President Donald Trump told reporters this week he would embark on a 32-day campaign tour to try to save Republican races ahead of the midterm elections. Texas, along with other traditionally Republican states such as Iowa, is on his must-stop list. But the state attorney general and the party’s Senate candidate, Ken Paxton, does not appear convinced the visit will help.

In a recording obtained by The New York Times, Paxton told a group of conservative donors and lobbyists last week in Washington that the unprecedented Republican convention held in Dallas in early September — “Trumpapalooza” — may have hurt him.

The audio, the Times reports, includes the moment when someone asks Paxton whether he feels “he’s a little bit of a drag,” although it is not clear whether that “he” refers to Trump. Two people told the newspaper they remember the question, and one confirmed it was about the negative consequences of Trump’s convention for Republican campaigns.

The Times says Paxton replied: “So to be honest with you, the numbers — when we did that convention — it dropped our numbers. Everybody’s numbers dropped. Right now, yeah, not good.”

At that two-day event in Dallas, Trump did not hold back on promises in his speeches, though it was unclear whether he could deliver. The biggest: he offered a $5,000 “Trump dividend” to all adult Americans, but only if Republicans win the midterms.

He also urged voters in the arena to think of him — rather than Paxton or any of the candidates — as the name on the ballot. He mocked and criticized Paxton’s dress, speech, and appearance while imploring Texas voters to elect him: “We have to make sure he wins.”

Paxton (and Trump), slipping

The Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate from Texas has failed to rebound in the polls. The most recent surveys put him slightly behind his Democratic challenger, James Talarico.

According to the RealClearPolitics polling average, if the election had been held on Monday, Talarico would have won the Senate race with 47.6% of the vote versus Paxton’s 44.7%. Other polls — such as Decision Desk HQ — showed an even wider gap and gave Talarico the edge, with a 56% chance of winning in November.

Despite Trump’s outsized support in sections of the party, the speeches do not appear to be generating a proportionate flow of money for Paxton. At the end of June, Talarico had more than $21.5 million available to spend on his campaign, while Paxton had less than $1.8 million on hand, Federal Election Commission data show. The national Republican Party, which has deep coffers, has had to spend significant money in Texas it had not planned for.

The race for that seat has drawn national attention not only because of doubts about the level of support Paxton will receive from Republicans, but also because the party could lose its first state election in Texas since 1994. The Texas Senate seat was one that the Republican establishment would hardly have considered at risk if the party’s candidate had been veteran Texas politician and Congressman John Cornyn. Since 2002, the Republican — who during the primaries boasted of having a record of legislative support for the president, even though he voted in favor of his impeachment following the 2021 Capitol riot — had remained undefeated in the Senate.

The comments by Paxton cited by the Times are significant because, in giving his endorsement, the president valued his loyalty over Cornyn’s, not the party’s position. He chose the attorney general, saying Cornyn did not support him enough during hard times.

But the atmosphere of division that Paxton’s nomination created within Republican ranks has not helped the president’s candidate. Nor has the corruption scandal that led to a state Senate investigation of Paxton in 2023: although he was acquitted, he faced more than a dozen charges of using his power as attorney general to benefit his friend and donor, Nate Paul, who was also under federal investigation. That is compounded by his contested divorce and infidelities. These are issues state conservatives often cite either to back him or to turn their backs on his candidacy.

Just last week, Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina told CNN that choosing Paxton over Cornyn was a “colossal mistake”: “We would not be spending tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in Texas if Cornyn had won.”

The same conclusion was reached by former George W. Bush adviser Karl Rove, speaking at a festival organized by The Texas Tribune: “If John Cornyn were the nominee, this race would be over.”

Paxton’s remarks at the Washington fundraising event are also seen as reflecting an analysis shared by other Republicans, given the drop in Trump’s approval ratings.

A polling average published by RealClearPolitics on Wednesday shows a 38.8% approval rating for the president’s job performance. The closest comparable approval level for a president near a midterm election was George W. Bush’s before his 2006 midterms; after a steep decline it reached 38% in early November 2006, Gallup reported.

In Trump’s case, analysts and polls attribute the decline to the high cost of living, which he had promised to lower during the campaign; weak support for the war in Iran and its impact on energy prices; and his aggressive detention and deportation policies for migrants.

Despite the Paxton audio from Washington, the reality is that the estimates reflected in the polls — unfavorable for Trump, and especially for Paxton and Republican candidates heading into the midterms — have not improved after the Dallas convention, nor five weeks out from the crucial midterm elections.

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