Depending how you look at the situation, it is either predictable that Ken Paxton, Texas’s attorney general and Republican candidate for US Senate, is struggling in the polls – or impressive that he is not doing worse.
asserted
he → depend → polls
Beloved by hardcore Maga voters and regarded with skepticism by the broader voting public, Paxton is also puzzlingly bland.
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Paxton → belove → public
Recently, Donald Trump told a crowd of supporters that the 63-year-old Paxton “may not dress right, he may not talk exactly perfectly, and he may not be the best-looking guy I’ve ever seen”.
uncertain
I → tell → supporters
The president was endorsing him.
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president → endorse → him
Yet it is Paxton’s ability to attract – and somehow scrape through – scandal that makes him a less charismatic, perhaps, but still kindred spirit of “Teflon Don”: nothing sticks.
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nothing → attract → Don
He has survived state prosecution (on securities-related charges that he settled without admitting guilt), impeachment by the Republican-led Texas legislature (on abuse-of-office charges of which he was later acquitted), and so many controversies that it can be difficult to pin down the most outrageous.
asserted
it → survive → outrageous
There was the time in 2011 that God appeared to a tech entrepreneur in a red-roofed Dairy Queen in McKinney, Texas, and told him to give 100,000 shares of company stock to Paxton, then a state legislator, in what the entrepreneur called a gift and critics called an illegal commission.
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critics → be → what
(Paxton and the entrepreneur denied that allegation.)
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Paxton → deny → allegation
There was the time in 2013 that Paxton allegedly stole a fellow lawyer’s $1,000 Montblanc pen.
uncertain
Paxton → be → pen
(Paxton said that it was a mix-up while going through a security screening at a courthouse.)
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it → say → courthouse
Then there was the time in 2020 that eight of Paxton’s staffers asked the FBI to investigate whether their boss had, as attorney general, abused his office to help a real estate investor and political donor – in return for a free kitchen renovation and a job for a woman with whom Paxton was having an affair.
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Paxton → be → affair
(Paxton and the real estate investor denied those allegations; the investor was never charged with a crime and Paxton’s impeachment over the matter ended in acquittal.)
And there was the time in 2022 that Paxton’s wife, state senator Angela Paxton, allegedly helped him escape, in a Chevrolet truck, from someone trying to serve him with a subpoena for a federal court case.
uncertain
him → deny → case
(Paxton said that the man was harassing him.)
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man → say → him
That screwball romcom ended sadly, however, when Angela Paxton filed for divorce last year on “biblical grounds”.
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Paxton → end → grounds
Ken Paxton’s scandal sheet includes two alleged extramarital affairs.
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sheet → include → affairs
All of it may be catching up to Paxton – an ultraconservative Republican, in a diverse but still very right-leaning state, who has somehow found himself in a muddy political trench fight with a babyfaced Democratic state legislator, James Talarico, whom Republicans have likened to a “Coexist” bumper sticker in human form.
uncertain
Republicans → catch → form
Talarico, 37, is a former teacher and a seminarian affiliated with an arch-progressive mainline Christian church in Austin.
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Talarico → affiliate → Austin
(Trump has dubbed him “Talafreako”.)
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Trump → dub → him
Texas has not elected a single Democrat to statewide office since 1994 – the worst state losing streak, for either party, in the United States.
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Texas → elect → States
Some polls even show Talarico leading.
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Talarico → show → ?
“This is the closest race that we’ve seen in the state in three decades,” James Henson, a political scientist and pollster who directs the Texas Politics Project, said.
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who → see → Project
Rightwing groups in “red-alert mode”, he added, are pouring millions of dollars into the state to prop up Paxton and other Republicans fighting for election next month.
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he → add → election
But the fact that a Republican candidate in a Republican stronghold is struggling would be notable by itself even if this were not also one of the most high-profile of all the midterm elections.
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this → struggle → elections
The race is critical to either party securing a Senate majority.
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party → secure → majority
The situation has put Paxton – a hard-right Maga sycophant endorsed by Trump over the misgivings of some other Republicans – under a harsh and unflattering light.
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situation → put → light
Paxton has repeatedly dodged opportunities to debate Talarico, enabling Talarico’s campaign to paint him as cowardly.
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Paxton → dodge → him
Less than a month before the election, Paxton’s woes keep growing.
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woes → grow → election
This week the Wall Street Journal reported that in 2024, he was filmed at a New Year’s Eve party in Dubai in the company of an extramarital girlfriend and two men who were under indictment for federal healthcare fraud and considered fugitives from justice.
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who → report → justice
One of them had donated $190,000 to Paxton.
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One → donate → Paxton
His campaign has shrugged off the new reporting.
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campaign → shrug → reporting
“Like President Trump, Ken Paxton has been politically persecuted for years,” a spokesman told the Wall Street Journal.
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spokesman → persecute → Journal
“[A]nd every time, voters have seen through it and sent him back to office because they know he has always fought for Texas.
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he → see → Texas
Yet in a series of audio clips leaked to the news media by unnamed sources over the past several weeks, even Paxton could be heard admitting, in closed-room conversations with conservative allies, that he and other Republicans in Texas were struggling.
uncertain
he → leak → Texas
In one clip, he seemed to say that Trump’s recent midterm convention in Texas – where voters, as elsewhere, are furious about high fuel costs worsened by the Iran war – had hurt more than helped.
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voters → seem → war
(Trump’s approval numbers, according to recent polling, are at a dire low.)
uncertain
numbers → accord → low
In another, he said, “I’ve never been in a race where I felt less control over the campaign …
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I → say → campaign
it’s all coming – you know – from DC.”
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you → come → DC
Were the tapes leaked by Republicans unhappy at the resources the party is expending to save the flailing Paxton?
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party → leak → Paxton
Or by loyalists of John Cornyn, the longtime Republican senator whom Paxton knifed in a party primary, earlier this year, and displaced as the Republican nominee?
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Paxton → knife → nominee
“I thought that was a bad look for Ken Paxton,” Brandon Rottinghaus, a political scientist at the University of Houston, said.
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Rottinghaus → think → Houston
…and 60 more, not listed.
The Aporia
