TYLER, Texas (AP) — It was an unfamiliar setting for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton Monday night: walking out to the applause of supporters at his first campaign rally since the Republican announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate 10 months ago.
Paxton's appearance before about 100 supporters in a bar in east Texas is part of his stepped-up campaign to unseat four-term Republican Sen. John Cornyn and add a “Make America Great Again” devotee to the Senate, a bid that has set up one of this year's most contentious GOP primaries.
Until Monday, Paxton had waged a lower-wattage campaign, spent relatively little money and drew attention primarily by pursuing conservative causes as the state attorney general. But with early voting starting Tuesday for the March 3 primary, Paxton is scheduled to make stops across Texas this week. He also has begun airing ads linking himself with President Donald Trump as he takes on Cornyn and Rep. Wesley Hunt.
Despite being the target of millions of dollars in attack ads from Cornyn and his allies, and opposition from Senate Republican leaders who say Cornyn is the stronger candidate in a general election, Paxton is heading into the GOP primary with the look of his party's front-runner.
“His money is coming from the D.C. establishment,” Paxton said of Cornyn as he spoke from the bar's bandstand. “That's how he can afford these commercials and that's how they always try to convince us from Washington with their money that we should select their person. Well, I'm not their person and I'm never going to be their person.”
The comment sparked a round of applause.
Paxton's political survival would appear to defy convention, much like Trump's did. Paxton beat impeachment on fraud charges in 2023, and today is shadowed by claims of marital infidelity made by his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton.
The three-term attorney general is betting that his defiance of his own party's leaders and aggressive litigation for conservative priorities will help him overcome ethical and personal questions that voters in the Republican-leaning state have, at least until now, forgiven.
“They see him as a threat," said Jennifer Seppi, a 57-year-old homeschool teacher from Tyler, who attended the event and supports Paxton. “He's definitely a threat to the old-boy system. The impeachment proved that.”
Stepped up campaigning as early voting begins
Paxton kicked off a four-day series of rallies put on by Lone Star Liberty PAC, a super PAC supporting him, to remind people that early voting in Texas begins Tuesday.
His previous campaign stops have been lower-profile events, including county GOP gatherings with other candidates. He traveled to five Texas college campuses in the fall to speak with Turning Point USA chapters after the conservative Christian group's national founder, Charlie Kirk, was assassinated.
But until this week, that's essentially been it for Paxton's public campaign efforts, outside of a handful of podcasts with friendly hosts.
Until Friday, the only television ad on Paxton's behalf in Texas was one that cost $674,000 to air, according to the ad-tracking service AdImpact.
That spot attacked Hunt, a two-term House member from the Houston area, not Cornyn. Like Paxton, Hunt is trying to appeal to primary voters looking for an alternative to Cornyn. By criticizing Hunt, Paxton allies are trying to peel off some of his voters in hopes of winning at least 50% of the primary vote — the threshold needed to win the GOP nomination outright. If no candidate receives 50%, the top two finishers would advance to a May 26 runoff.
Paxton's campaign began airing an ad Friday that features video clips of Trump praising Paxton and images of them together. Trump as of Monday has not endorsed any of the three Republicans in the race.
Retired businessman Vincent Coglin said Paxton reminds him of Trump, someone he views as persecuted by powerful interests but willing to do what he believes is right.
“I like him for the same reasons I like Trump. Paxton says what he's going to do and he does it,” said Coglin, from Marshall in east Texas. “None of us is perfect. Neither are they. But you know what you're getting.”
Trump declined to weigh in on the race when asked about it on Air Force One Monday. “I haven't made a decision on that race yet,” he said. “I like all three of them.”
Paxton has relied on his office in Austin to remain at the center of conservative efforts.
Last year, he sued Texas physicians over claims they violated the state's ban on gender-affirming care for minors, affirming a key priority for social conservatives in their opposition to what they call gender ideology.
In October, just weeks after Trump implored pregnant women repeatedly, “Don’t take Tylenol,” Paxton sued companies behind the pain reliever, accusing them of deceptively marketing it specifically to expectant women, asserting unproven claims that early exposure to its active ingredient increased risks of autism.
Most notably, Paxton led numerous legal challenges against the previous Joe Biden administration over immigration and border policies, often succeeding and burnishing his credentials as a conservative crusader. Paxton, who was first elected attorney general in 2014, also sued Barack Obama's administration regularly in the final two years of the two-term Democrat's administration.
“He's just a strong advocate for our values,” said Perry Seppi, the 60-year-old husband of the homeschool teacher Jennifer. “It seems he works pretty hard to keep Texas on the straight path.”
The steady stream of litigation has kept Paxton in the headlines as Cornyn and his allies have spent heavily to try to bloody his image among Republican primary voters.
As of Friday, Cornyn's campaign and allied super PACs had spent more than $54 million on television advertising since last year, according to AdImpact. Much of it was reminding voters of Paxton's impeachment and his wife's divorce claim on “biblical grounds,” alleging extramarital affairs. The groups have spent millions more on digital ads, text messaging and direct mail, also attacking Paxton.
In one ad, sponsored by Texans for a Conservative Majority, a narrator says at the outset: “Ken Paxton isn't just corrupt. He's weird.”
Republican strategists unaffiliated with any of the campaigns say the spending and months of warnings haven't significantly hurt Paxton, who projects confidence. No senator in Texas’ storied political history has served more than four terms. And Paxton believes he is better known than almost any statewide elected Republican in Texas, including Cornyn.
Speaking on a December podcast, Paxton said the “only other people with name ID” in the state are Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who are seeking reelection, and Sen. Ted Cruz.
Republican Senate leaders in Washington say Paxton as the GOP nominee would require hundreds of millions of dollars more to defend in a general election, given expected attacks, than Cornyn would. And they say that's money the party shouldn't have to spend in Texas, a state Trump carried by over 13 percentage points.
Democrats must net a total of four seats to overtake Republicans’ Senate majority in November. The minority party is expressing renewed confidence in vying for Republican-held seats in Alaska, Maine, North Carolina and Ohio.
In Texas, U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett and state Rep. James Talarico are seeking the Democratic nomination. Paxton would perform worse than Cornyn in the November election against either Democrat, strategists for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the campaign group led by Senate Majority Leader John Thune, said in an early February memo obtained by The Associated Press.
“Cornyn wins the general election," the memo states. “Paxton puts the seat at risk.”
___
Associated Press writer Joey Cappelletti contributed from Washington.