Ken Paxton is running to stop the career politicians who are attacking our way of life. He will stand with President Trump to protect our gun rights, defend the unborn, and defeat the radical transgender movement that’s desperate to put men in girls’ sports and woke indoctrination in our classrooms.
This is a base appeal, which works best when the momentum is on the side of one’s party. But base appeal only gets a candidate so far when their broader universe of voters – the general electorate – are focused on policies that have more immediate impact on their lives.
Polling from the Texas Politics Project at The University of Texas has found that 86% of Texans indicate concern about the rising cost of gasoline, including 61% who say they are very concerned. This, of course, is driven by the War in Iran, which the poll found that just 36% of Texans support, versus the 49% who are opposed. 55% of Texans believe that Trump’s tariff policies have hurt their family economically, including 81% of independents and nearly a third of Republicans. Overall, just 26% of Texans said their personal economic situation has improved over the last year, versus 39% who have said they’re now worse off. Another third indicated it’s about the same. Paxton is also continuing to tie himself firmly to Trump, who is underwater in the Lone Star State with a 50% disapproval rating versus a 42% approval rating, including 73% of independents who disapprove.
Even the strongest issue for Republicans – immigration and border security – is falling in importance to Texans. Among the top eight issues identified by voters in the Texas Politics Project poll found immigration as the fourth most important issue with 8% of voters indicating as such, and border security coming in seventh at 4%. This isn’t localized to Democrats and Independents either. Only 20% of Republicans selected immigration or border security as their top issue, a sharp fall from the 53% of Texas Republicans in December 2024. The leading issues for Republicans, at 24%, are economy, inflation, or gas prices.
If these kinds of numbers hold, not just with Democrats and Independents, but Republicans too, Ken Paxton would be heading into November far removed from what voters are talking about. To understand how damaging this could be, look no further than Virginia’s gubernatorial election in 2025 (before Iran and a jump in gas prices), where the sitting Lieutenant Governor, Republican Winsome Earle-Sears, lost in a 15-point landslide to Democratic Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger.
Exit polling in Virginia from CNN found that 48% of voters rated the economy as their top concern and 21% said health care. Spanberger won these voters by 27 points and 63 points, respectively. Spanberger remained hyper focused on these issues while Earle-Sears was talking about anti-transgender policies in school and anti-woke policies. While these issues proved effective enough in 2021 to elect Republican Glenn Youngkin to the governorship, with Earle-Sears as his lieutenant, they were not the issues on the minds of voters four years later. It was a base appeal, off the mark enough for Spanberger to win over 27% of voters who approved of Governor Youngkin (who had a 53% approval rating), 15% of non-MAGA Republicans, and flip some rural counties while taking 46% overall of rural Virginia — a significant showing when Democrats nationwide regularly struggle to appeal to rural communities.
If Ken Paxton doesn’t want to end up in second place, he will have to rapidly adjust his focus to a broader swath of Texans. Right now, his focus is on a base-only appeal, which might not cut it when there are more Texans, including some Republicans, who are not part of his core base, and have serious misgivings about the state of things. In the Democratic wave midterms of 2018, Senator Ted Cruz edged out just a 2.5-point margin of victory over Congressman Beto O’Rourke when Trump was relatively more popular, and the economy was humming along. This time around, Trump is much more unpopular, and economic concerns are the single biggest concern for voters.
Will the majority of the base “come home” by November? Most likely in our hyperpartisan era. But without speaking to the concerns of Texans and running a base-only campaign, Paxton runs the risk of putting some Republicans in Talarico’s camp, juicing an already high turnout prediction for Democrats, and stunting turnout from Republicans who don’t like either of their choices.