It is not exactly surprising to hear that, according to an audio of an event with donors in Washington, GOP Texas Senate candidate Ken Paxton is blaming the Iran war and gas prices for his difficulty in his bid against James Talarico. This has the advantage of being at least partially true; if the price of gas were around $2 per gallon in Texas, the whole political landscape would look different.
But with that said, Paxton has been a terrible candidate. He’s been widely mocked as a lazy candidate who doesn’t spent nearly enough time on the campaign trail. He’s gotten better at fundraising, but he’s still getting absolutely swamped by Talarico. The new rallying cry among GOP congressmen in the Lone Star State is “voting straight ticket Republican in November” –encouraging Texans to vote for Paxton without talking specifically about him.
One Texas state senator released a television commercial declaring:
In a general election, it’s not as much about the individual players on the team. It’s about getting the whole team across the finish line. Either we hold every Republican seat or we hand the future of Texas to the other team. That’s why I’m voting for the Republican ticket on November 3rd.
That’s… Angela Paxton, the candidate’s estranged wife and presumably soon-to-be ex-wife. Who knows, maybe this is exactly the message Ken Paxton needs: if she can hold her nose and vote for this guy, certainly you can.
But here we are in early October, with about a month until Election Day, Paxton is already telling donors, “so many factors in this federal race are uncontrollable. I don’t make the decisions, and I don’t … know what’s behind some of the decisions.” That sounds like the excuse-making has already begun.