Ken Paxton is losing ground with a crucial bloc of voters in the Houston suburbs, and it could cost Republicans a Senate seat in Texas.
Talarico yard signs appear to outnumber Paxton’s in Bridgeland, a sprawling subdivision in the conservative Cypress area, and voters on both sides told The Washington Post that Paxton, the state’s scandal-plagued attorney general, has lost support among suburban women.
A University of Texas/Texas Politics Project poll released last week found Democratic state Rep. James Talarico leading Paxton among women 56 percent to 40 percent. That’s a wider gap than his 54 percent to 44 percent lead among all suburban voters. Overall, recent polls show Talarico narrowly ahead, by two to four points, and he raised a record $64 million in the third quarter to Paxton’s $18 million.
“Republican primary voters made the decision to nominate the most deeply flawed Republican statewide candidate in modern history and that’s bearing fruit right now because Paxton has trouble winning anyone but the core Republican voters,” said Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University.
The Texas House impeached Paxton in 2023 on charges including bribery and abuse of office, and the GOP-controlled state Senate acquitted him. The trial aired allegations that he had used his office to help a wealthy donor and had confessed to staff that he cheated on his wife. His estranged wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, cited “biblical grounds and adultery” in her divorce filing.
Maria Smith, a mother of two who voted for Sen. John Cornyn in the GOP primary, now plans to vote for Talarico. She said a recent ad in which Angela Paxton urges support for “the Republican ticket” was “an even bigger turnoff.”
“It’s ‘Do as I say, not as I do,’” Smith said.
Michelle Burch, an elementary school teacher and independent, said she is voting on character, and cited Paxton’s theft of a pen from a courthouse, which was caught on security video and featured in a Talarico ad.
“I’m teaching kids here’s what you do, here’s what you don’t do,” Burch said. “And Paxton is not someone you can look up to.”
Talarico supporter Maria Kostecka said female neighbors have quietly approached her to share their enthusiasm since she put up his yard sign.
“I start to feel like it’s this secret underground club who don’t want Paxton in office,” she said.
Not everyone on the block has soured. Tess Eugenio, a Republican neighbor, said she backs Paxton on issues like border security and gender transition care for minors.
“Even though he has personal issues, that’s not my business,” Eugenio said. She added that she declined to take part in a recent poll and suspects other Paxton supporters have done the same.
Jones described Paxton’s family-focused ads as “a rearguard attempt to stem the flow of women supporters.”
Paxton still has a $158 million infusion from an Elon Musk-funded Senate PAC. But Jones said that even if polls are undercounting Republicans, “the problem for Paxton is it’s probably only two or three points.”
Talarico, for his part, has mocked Paxton’s ties to the area. After Paxton posted about a recent campaign stop in Cypress and misspelled it as “Cyprus,” the Mediterranean island nation, Talarico suggested on X that the mistake might stem from Paxton’s “luxury European vacations.”