Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Republican Senate nominee in Texas, has privately admitted that the GOP’s midterm convention in Dallas damaged his standing with voters.
Paxton made the candid remarks at a private fundraiser held in Washington, D.C., attended by conservative donors and lobbyists, according to The New York Times.
An audio clip of Paxton’s comments was obtained and shared by The New York Times, revealing his blunt assessment of the political fallout from the high-profile event.
“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,” Paxton said in the recording.
The remarks came after Paxton was asked whether he felt that “he’s a little bit of a drag,” though it was unclear from the audio clip whom the questioner was specifically referring to.
The Trump-backed Republican was a central figure at the Republican National Committee’s first-ever midterm convention, held in Dallas earlier this month across two days.
The convention was designed to energize the conservative base heading into the midterm election cycle, with Paxton positioned as one of its most prominent and visible figures.
His private acknowledgment that the event backfired politically stands in sharp contrast to how Republican leadership publicly framed the convention as a success.
Nick Maddux, a senior Paxton adviser, pushed back against the story and disputed the framing presented by The New York Times in its report.
“This is more manipulated nonsense from The New York Times to create a story that doesn’t exist,” Maddux told the outlet in response to the audio’s publication.
Despite the adviser’s denial, the leaked audio presents a candid moment that reveals internal concerns within the Paxton campaign about voter perception and post-convention polling trends.
Paxton’s Senate race in Texas remains closely watched, and any signs of slipping poll numbers could draw significant attention from both national Republicans and Democratic strategists looking to capitalize on vulnerabilities.
