Republican strategist Karl Rove believes Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton will lose his Senate bid if he refuses to debate Democratic challenger state Rep. James Talarico.
Rove made the striking prediction during a Wednesday appearance at The Economic Club of Chicago, sharing the stage with prominent Democratic strategist David Axelrod.
“If he doesn’t debate, I think he loses,” Rove said directly, framing the decision as potentially decisive to the outcome of the race.
Rove went further, questioning whether Paxton has the temperament and political courage to step onto a debate stage and go on the offensive against his opponent.
“If he debates, the question is, is he going to be able to go on the offense?” Rove added, suggesting that a passive debate performance would be insufficient for Paxton to prevail.
Axelrod offered his own pointed assessment of Paxton’s debating capabilities, telling the audience, “There’s a reason he hasn’t debated in 16 years. He’s not adroit.”
Rove, a former top White House aide to the George W. Bush administration, pushed back on that characterization, shifting the conversation away from skill and toward nerve.
“You don’t need to be adroit in this,” Rove responded. “The question is, does he have the guts to do it?”
Rove outlined a potential strategy Paxton could use on the debate stage, suggesting the attorney general could directly confront his well-documented legal troubles head-on rather than avoiding them.
“Because he goes into the debate and says, ‘You can say all those negative things about me … but I was cleared by the state Senate but I understand why you want to talk about that cause you don’t talk about [other issues],'” Rove explained.
Rove’s reference to “negative things” pointed squarely at Paxton’s 2023 impeachment, when state representatives voted to indict the attorney general on corruption charges before he was ultimately acquitted in the Texas Senate.
Rove closed his argument by questioning whether Paxton possesses the political self-awareness to recognize what is truly at stake in the debate question.
“I don’t know if he’s got the political moxie to say, ‘My future depends on me getting into a debate and coming out the winner,'” Rove concluded.
Talarico has repeatedly attacked Paxton publicly over his reluctance to appear on a shared debate stage, including issuing a notable challenge for a Fox News debate.
The Texas Senate race has drawn national attention, with Paxton’s legal history and debate avoidance becoming central lines of attack for Democrats heading into the contest.
