Ken Paxton said in leaked audio that DC handlers run his Texas Senate campaign, leaving him with little control over the message as polls tighten.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was caught on tape at a fundraiser last month complaining that he has never felt less command of a race, because the issues and messaging are being driven from Washington rather than by him.
The Post reported that Politico Playbook released the recording Monday, adding fresh pressure to a general-election fight already drawing tens of millions in outside cash and a Democrat who holds a slim polling edge.
Paxton is the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Texas. His opponent is Democratic state Rep. James Talarico. The latest RealClearPolitics aggregate of polls gives Talarico a 2.8-point lead.
That margin is why national Republican operatives have been forced to divert tens of millions of dollars into a state that should not be this competitive. Paxton’s own words now put the campaign’s structure under a brighter light.
On the leaked fundraiser audio, Paxton described a campaign in which the priorities arrive from outside Texas.
Politico Playbook released his remarks, and he put the problem in plain terms:
"I’ve never been in a race where I felt less control over the campaign and, like, what issues are going to matter because it’s all coming, you know, from DC,"
He went further on the same recording:
"I don’t control message or what we’re doing."
An attendee who is not backing Paxton supplied the audio, according to the Politico account carried in the coverage. The fundraiser itself was held last month; the exact venue was not named.
Paxton adviser Nick Maddux moved quickly to reframe the comments. He told The Post the attorney general was talking about independent groups, not his own staff.
Maddux said:
"Campaigns don’t coordinate with super PACs, and that’s obviously what AG Paxton was referring to,"
Federal rules bar campaigns from coordinating with super PACs. That wall is real. It also means a candidate can watch millions spent in his name while having no legal say over the script.
Maddux added that Paxton remains grateful for the help and understands what Texas means to the Senate majority. He said the attorney general is on the ground every day talking to voters, raising money, and carrying his own message, including a statewide television buy that began over the past weekend.
Outside money is already a live factor in the race. MAGA Inc. has poured millions into Paxton’s bid as the fundraising fight widened, underscoring how much national groups now shape Texas airwaves.
The RealClearPolitics average showing Talarico up 2.8 points is the number Republican strategists keep citing when they explain the heavy outside spending. Texas is supposed to be a hold. Instead it has become a drain on national resources.
Separate polling snapshots have told a similar story. One recent Texas Senate survey had Talarico ahead by several points, even as older voters broke hard toward the Republican, a reminder that turnout patterns still matter more than any single headline number.
Paxton’s path to the nomination was not clean inside the party. The National Republican Senatorial Committee and Chris LaCivita, President Trump’s former co-campaign manager, backed Sen. John Cornyn in the primary. They feared Paxton would be vulnerable in a general election.
Cornyn later knocked Paxton for not campaigning more aggressively. That criticism now sits beside Paxton’s own leaked admission that he does not control the message apparatus around him.
For voters who want a fighter in Washington, the optics are awkward: a Texas attorney general saying the capital’s operatives are calling the tune on his own Senate run.
Last week a separate audio recording, obtained by the New York Times, captured Paxton assessing the political damage after the GOP midterm convention in Dallas, the large Trump-centered gathering some called a “Trump-a-palooza.”
Paxton’s assessment was blunt:
"To be honest with you, the numbers, when we did that convention, it dropped our numbers. Everybody’s numbers dropped,"
Asked about the current standing, he added, “Right now, yeah, not good.”
President Trump offered a different read last month when reporters pressed him. Trump said the successful convention helped Paxton and called him a great attorney general who continues to serve in that role. Trump said that record counts for a lot.
Trump had also needled Paxton over attire and speaking style at the Dallas gathering before telling the crowd to vote for him. The public posture from the White House has remained supportive of the nominee even while the internal polling picture stayed soft.
Grassroots Texas voices have kept lining up behind the attorney general. Hall of Fame Cowboy Randy White endorsed Paxton and said Talarico cannot be trusted, the kind of local validation campaigns crave when national machinery feels distant.
Paxton’s public record includes a long list of fights that opponents will not let voters forget. He was indicted on securities fraud charges in 2015. Three years ago he was impeached on accusations of obstructing justice. He has also faced accusations of giving preferential treatment to a donor and misappropriating public resources, along with the personal fallout of cheating on his wife.
Those episodes are part of the backdrop Talarico and national Democrats will use. They do not erase Paxton’s tenure as attorney general or the conservative record that won him the nomination. They do explain why some party professionals once preferred Cornyn and why outside groups now treat Texas as a rescue operation.
Family politics remain part of the story as well. Angela Paxton has urged Texas Republicans to stand with her estranged husband despite a divorce filing, keeping the personal drama inside the same election cycle.
Maddux’s defense returns to the structural point: super PACs dominate paid messaging, campaigns cannot coordinate with them, and Paxton is still doing retail work and television in Texas. That is the official line. The candidate’s own voice on the tape said he has never felt less control.
The recording does not name which super PACs Paxton had in mind, or which DC figures he believes are setting the issue menu. It does not give a full transcript of the fundraiser. It does show a Republican nominee describing his own race as directed from Washington while a Democrat leads the averages and national money floods in to compensate.
For a party that spent years running against coastal consultants and swamp management, that is an uncomfortable sentence to hear from the top of the Texas ticket. Paxton says he is taking his case straight to voters. The audio says the message shop is still somewhere else.
Texas Republicans can afford many things. They cannot afford a Senate campaign that sounds like it is being remote-controlled from the same city they were sent to challenge.
