Ken Paxton seeks a Senate seat that Texas must deny him

By Adele Rutherford · Reporting from Atlanta · October 19, 2026

As Ken Paxton enters a tight Texas Senate race against James Talarico, voters must recognize that sending a candidate defined by evading accountability to write the laws destroys the rule of law.

The durable illusion of scandal resilience in Texas politics

The state of Texas is hosting what the Texas Politics Project’s director James Henson calls the closest race that we’ve seen in the state in three decades. The baggage coming down the track belongs entirely to the Republican nominee. Ken Paxton is the state attorney general and Donald Trump’s pick for the United States Senate. He arrives at the ballot box carrying a ledger. That ledger would have cleared the desk of any mid-century courthouse before the ink could dry.

There was the event where a tech entrepreneur in McKinney, Texas, gave shares of company stock to Paxton while he served as a state legislator. There was the event where Paxton was alleged to have stolen a Montblanc pen from a fellow lawyer. There was the state prosecution on securities-related charges that he settled without admitting guilt. Prosecutor Jed Silverman noted Paxton made an agreement with the state, did what he was supposed to do, and got his cases resolved.

There was the whistleblower episode where staffers requested an FBI investigation into whether Paxton abused his office to assist a real estate investor and political donor. That aid allegedly came in exchange for a kitchen renovation and a job for a woman with whom Paxton was having an affair. There was the event where state senator Angela Paxton allegedly assisted Ken Paxton in escaping a subpoena server in a Chevrolet truck. And there was the event reported by the Wall Street Journal where Paxton was filmed at a New Year’s Eve party in Dubai with an extramarital girlfriend and men under indictment for federal healthcare fraud who were considered fugitives. Angela Paxton filed for divorce from Ken Paxton last year on biblical grounds.

Brandon Rottinghaus, a political scientist at the University of Houston, has called Paxton’s career a textbook example of scandal resilience. Political consultant and lobbyist Bill Miller remarked that baggage is something that the American public seemingly has learned to accept. He noted that Paxton doesn’t have the sensitivity of a violinist, but he’s damn sure got the hide of a rhinoceros.

Yet this is precisely where the logic of process breaks down under weight. When a political figure survives every procedural firewall through partisan shelter rather than vindication, the capital stock of legitimacy is not refilled. It is simply drawn down until the institution itself begins to rattle on its hinges.

The mechanics of partisan acquittal and voter indifference

The mechanism sustaining this candidacy is the exact same apparatus that protected Bill Clinton during the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal. In that case, a sexual relationship with an intern led to charges of perjury and an impeachment by the U.S. House of Representatives. It ended with an acquittal in a U.S. Senate trial. In both instances, the survival of the political figure relies on a calculus of utility. Partisan loyalists decide that the personal conduct of the individual is secondary to the preservation of power.

We watched the exact same procedural choreography during the First impeachment of Donald Trump (2017-2021). The defense offered by Paxton’s camp is that he has been politically persecuted. A spokesman told the Wall Street Journal that, like President Trump, Ken Paxton has been politically persecuted for years. The spokesman added that every time, voters have seen through it and sent him back to office.

Does the rule of law survive when the procedure for holding an executive accountable is treated as an optional partisan inconvenience? The strongest opposing case for Paxton rests on the argument of democratic fatalism. That argument holds that voters know precisely who he is. No Democrat has been elected to statewide office since 1994. The electorate has already baked these disclosures into its verdict, making further inquiry an exercise in elite moralizing rather than popular sovereignty.

That argument concedes too much to cynicism. A voting booth is not a confessional where bad conduct is washed clean by the sheer force of habit. It is the ultimate checkpoint where a citizen must decide whether the machinery of governance can endure another term of deliberate strain.

When Donald Trump endorsed Paxton, he acknowledged the friction directly. Trump stated that Paxton may not dress right, may not talk exactly perfectly, and may not be the best-looking guy I’ve ever seen. Ted Cruz stepped in to provide sartorial advice and push him across the finish line. Meanwhile, Elon Musk has poured money into a Super PAC to support the bid according to the Los Angeles Times.

Against this machinery stands James Talarico, a Democratic state legislator, former teacher, and seminarian affiliated with a mainline Christian church in Austin. Donald Trump has labeled him Talafreako. The Talarico campaign has resorted to selling ballpoint pens marked Not Ken Paxton’s Pen. A CBS News poll reports the race is essentially tied. Even in a heavily red state, the accumulation of unaddressed baggage eventually reaches a saturation point where the math of denial fails.

The unavoidable reckoning of procedural integrity

To judge this race by the final score rather than the integrity of the process is to misunderstand why the republic is wobbling on its base. Leaked audio captures Paxton admitting his own unease. He stated he has never been in a race where he felt less control over the campaign. He suggested that Donald Trump’s midterm convention in Texas hindered his efforts.

If Paxton prevails on Tuesday, the victory will not validate his methods. It will merely postpone a reckoning that has been deferred through every legislative acquittal, every securities settlement, and every closed-door arrangement. A rule that only works while your people hold power was never a rule at all. The day is coming when the tools currently being used to shield executive misconduct will be picked up by the other side.

Ken Paxton must not be sent to the United States Senate. A representative whose career is a continuous evasion of accountability cannot be trusted to write the laws that govern the rest of us.

Ken Paxton seeks a Senate seat that Texas must deny him

The durable illusion of scandal resilience in Texas politics

The mechanics of partisan acquittal and voter indifference

The unavoidable reckoning of procedural integrity

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