PARANOID PAXTON: Bad Blood Spills Over in the Texas Senate Race — and it’s Tearing Republicans Apart [NBC News]

NBC News: “Many in Paxton’s corner are convinced those aligned with Cornyn are trying to tank his chances, while other Republicans say Paxton’s negatives are so high and his litany of scandals so long that few want to associate with him”

GOP Operative Karl Rove: “This is going to be one of the ugliest, nastiest races in the history of Texas because of the record of [Ken Paxton]”

Amid a “brutal stretch” for corrupt Texas GOP Senate candidate Ken Paxton, a new NBC News report is zeroing in on the “fissures” within the Texas Republican Party that are “tearing Republicans apart” and “threaten[ing] to sideline GOP efforts on the eve of a critical midterm election.” 

Months after Trump defied Senate Republicans and endorsed scandal-plagued Paxton, factions of the GOP remain “bitterly at odds” with one another, with “no hope for a detente before Election Day — or perhaps ever,” with Paxton himself remarking that Cornyn is “clearly not helping” and “wants [him] to lose.” 

This comes as the paranoid Paxton campaign remains convinced that “John Cornyn and Karl Rove are working against [them]” and “trying to tank [Paxton’s] chances” while Texas Republicans “say Paxton’s negatives are so high and his litany of scandals so long that few want to associate with him.”

See for yourself: 

NBC News: Bad blood spills over in the Texas Senate race — and it’s tearing Republicans apart

• It’s been a brutal stretch for Republican Texas Senate candidate Ken Paxton.
• Damaging leaks of his private conversations. Public details of his past romantic affairs. Regular jabs at his physical appearance.
• The curious part about it all? At least some of his allies are convinced the sabotage is coming from within his own party.
• In the waning days of a campaign that could help decide control of the Senate, Texas Republicans remain bitterly at odds since a May primary ousted longtime Republican Sen. John Cornyn and installed Paxton as the nominee with President Donald Trump’s help.
• Interviews with more than a dozen Texas Republicans involved in the crossfire make it clear there’s no hope for a detente before Election Day — or perhaps ever. A May phone call between factions went sideways, according to people familiar with the conversation. And teams for Cornyn and Paxton can’t even agree about what communications have taken place personally between the two.
• Many in Paxton’s corner are convinced those aligned with Cornyn are trying to tank his chances, while other Republicans say Paxton’s negatives are so high and his litany of scandals so long that few want to associate with him. They also say it was incumbent on Paxton and the groups supporting him to smooth things over with Cornyn, who pledged to endorse the Republican ticket without specifying Paxton.
• Those trying to stay neutral are betting each side is laying the groundwork to cast blame if Democrat James Talarico ends up claiming the Senate seat.
• It all reveals extraordinary intraparty dynamics in a state where Republicans have for so long dominated. Some say the fissures threaten to sideline GOP efforts on the eve of a critical midterm election.
• “There’s no doubt on our end that John Cornyn and Karl Rove are working against us,” a Republican working on Paxton’s race said when asked about damaging private conversations leaked to media outlets. “They’d rather be able to say ‘told you so’” than risk a Democrat winning the seat, added the person, who, like others in this article, was granted anonymity to speak candidly.
• A September NBC5 Dallas/Telemundo Station Group poll showed Talarico at 46% and Paxton at 43%, within the survey’s margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. At the same time, Republicans are showing growing signs of retreat from Trump, and polls and interviews reveal Latinos have shifted back to Democrats — including in Texas — after having supported Trump in 2024. A NBC5 Dallas/Telemundo Station Group poll of Texas Latinos showed that Democrats garnered at least 54% of the Latino vote after Trump won 55% of the group’s support in 2024, according to exit polls.
• Paxton’s lagging candidacy has had Trump visiting the state to rally behind the candidate he picked over Cornyn. It’s unclear to what extent it will help.
• Even in speeches backing Paxton, Trump has poked fun at the attorney general, including making fun of his looks and how he speaks.
• Paxton himself has said Cornyn isn’t in his corner, according to recently leaked audio.
• “He’s clearly not helping. He wants me to lose,” Paxton said at a recent fundraiser, according to leaked audio of the event obtained by CNN, the fifth such leak from that fundraiser in recent weeks.
• It’s something Cornyn’s camp adamantly denies.
• JW Wintersteen, former finance chair of the Republican Party of Texas, who is neutral in the back-and-forth, said Cornyn could go further.
• “It does not help when the incumbent is not loudly supporting the party’s nominee. It does not help. It’s just the truth,” Wintersteen said.
• In August, Cornyn revealed he was using his connections to raise money for Senate races other than Paxton’s. Cornyn told The Texas Tribune that Paxton was “lazy and didn’t raise money” and that he was a “poor campaigner.” After Cornyn lost to Paxton, he said he stood by his description of Paxton as a “crook.”
• “We haven’t seen a midterm produce such a threat to the dominance of the GOP in Texas statewide. It’s real,” [Wintersteen] said. “I don’t think it’s just nonsense in the public polls.”
• The chasm within Texas Republican Party ranks was again laid bare in late September when Rove — the former senior adviser to former President George W. Bush, longtime Cornyn ally and outsize figure in Texas Republican politics — knocked Paxton at the Texas Tribune Festival over allegations that played out in the attorney general’s 2023 impeachment trial.
• “If John Cornyn were the nominee, this race would be over,” Rove said. “But when you got a guy who’s got multiple girlfriends, $200,000 worth of improvements in his house from a corrupt business guy for whom he does favors … and now it’s in the court of public opinion. If this were not out there, this would be a normal Republican versus Democrat.”
• Paxton was impeached by 60 members of his own party in 2023 on charges of misconduct and abuse of his office. The state Senate, however, then acquitted him. At the time, Paxton called the impeachment vote “illegal, unethical, and profoundly unjust.”
• Rove has publicly referred to the charges, including in 2023, when he said the only person Paxton had to blame for his predicament was himself. Paxton had once blamed Rove for helping instigate impeachment proceedings — which Rove denied.
• Today, the bad blood still boils hot. A person close to Rove said Paxton’s side has long underestimated how difficult the Senate race would turn out to be, particularly with an embattled candidate. Worse, the person said, Paxton has made little attempt to smooth things over, saying the only overture from anyone associated with his team came from Jeff Roe, a Republican strategist who is involved with Paxton’s outside operation. The two spoke in May, around the time Trump made an eleventh-hour endorsement of Paxton, all but sealing Cornyn’s fate in the Texas runoff.
• According to a person with knowledge of Rove’s understanding of the phone call, Roe asserted that with a Paxton victory, the Texas Senate race would be easier for Republicans to win and classified as “Tier 2” — in other words, it wouldn’t be a top-of-mind concern for the national party.
• At that, Rove delivered a sharp reply: “If you think that you’re in a Tier 2 race, buckle up, baby. You’re in a Tier 1 race. This is going to be one of the ugliest, nastiest races in the history of Texas because of the record of your candidate.”
• Another person with knowledge of the conversation said Roe had tried to convey that Paxton would be better positioned to draw out the conservative base.
• In the end, however, Rove was no closer to mending differences with Paxton. And today, the race is very much top-tier for Republicans. Since Sept. 1, Republicans have spent $179 million on ads in the race, while Democrats have spent $53 million, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact.
• A person close to Paxton expressed frustration over what they characterized as pettiness on the part of Cornyn. The person noted that Paxton’s estranged wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, who cited “adultery” when she filed for divorce last yeat, even cut a TV commercial urging Republicans to vote red for the full ticket. In the ad, however, she didn’t specifically name Ken Paxton.
• A Texas GOP strategist said there was potential impact from the intraparty feud.
• “If Talarico wins by a small amount, you have to chalk some of it up to — Republicans didn’t unify,” said the strategist, who asked not to be named to speak candidly about the race. “In a game of inches, all of this is going to make a difference.”