President Donald Trump recently referred to U.S. Senate hopeful Ken Paxton as “a pain in the ass,” and, at the same event, called Paxton the greatest attorney general in the country.
If this is Trump’s strategy to rally voters to support his endorsed candidate, it’s an unusual one and difficult to measure whether it will sway voters, especially since Trump’s approval ratings are hovering at around 25 percent, according to CNN.
It’s certainly not the only jab that’s been thrown ahead of the November midterms. Social media newsfeeds are filled with AI slop, endorsement commentary, and reposts of a railroad commissioner candidate’s racist tweet. The comments have perhaps entertained and, at times, raised the blood pressure of voters in recent weeks, but how much does trash talk matter on Election Day?
It all comes down to how loyal one is to their party, says Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston and co-host of the Party Politics radio show.
“There’s a method to the President’s madness,” Rottinghaus says. “I think, politically, he wants to acknowledge the fact that Ken Paxton is not a good campaigner, but ideologically the match is strong. I think the President wants to make the case that loyalty is the thing Republicans should care about.”
“The President’s approach is a little scattered, but the messaging is, at its core, clear, and it’s that Republicans need to band together with other Republicans, regardless of how their campaigns are going,” he added.
Nancy Sims, a UH political science lecturer, says it’s simpler than that.
“It’s a very strange endorsement,” she says. “That’s just Trump. He bullies people, even his own people. Ken Paxton has been so incredibly loyal to Trump, and Trump feels obligated to not lose this Senate race in Texas because that will reflect badly on him. He keeps coming [to Texas] to campaign for a guy he doesn’t like very much.”
Last week, the New York Times released leaked audio from a private fundraiser at which Paxton told an unidentified supporter that the “Trumpapalooza” rally for Texas Republicans in Dallas a few weeks prior didn’t do anything to boost his campaign.
“To be honest with you, the numbers — when we did that convention — it dropped our numbers. Everybody’s numbers dropped. Right now, yeah, not good,” Paxton says on the recording.
Paxton scored the President’s endorsement just before the candidate, who currently serves as Texas attorney general, ousted longtime incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in the March primary. Trump has criticized Paxton’s Democratic opponent James Talarico for being a “freak” and a vegan who throws up after he eats meat. Talarico’s campaign responded by making “Talafreako” T-shirts.
But Trump has been especially hard on fellow Republican Paxton, saying he doesn’t like the way Paxton dresses and calling him, among other things, “a little controversial.” In the opening sketch of Saturday Night Live on October 3, an actor portraying Trump said, “Please vote for Republicans, and yes, that includes creepy Ken Paxton down there in Texas.”
When asked whether Trump might be hedging to protect himself if Paxton loses, Sims says, “Trump endorsed Paxton over Cornyn. He created this situation, and he’s going to have to own it.”
Sims says that if Paxton loses, his supporters will likely blame a blue wave and point out that every incumbent president loses their midterms. But a statewide blue wave isn’t likely, she says.
Paxton critics have pointed to allegations of adultery and abuse of power as reasons to not elect him, noting that he owns 15 homes across the country and his AG’s office offered a light sentence to “admitted child molester” Adam Hoffman earlier this year. Democrats are also quick to point out that the Texas House of Representatives impeached Paxton for fraud in 2023. He was acquitted by the Senate.
The backlash ramped up in August when Paxton wore an untucked lavender Four Seasons Orlando golf shirt and khakis to what appeared to be a poorly attended campaign event in San Antonio. On his wrist was an expensive Hublot Aerofusion King Gold watch. Talarico posted the photo on social media with the caption: “Nothing says you understand the affordability crisis like wearing a $41,000 watch and a Four Seasons polo.”
A photo from the San Antonio event was featured in People magazine. Such coverage makes for good social media posts and talk show fodder but it doesn’t necessarily influence how people vote, Rottinghaus says.
“There’s not a lot of [research] on political memory, but in general, people forget a lot,” he says. “The media cycle is more rapid now and there’s so much more information. People can forget something that happened last week. We are living in a state of constant outrage. Also, people forget in partisan ways. Partisans forget the things that hurt their candidates but remember the things that help their candidates.”
Paxton’s wife, Texas Senator Angela Paxton, is divorcing him “on biblical grounds” but recently released an ad encouraging voters to cast ballots for Republicans “even if we’re mad at them.”
Rottinghaus said Trump’s insults, coupled with Angela Paxton’s ad, prove that discussions are occurring behind the scenes that the U.S. Senate race is going to be a close one.
“It’s saying the quiet part out loud,” he said of the GOP strategy. “Everyone acknowledges that there are liabilities for Ken Paxton’s campaign. This is a way to expose that and try to maneuver around it. I think it should have happened earlier in the campaign because that’s the point at which you want people to get past it and focus on the things they care about.”
Talarico has faced backlash for being too far left for the moderates and undecideds and for saying that “God is nonbinary” during a 2021 House debate over gender identity in K-12 sports. The candidate later explained that the statement was intended to be provocative and said that “most Christians believe God is beyond gender.”
Paxton admitted in another leaked recording that his campaign is being run primarily by D.C. insiders. Rottinghaus says that’s not surprising and it appears that Republicans are using a similar playbook to the one they used in 2024.
“It worked then but it may not work now because the economic environment is so different,” he said. “People are focused on their pocketbook not on who’s using what bathrooms or who’s playing in what sports.”
Some voters have questioned why Talarico’s primary opponent, U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, didn’t add him to the list of endorsements released by her Fire Political Action Committee last month.
Crockett, who has repeatedly reminded her critics that she endorsed Talarico the day after she lost the primary to him, says she’s focusing on down-ballot races to get Dems elected and Talarico didn’t fill out a form seeking her PAC’s endorsement.
Rottinghaus says it’s laughable that anyone would expect Talarico to ask for an endorsement.
“James Talarico is not running for city controller,” Rottinghaus says. “He’s running for U.S. Senate. I think it’s probably not important, but that she didn’t go out of her way to endorse him certainly says something about the state of their relationship. Ultimately she may include him on her list of statewides. I suspect that’s probably the minimum amount of interaction they’re going to have.”
Endorsements matter the most in down-ballot, “low information” races like justices of the peace and district judges, Rottinghaus added.
The Paxton-Talarico contest isn’t the only one in Texas drawing national attention.
On September 12, Republican railroad commissioner candidate Bo French posted a photo on X of what appeared to be South Asian students celebrating a Longhorn victory at a UT football game. He captioned it, “I heard UT graduation this year looked like this. I didn’t believe it. The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined.”
French also called the students “foreigners” who displaced Americans and shut them out of UT’s competitive application process.
Although the rhetoric wasn’t unusual for French, it left GOP leaders in a tight spot, with several denouncing the post and calling for French to take it down, but most stopping short of saying they’d vote for French’s Democrat opponent Jon Rosenthal.
Gov. Greg Abbott didn’t have an endorsement to withdraw because he’s never encouraged anyone to vote for French. Abbott endorsed French’s primary opponent in March and said that it would be disastrous to elect French, a former Tarrant County Republican Party chair with no oil and gas experience, as railroad commissioner.
Republican strategist Karl Rove, however, said he’d vote Democrat in the railroad commissioner race, calling French a bigot and advising that the party needs to “clean its stables.” Rove said he hasn’t voted for a Democrat in three decades, when he cast a ballot for Bob Bullock in the former lieutenant governor’s 1994 re-election bid.
Will voters remember that statement when they go to the polls and even if they do, would it sway a vote? Rottinghaus says some voters are looking for a reason to “vote the way they want to vote,” and someone they respect giving a public reason that supports their logic gives them permission to deviate from party lines.
“You saw Republicans say that French should take the tweet down but not drop out of the race,” Rottinghaus said. “They still want to win the race but they don’t want to be messy and racist. Polling is so wonky these days because people will say they don’t like Donald Trump but then when they’re asked if they approve of his job as president, they say yes. That’s just the nature of partisanship.”
Despite all of the negative publicity, Rottinhaus says he thinks French will win the November election.
“This is probably 25 positions down the ballot. You can ask people about that crazy tweet that the guy sent out about the UT students and they’ll say, ‘I know what you’re talking about,’ but they don’t remember the guy’s name,” Rottinghaus says.
Sims agrees. “I wish I could tell you I have more faith in voters, but I don’t. Republicans go with the red shirts. Statewide, you’ll see a couple of potential variants there, maybe in the Senate. I’m not in the camp that thinks Abbott is going to lose, but it could happen. Beyond that, I think Texas is going to remain solidly red.”
While endorsements don’t necessarily secure victorious elections, neither does a withdrawn endorsement, although perhaps the act that prompted the reneged support could sway votes, Rottinghaus says.
Abbott withdrew his support of Texas House candidate David Flores after dashcam footage surfaced last week of Flores telling a police officer during a February DWI arrest, “The governor just freaking endorsed me.” Although Abbott handed out endorsements to GOP candidates rather freely after announcing a plan to turn Harris County “dark red,” he hadn’t actually backed Flores at the time of the misdemeanor arrest.
If that election ends badly for Flores, it won’t be because he lost the governor’s support. His campaign website claims to be “under construction,” and the newly released video footage shows him using racial slurs when referring to law enforcement.
Another non-endorsement that probably doesn’t carry much weight came from Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, who told the Houston Press last month that she won’t vote for her fellow Democrat Lesley Briones in Briones’ bid for re-election as county commissioner. Rottinghaus says there are die-hard Hidalgo fans who may take that to heart, but again, people tend to support their party.
“Lina Hidalgo is a north star for a lot of younger, Democratic voters in Harris County,” he says. “If she says not to vote for somebody, there’s a chance that they won’t, but we saw all of the prominent Democrats rally for Briones in different ways.” One also has to live in Briones’ precinct to vote — or not vote — for her.
Both Sims and Rottinghaus predicted that Democrats Letitia Plummer and Dexter McCoy will be elected as Harris County judge and Fort Bend County judge, respectively.
As for how the final numbers will shake out between Paxton and Talarico on Election Day, Rottinghaus says it’s a toss-up.
“That’s not because Paxton is running a really good campaign, because he’s not, and that’s not because Talarico is running a really good campaign, which I think he is,” Rottinghaus says. “It’s a foot race. Republicans have always been good at this. The tools that they’ve used here are useful. How much they’ll work, I don’t know. A couple hundred thousand voters who would have voted for John Cornyn could decide they don’t want to vote for Ken Paxton. I think that number exists and that’s what Paxton is worried about.”
“If Talarico wins, it’ll be a very small win, and same for Paxton.”
