Ken Paxton privately told a room full of donors that a big party event actually hurt his chances. The Texas Attorney General admitted the recent convention in Dallas made his polling numbers drop. He said the event hurt everyone’s numbers, not just his own. An attendee at a private fundraiser in Washington, D.C. shared audio with the press, stating, “So 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, according to The Daily Caller.
The story broke after the New York Times obtained the recording. The audio captures a moment where someone asked Paxton if he felt the President was a “little bit of a drag.” ABC News reported that three people confirmed Paxton was at the event. They said he was candid about the trouble. The general election is less than five weeks away. Time is running out to fix the damage he sees.
His campaign team reacted fast to the leak. Nick Maddux, a senior adviser, dismissed the story as “more manipulated nonsense from The New York Times to create a story that doesn’t exist” The New York Post noted that Maddux denied the claims entirely. He insisted their internal data tells a different story. “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 just humiliated Donald Trump by blaming him for why he’s losing in Texas.
When Paxton was losing the primary, Trump saved him. Now Paxton is flailing in the general, Trump is burning hundreds of millions of his own money in Texas, and Paxton turns around and stabs him… pic.twitter.com/ciwKn5XRQ0
— Mike Nellis (@MikeNellis) September 30, 2026
Public polls show a tighter race than his team claims. A recent ReconMR Texas Poll found that Democrat James Talarico leads by a small margin. The numbers show 49% for Talarico and 43% for Paxton. This puts the race in a very tight spot. The incumbent Senator John Cornyn has not backed Paxton after a bitter primary fight. Talarico says he would take an endorsement from Cornyn. The gap is real, even if the campaign says it is not.
President Donald Trump has had a strange relationship with Paxton during this cycle. At the convention, Trump praised him while also making fun of his looks. The Washington Examiner reported that Trump mocked the candidate’s attire on stage. According to him, “He may not dress right, he may not talk exactly perfectly, and he may not be the best-looking guy I’ve ever seen” But you know what he is? As the greatest attorney general in America, he deserves to be your next senator.
Trump is scheduled to visit Texas again this week. He will tour a truck facility in Denton on Thursday. His team says Paxton looks forward to closing the race alongside him. “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. The President backed Paxton over Cornyn in the primary. Now the nominee seems to worry that the same President is a liability.
The race to replace Senator John Cornyn is a battle for the future. Since 1988, Talarico is trying to be the first Democrat elected to the Senate from Texas. The convention was meant to help, but the audio suggests it did the opposite. ABC News noted that the campaign did not say if the audio was manipulated when asked directly. The White House did not respond to requests for comment.
The answer to the problem is not clear. Paxton said, “Right now? Yeah. It’s not good. I wish there was something we could do to turn that around, but obviously, nothing.” The Washington Examiner reported those exact words. The voters will decide if the convention was a mistake or a triumph. The final vote is less than a month away. The numbers are the only thing that will matter in the end.
