MIDDLAND, Texas. The list of political vulnerabilities faced by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton could seriously jeopardize his candidacy for a third term.
There’s a charge of securities fraud in state court. Allegations of bribery and corruption. Senior assistants became informants. Ongoing federal investigation.
All in all, it was enough to attract major challenges from three strong opponents in Texas Republican politics: George P. Bush, Texas Land Commissioner and grandson of former President George W. Bush; Rep. Louis Gomert, an outspoken congressman from East Texas; and Eva Gusman, former Justice of the Texas Supreme Court.
But whether Mr. Paxton can survive the Republican primary could be the biggest test of the power that an even more famous name still wields among voters: Donald J. Trump.
Mr. Paxton has positioned himself as the closest to Mr. Trump among opponents seeking to claim affinity with the former president. Attorney General of Texas unsuccessfully sued to overturn 2020 election results in several states as well as spoke at Mr. Trump’s “Stop theft” rally in Washington on January 6, 2021..
For his efforts, Mr. Paxton received Mr. Trump’s support last year, and he delivered a speech at Mr. Trump’s mass Republican rally last month north of Houston.
“Attorney General who really led the way, someone who was brave and strong: Ken Paxton,” Mr. Trump said during a rally at the Montgomery County Fairgrounds. “Ken, brave and strong. And popular.”
Well, not so popular.
Although Mr. Paxton garners more votes than any of his opponents, he faces the increasingly likely prospect of a runoff after Tuesday’s primary. He has been below the 50 percent threshold in recent opinion polls, and his campaign is already gearing up for a new contest.
This left the three contenders fighting for second place. They traveled around the state, appearing at Republican forums and debates organized by local party groups. A common theme was that Mr. Paxton is so afraid he could actually lose to a Democrat in November — a shudder-inducing prospect for Texas Republicans, who haven’t lost a statewide race since 1994.
“If you look, for example, at people like AOC who come to Texas and say that Texas is about to turn blue—well, she’s right if we’re putting the wrong people forward as a party,” Mr. Mr. Bush in an interview, referring to Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.
The race for Attorney General has turned into a referendum on the future of the Republican Party in Texas, with various centers of power – the remnants of Texas’s Bush political dynasty, the tort reform business elite, Trump’s rising wing without Trump. up different corners.
In the last days of the campaign, the attacks went unhindered. Mr. Paxton exchanged barbs with Mr. Homert. Mr. Bush and Ms. Guzman followed each other. But many voters, even those dedicated enough to appear on candidate forums, have only a glimpse of the contenders. And the accusations against Mr. Paxton are not new; he endured them for years.
Mr. Paxton, who declined an interview request, faced government allegations of securities fraud since 2015related to his being a member of the Texas House, during which, the prosecutor’s office said that he directed investments in the firm without disclosing, he will be compensated for it. Mr. Paxton denied the accusations and said the accusation was politically motivated and successfully delayed the trial. amid procedural disputes over where it should take place.
He was re-elected in 2018 by less than 4 percentage points, a narrow margin in the Texas general election.
Then, in 2020, several of Mr. Paxton’s top aides — senior lawyers in the Attorney General’s office with conservative credentials — accused him of bribery and abuse of power in connection with his actions on behalf of the developer and sponsor of the campaign. Some of the officials who have since been fired or resigned said the developer, Nate Paul, also hired a woman recommended to him by Mr. Paxton.
Last week, four former officials who filed a whistleblowing lawsuit against Mr. Paxton in connection with their dismissal said the attorney general lied about their allegations How is he campaigning for re-election?
An FBI spokesman declined to comment. Both Mr. Paul and Mr. Paxton denied any wrongdoing.
Even with the barrage of accusations, Mr. Paxton was not as weak a candidate as some political circles in Texas made him out to be.
“People thought Paxton would be vulnerable,” said Nathan McDaniel, a Republican political strategist from Austin. “But I see voters need a fighter, someone who’s going to sue Google or the Biden administration,” as Mr. Paxton did repeatedly in the case of President Biden. In recent days, Mr. Paxton has also targeted parents of transgender teenagers by issuing official opinion that certain medical procedures should be investigated as child abuse..
“I don’t think personal issues are as important to voters as you might think,” Mr. McDaniel said. “Now if he’s in jail, it’s a completely different matter. But will it happen? I do not think so”.
In an interview, Mr. Gomert predicted that Mr. Paxton would face corruption charges in federal court shortly after the primary, leaving Republicans unable to replace him until the November general election if he wins the primary.
In response, Mr. Paxton’s campaign sent a statement to the Attorney General attacking Mr. Gomert for “clearly relying on lies, intimidation and intimidation tactics to win.”
Political strategists say Mr. Gomert poses the greatest threat to Mr. Paxton’s conservative base. Mr Gomert entered the race later than the other candidates, in November, but has already attracted negative campaigning. mailers, Facebook ads as well as TV spot from Mr Paxton.
Mr. Gomert also had a friendly relationship with Mr. Trump and was the only person running for attorney general whom Mr. Trump spoke fondly of during a rally last month.
“Louis Gomert, what a great guy,” Mr. Trump told the crowd, recognizing Mr. Gomert among the elected officials. “This is a man who has been my friend since day one.”
Mr. Bush, who has struggled to win Mr. Trump’s approval, did not attend the event due to a scheduling conflict, his campaign team said.
“I definitely wanted that endorsement along with the support of his supporters. That is why I continue to reach out not only to his followers, but to those who advise him here in Texas,” Mr. Bush said in an interview, adding of Mr. Trump, “I think he made a mistake in this race.”
Ms. Guzman, for her part, has waged a targeted campaign to alienate voters in the most unexpected places.
“I saw an ad for Eva Guzman during Jeopardy! in the last week or two,” said Marie Woodleaf, a political consultant in Dallas. “Danger! and “Wheel of Fortune” are two of the best kept secrets in politics, because almost all of their audiences are people over 60 years old, and they are voters.
At this month’s election forum, the three fought in front of a staunch conservative crowd in a theater on the oil-rich West Texas plains between Midland and Odessa. Each of them vowed to take a tougher stance than Mr. Paxton did at the frontier on crime and allegations of voter fraud in Texas.
The hour-long debate began with Mr. Gomert attacking Mr. Paxton for not doing more to investigate allegations of fraud in 2020 and ending with Mr. Bush vowing to fight Liberal Democrats who are “littering the our local governments.” Along the way, Ms. Guzmán captivated the crowd with a story about her father’s murder by an “illegal immigrant” when she was 26 years old.
In an interview before the meeting, Ms. Guzmán said seeing her father “covered in a yellow tarp” underscored to her that “these lawless frontiers are not without victims.” She said her experience on the bench made her better prepared for the job than any of her opponents.
Ms. Guzman, who has the financial backing of Texans for Lawsuit Reform, a perennial influential player in Republican politics, downplayed Mr. Trump’s support for Mr. Paxton. “Texans want to choose for themselves,” she said.
After a debate in the theater lobby, Roger Bernhart, 74, from Odessa, and his son said they had not yet decided who they would vote for.
“My favorite is Homert,” Mr. Barnhart said, adding that Ms. Guzman also impressed him.
“A long time ago it was good to have the last name Bush here, not now,” added his son, Dax Barnhart, 47, who works with his father in the hardware business.
Although he had yet to make a decision, Mr. Barnhart Sr. left with one firm impression of the candidates: “Any one of them would be better than Paxton.”