Abbott Yanks Support from House Nominee
as Paxton Gives Trump Shot at Redemption
Breaking: Fox News Poll Shows Talarico Up by 7
Capitol Inside
October 1, 2026
Governor Greg Abbott suffered his first major setback in a quixotic quest to turn Harris County blue on Thursday when Republican Ken Paxton gave President Donald Trump a chance in Denton to mitigate the damage that he said he'd done to his U.S. Senate bid at a midterm convention 40 miles away in Dallas last month.
Abbott had an embarrassing moment today when he felt compelled to withdraw an endorsement for David Flores - the GOP nominee in the race for House District 144 in Houston - based on a recent DWI arrest and racial slurs he makes in a police video of the incident. Flores is trying to oust Democratic State Rep. Mary Ann Perez in HD 144 in the general election 32 days from now.
Perez is one of a half-dozen Texas House Democrats who Abbott targeted for defeat at the polls this fall in districts in Houston that have been Democratic strongholds. The governor announced the red conversion plan for the state's largest county in December with maximum fanfare when he thought the GOP would build on Trump's success in the Lone Star State in 2024.
But Abbott failed to anticipate the prospects for a blue wave that was bubbling up at the time on the horizon - and he's said little in recent months about the House races he targeted in Houston in districts where the GOP nominees appear to have no chance whatsoever to win this year. Abbott appeared to see the Democrat who was gunning for him - Gina Hinojosa - as a token opponent who would never be the threat that she has become in a race that could go down to the wire before it's settled at the polls.
Paxton had bigger fish to fry in the Dallas-Fort Worth area on Thursday in the Texas Senate race that Democrat James Talarico has been leading for the past three months. The Republican Senate candidate's day ended on a bad note when a Beacon/Shaw poll for Fox News showed Talarico ahead of Paxton by 7 points - the largest lead the Democrat has had up to now in the polling on the Senate competition here this year. The survey that was conducted September 24-28 found Talarico with support from 53 percent compared to 46 percent for Paxton among registered voters in the survey. The Democrat, however, was ahead by only two points among likely Texas voters with 51 percent support.
After admitting last week in a private meeting that Trump hurt his Senate campaign at the GOP's first-ever convention for a midterm election, Paxton didn't let the experience stop him from appearing with the president at a press conference and rally at the Peterbilt Motors Company plant this afternoon in Denton.
Trump claimed the day before that he hadn't heard that Paxton told contributors in Washington D.C. last week that the president had done him and other Republicans more harm than good with the event at the American Airlines Center in downtown Dallas on September 9 and 10. The state attorney general, Paxton apparently wasn't aware that someone he viewed as an ally would record his words behind closed doors and then leak it to the New York Times.
Paxton's campaign did not dispute the facts in the NYT report that was based on an audio and eyewitness accounts from people in the room at the time. But Paxton's advisor Michelle Smith dismissed the piece as fake news that she portrayed as par for the course at the newspaper that broke the story.
But after Paxton vowed to stand strong with Trump at the latest Texas stop, the president said at the Denton press conference that he didn't even know that the Senate nominee was in the building until he made a pitch for his campaign and asked if he was there. Trump then noticed Paxton standing off to the side of the stage and acknowledged his presence.
Trump had mocked Paxton repeatedly at the convention in Dallas - making jokes about the way he looks and speaks. Trump's insults overshadowed the praise he'd heaped out and repeated again on Thursday when he called the Texas Senate contender the best there's ever been at the job he's had for almost 12 years. But Trump added a personal and authentic touch to the plug he dished out to Paxton today in Denton.
"And I want to say he's been a friend of mine a long time," Trump said of the Texas AG. "One of the most loyal people. When I was being hit by the radical left - very hard, harder than very few people could have withstood it. I was being hit. Ken Paxton was by my side - more than anybody."
Trump was referring in part to Paxton's attempt to overturn the 2020 election at the U.S. Supreme Court on his behalf based on fabricated claims about rampant voter fraud that had been rejected in dozens of lower courts across the land.
"And I have to always remember that - because he can be a pain in the ass sometimes, I'll be honest with you," Trump added, then looked around the room. "Is he here by the way? Oh, there he is. I didn't even know he was here. I don't care. The guy is the greatest attorney general in the United States of America."
Abbott will still get the credit if Flores pulls off an upset that's unfathomable - and the HD 144 seat will go down as a loss on the governor's record in the Harris County crusade even though he revoked the endorsement for Flores a month before the election.
Barring dramatic developments that are unforeseen, Abbott can expect to lose all six targeted House fights in the state's largest county that the incumbent governor may find difficult to carry in November in a battle with Hinojosa, who's come close to catching him in polls in the past month.
The Houston Democrats the governor said he planned to target include State Reps. Gene Wu, Ana Hernandez, Armando Walle and Penny Morales Shaw. Abbott also said he'd try to flip the House seat that Democrat Jon Rosenthal is giving up for a statewide bid for railroad commissioner. The targeted Democrats are all prohibitive favorites against the candidates who Abbott is backing - or was.
more to come ...
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