State Sen. Angela Paxton is telling Republican women to stick with the GOP even if they are angry at a candidate, her first public comments that touch the U.S. Senate race since she filed to divorce Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Paxton, a McKinney Republican, spoke Friday to more than 100 Texas Federation of Republican Women board members at a ticketed meeting in Round Rock titled “The Elephant in the Room.” She did not name her estranged husband, who is the Republican nominee against Democratic state Rep. James Talarico, The Texas Tribune reported. Video of the remarks was posted on Facebook by a State Republican Executive Committee member and the DeWitt County GOP.
“It’s not the people — it’s the seat,” she said. “Because we have more control over that seat and the future when we control the seat — when it’s still in the family, even if we’re mad at them. But if we lose it to the other team, the nuances that we want to fix with maybe a certain candidate are nothing compared to what it’s going to take to get it back, right?”
People in the room said she told Republican women they will decide the election and that if they cannot vote for a candidate, they should vote against the opponent. She also pointed to Sen. Ted Cruz’s narrow 2018 win and the down-ballot races Republicans lost that year. She argued parties punish members who break ranks and that “the party comes with the person.”
Paxton filed for divorce in 2025 on what she called biblical grounds. Her petition cited adultery. She sat through her husband’s 2023 impeachment trial in the Texas Senate but was not allowed to vote. Ken Paxton was acquitted. He defeated Sen. John Cornyn in the GOP primary after Angela Paxton issued runoff endorsements in other statewide races but left the Senate contest off the list, The Dallas Morning News reported at the time.
The Texas Federation of Republican Women has more than 10,000 members and a large get-out-the-vote network. Angela Paxton did not immediately comment after the speech. Recent polling has shown an unusually tight Texas Senate race, with Talarico holding a narrow average lead within the margin of error.
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