Paxton Claims Trump Dallas Event Hurt Him
Before Internal Poll Shows Him Leading Dem
Texas Republican's Camp Shoots the Messenger on Private Admission to Donors
Despite Audio Recording and Says He's Poised to Win Fight for the U.S. Senate
Capitol Inside
September 30, 2026
Texas Republican Ken Paxton is throwing up desperation Hail Mary's in a frantic attempt to save a floundering U.S. Senate campaign - claiming that President Donald Trump's midterm convention in Dallas hurt him before an internal poll that he released on Tuesday found him with his biggest lead yet in the race.
After pinning hopes for a surge almost exclusively on the president and his novel Texas rally in a fight that Democrat James Talarico has led since the start of July, Paxton went 180-degrees when he told lobbyists and donors last week that Trump event earlier this month actually set him back. .
The New York Times revealed Paxton's discontent with Trump on Wednesday with a report based on an audio from the private gathering last week in Washington D.C. with a dozen people who he apparently viewed as supporters. While the NYT acknowledged the recording was muffled at times, the newspaper said that multiple attendees confirmed Paxton's analysis of the GOP's first ever midterm convention at the meeting in the nation's capital.
“So to be honest with you, the numbers — when we did that convention — it dropped our numbers," Paxton said. "Everybody’s numbers dropped. Right now, yeah, not good.”
Paxton's camp had claimed in the wake of the midterm event that he'd experienced a slingshot effect from the Dallas convention. But his admission that the midterm rally had the opposite effect when speaking behind closed doors demonstrated that he'd been dead wrong about the ostensible boost his team trumpeted in private conversations after it ended.
The midterm convention appeared to be a disaster in the making after the most unpopular president in modern times hatched it for the sake of helping Paxton and other Republicans in tight races. The event proved to be a showcase for everything that's been fueling a massive blue wave for which the GOP has been bracing before the second midterm election on Trump's watch 35 days from now.
Paxton's unhappiness with Trump is completely understandable after the way the president treated him at the midterm convention that the state attorney general had expected to be a launching pad to the winner's circle in the Texas Senate contest. Trump called Paxton the greatest state AG in the USA but tempered the high praise with nasty remarks about the way the Texas Republican looks and talks.
Paxton on the other hand probably owes Trump a significant gratitude for squeezing money from GOP super PACs to bankroll a campaign that had been a flop in the fundraising arena. But you would never know that Paxton had said a disparaging word about the president based on a statement from his campaign on its internal polling.
Despite the revelations about Paxton's complaints about Trump several days before, the Senate campaign's senior advisor Nick Maddux sought to discredit the NYT story by attacking the source. “This is more manipulated nonsense from The New York Times to create a story that doesn’t exist,” Maddux said.
The Pulse Decision Science survey of 800 likely voters for the Paxton campaign showed him in front of Talarico by 3 percentage points with support from 48 percent. Talarico was ahead of Paxton by 3 points in average in 11 polls on the Senate fight in September before the Republican claimed to have overtaken him based on his own polling. Talarico was in front of the AG in 10 of the previous polls this month while one survey showed the Senate candidates dead even. The Democratic state representative from Austin was on top in 22 of 24 polls on the Senate race since the last week in June. One found Paxton up by 1 point while a second showed the candidates tied.
“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. “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.”
more to come ...
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