Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton privately told donors that Republican Gov. Greg Abbott is in trouble in his re-election race, according to newly leaked audio obtained by Rolling Stone.
“Yes, Abbott is struggling,” Paxton told an attendee at a small Washington, D.C., fundraiser on Sept. 24. He said that despite the governor’s name recognition and fundraising advantage over Democrat Gina Hinojosa, the race is “still close.”
“Damn,” another attendee replied.
Paxton, the GOP nominee for Senate, then compared Abbott’s position with his own. He said the governor is in a tight race even though “he didn’t have any primary, like I did, that was brutal with all the negative ads.”
“So those are my two disadvantages," Paxton added. "One was — three, actually: not having time to raise more money, having the negative ads, and my opponent is well-funded and well-known."
Paxton, who's running against Democratic state Rep. James Talarico, also suggested that other Republicans on the ballot have it easier because their opponents are unknown.
“Whereas the rest of the ticket — who knows the Democrats?" Paxton said in the recording. "There’s not a single — like, if I said, ‘Who’s running for Texas AG as a Democrat?’ OK, moving down. ‘Who’s running as lieutenant governor?’ I don’t know. I can’t even name her name."
He still predicted that Republicans are “going to probably lose some seats” in the state legislature.
Asked about Mayes Middleton, the Republican nominee to succeed him as attorney general, Paxton waved off his candidacy. Middleton had beaten Paxton’s preferred candidate in the primary.
“He’s probably riding along with the governor somewhere. It’s not like his name ID is super high, but he had a lot — he spent a lot of money in the primary. And he has money, and he can spend,” Paxton said. “He’s worth $850 million, so he can advertise whatever he wants to, whatever he feels from polling.”
Paxton also blamed Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick for Texas’s 2017 decision to end straight-ticket voting.
“The lieutenant governor was convinced that Democrats used it more than Republicans. Which is probably right. But so he changed it,” Paxton said. As attorney general, however, Paxton has defended the ban in court.
The recording was made by an attendee who opposes Paxton’s candidacy and is the latest in a series of leaks from the same fundraiser. In earlier clips given to other outlets, Paxton complained that Sen. John Cornyn “wants me to lose.” He also said Trump’s emergency convention in Dallas “dropped our numbers,” and blamed the Iran war and gas prices for hurting his campaign.
Paxton spokesperson Madison Cercy dismissed the report as “nothing more than a partisan hit job.”
“Republicans across Texas are united behind the Attorney General because they know what’s at stake, and no amount of selectively clipped audio is going to change that,” Cercy said.