Ken Paxton’s plight in Texas is mostly of his own making

The saying goes that victory has a thousand fathers but defeat is an orphan. That doesn’t mean, however, that there won’t be any paternity claims after a loss.

And if Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) really does manage to lose his Senate race against Democratic state Rep. James Talarico, naming the father of what would be an epochal defeat for Texas Republicans will be a Maury Povich-level meltdown.

The most obvious culprit would be Paxton himself, who, in addition to assembling a highly polarizing record during his 23 years in public office, has dragged forward enough baggage from his personal and professional life to fill the cargo hold of the Titanic.

We know that in the “attention economy” era, divisive positions and personal scandals don’t have to be career killers in politics — see Trump, Donald J. But it takes a lot of charisma and showmanship to pull that off. Paxton, on the other hand, brings the verve and energy of a coroner’s inquest to the campaign trail.

The next most obvious person to blame would be the man who Paxton beat in the Republican primary, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).

After 41 years in a political career that, going all the way back to his time as a circuit judge in San Antonio, has been marked by decorous restraint, Cornyn is very obviously enjoying letting it rip on Paxton.

After warning Republicans what a risk they would be taking with his longtime foe, Cornyn seems to be enjoying his I-told-you-so moment. There’s something to the charge. Had the two rivals made peace and Cornyn was out stumping for Paxton, assuring traditional conservatives and squishy suburbanites that he was vouching for the attorney general, it would do some good.

Where the Cornyn charge loses steam, though, is that Paxton, typically proud and defiant, probably wasn’t asking for Cornyn’s blessing. And Paxton was already a universally known figure to Texas voters before Cornyn started calling him out.

Paxton set the record in 2018 for the worst performance by a Republican seeking statewide office in Texas this century. (Former Gov. Rick Perry got a lower share of the vote in 2006 than Paxton did in 2018, but that was a wild four-way contest that featured two independent candidates, including musician Kinky Friedman. Perry still won by 10 points.)

For statewide Republican candidates in the era of ruby-red Texas, Paxton was the pits even before his impeachment and plea deal . Voters didn’t need Cornyn to tell them that.

It’s also true that Talarico’s primary opponent, Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas), is out there briefing against the Democratic nominee. So if Cornyn is a liability for Paxton, it is of a kind that both candidates and parties share equally.

There’s another obvious person to blame if Paxton does go down: President Trump himself.

In the larger sense, this is clearly true. Paxton would be disadvantaged with any Republican in the White House given voters’ longstanding preference for divided government and its manifestation in the midterm curse.

Trump is also specifically a target for blame because the policies he has pursued have helped drive the cost of a gallon of diesel fuel in petroleum-rich Texas to nearly $6.

Trump’s proposed balm for the anger of working-class voters irritated by that is for the government to borrow huge sums of money and give it away, which, in turn irritates the more affluent, more conservative Cornyn voters who already didn’t like Paxton.

But the charge against Trump doesn’t withstand close scrutiny.

It is true that Trump’s job approval in Texas is pretty scrawny for a state he won by 14 points two years ago, but it’s also true that Trump is at about break-even. He may be a couple of points underwater in Texas but it’s not nearly as bad as it in in places like Georgia , where anti-Trump sentiment is swamping Republican candidates.

If they re-ran the 2024 presidential election in Texas today, Trump might not beat former Vice President Kamala Harris by 14 points again, but he’d almost certainly still prevail.

Nor can you say that Trump isn’t doing enough to help.

Trump’s big GOP hootenanny in Dallas last week was basically a telethon for Paxton. Trump told his supporters, essentially, that Paxton is such a schlub that Republicans need to dig deep to help him win.

Democrats snickered at Trump’s put-downs of Paxton, but the session undoubtedly was a boost for the beleaguered candidate. He got a massive cash infusion and a new persona from Trump as a kind of pitiful figure, which is an improvement over his conventional image as calculating and aloof.

Whether he wins or loses, Paxton really seems likely to break his own 2018 record when he squeaked by his reelection with 50.6 percent of the vote. There’s a Libertarian candidate in the race who will soak up a number of votes from fed-up conservatives, so Paxton’s best-case scenario right now looks like a narrow plurality win .

But Paxton’s title as the worst-performing statewide Texas Republican will probably still fall, anyway.

The Texas GOP nominated Bo French to be the state’s next railroad commissioner, serving on the three-member board that regulates the state’s energy industry. French knocked off incumbent Republican Commissioner Jim Wright in the GOP primary and was bound for an easy win for an office that is almost always decided by partisan affiliation.

But on Saturday, French apparently became incensed by images online of what appeared to be University of Texas students of South Asian ancestry celebrating the Longhorns’ comeback win over Ohio State.

French’s outrage over what the original post called “Bollywood University” did not fade with the cold light of morning, either. He stayed on the social media rampage, saying of Cornyn and other Republicans who condemned French’s disdain for the non-white Texas students “America Last losers are mad that Texas Republicans are starting to put America First.”

Paxton was careful not to specifically condemn French’s behavior, saying something about how racism was bad generally but what he said was Talarico’s problem with “whiteness.” Ooof.

So, if Paxton does lose, he will mostly have himself to blame, but he can throw in a little something extra for Mr. French.