Donald Trump spent all of Tuesday crisscrossing Texas, holding back to back rallies in Corpus Christi and Lubbock in a desperate push to drag Ken Paxton across the finish line in a Senate race Republicans never expected to sweat. One week before Election Day, the sitting President of the United States is burning entire days in a state his party has owned for three decades, and his own performance made clear exactly why.
At the Lubbock Memorial Civic Center, Trump fumbled the one job he flew in to do. “Maybe I should do that with Ken Paxton, but I’m not sure your body’s, is gonna qualify. I’m gonna do it with Ken,” he told the crowd, needing two tries just to land the name of the candidate he came to rescue. Believe it or not, that was one of Paxton’s better moments of the day.
The panic is not subtle. Trump has now made four trips to Texas in two months, and Tuesday’s swing marked his second rally day with Paxton in October alone after stops in Denton and San Antonio. Presidents do not spend that kind of time in a reliably red state unless the numbers scare them, and the numbers do. The latest survey shows the race deadlocked at 49% apiece between Paxton and Democrat James Talarico, while other recent polling puts Talarico narrowly ahead within the margin of error. Democrats have not won a statewide race in Texas since 1994, and Republicans are suddenly staring at the possibility that a 32 year losing streak ends because they nominated the most scandal soaked politician in the state.
Even Trump’s allies admitted it on stage. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick told the Corpus Christi crowd that Republicans have “always walked in to November knowing we are going to win, but we’re at risk.” Early voting data showing Democratic enthusiasm has only deepened the alarm.
Trump Asked Texans To Squint At Paxton’s Record
The day opened at the Port of Corpus Christi, where Trump delivered a roughly 80 minute speech that spent most of its runtime promoting Paxton and ridiculing Talarico. His big pitch for the nominee was a request that voters look away. “They talk about him as a lawyer. Everything he did, in fact, maybe I sort of said, look, we gotta look at it a little differently. Everything he did was for Texas,” Trump said.
Nobody asks you to look at an honest man’s record “a little differently.” So let’s look at it the normal way. Paxton was impeached by the Republican controlled Texas House in 2023 on charges of abusing his office for personal gain, suspended from his duties for more than three months, and ultimately acquitted by a state Senate stacked with his allies. He spent nearly a decade under securities fraud indictment before settling, and his long record of corruption scandals has rattled even members of his own party. Talarico, meanwhile, has spent the fall pushing to unseal six hours of testimony Paxton gave under oath in a fraud lawsuit, testimony Paxton’s lawyers have fought to keep hidden from voters.
Texas Taxpayers Funded His Vacation Lifestyle
The freshest entry in Paxton’s file may be the most galling. Reporters who reviewed his security detail logs and office records found that Paxton has taken nearly 1,000 trips with a taxpayer funded security detail since 2015, costing Texans $3.3 million. They could tie just 138 of those trips, about 1 in 6, to actual state business.
The details get worse the closer you look. During his 2023 impeachment suspension, when Paxton was barred from conducting any official business at all, he still took at least 17 trips with his state police escort, including visits to resort destinations like Park City, Utah and Vail, Colorado. Last year, only 5 of his 91 trips with the detail listed any business purpose. His security spending runs about $24,300 a month, more than three times what Greg Abbott’s detail cost during his final years as attorney general. Some of that travel overlapped with states where Paxton and his family’s trust have been buying property, part of a portfolio of 15 properties worth roughly $11 million, 10 of them purchased since 2021 on a public servant’s salary.
Texas taxpayers have been footing the bill for this man’s getaways for years, and now Trump wants them to promote him to the United States Senate.
The Stakes Reach Far Beyond Texas
This race is not just about one corrupt nominee. If Paxton loses, it would deal a devastating blow to Republican hopes of holding the Senate, which is exactly why Trump keeps boarding Air Force One for Texas while his rallies keep sliding further off the rails with each stop. Talarico refused to cede the spotlight on Tuesday, barnstorming Midland, Amarillo, and Lubbock, where his campaign had to move his evening event to a larger venue because of overwhelming interest, even as Trump spoke across town.
A president reduced to begging deep red West Texas to show up for a candidate whose name he can barely pronounce is not a show of strength. It is an admission that Republicans know what they nominated, and they are praying voters look at it “a little differently” before November 3. Democratic Reporter will keep looking at it the normal way.
