Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Republican Senate candidate from the Lone Star State, privately told conservative donors and lobbyists that the party’s widely promoted midterm convention in Dallas earlier this month had hurt GOP polling numbers.
“To be honest with you, the numbers — when we did that convention, it dropped our numbers. Everybody’s numbers dropped,” Paxton said at the gathering last week, according to audio obtained by The New York Times. “Right now, yeah, not good.”
Paxton is engaged in a closely contested Senate race against state Rep. James Talarico, who is seeking to become the first Democrat elected to the Senate from Texas since 1988. Talarico holds a 2.9-percentage-point lead over Paxton in the RealClearPolitics polling average.
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Paxton campaign adviser Nick Maddux dismissed the report as “more manipulated nonsense from The New York Times to create a story that doesn’t exist.” He said the campaign’s latest poll, conducted the previous week, showed Paxton leading by three points and that “every serious pollster” would say the Republican’s position had improved since early September. “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,” Maddux said.
Trump is scheduled to appear Thursday at a Peterbil Motors facility in Denton, Texas, as part of his final campaign push to help Republican candidates win and preserve GOP control of the House and Senate.
