Ken Paxton reveals GOP polling ‘dropped’ after midterm convention: NYT

If you want to know how Republicans are feeling about the president’s impact on the midterm elections, The New York Times is letting us know.

Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton was caught on leaked audio talking about President Trump’s midterm convention in Dallas and, according to Paxton himself, it did not exactly move the needle in the direction Republicans wanted. The Times reports that the audio said:

“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.”

Let’s not forget Paxton’s entire campaign is built around an endorsement from the president, but I guess now that he realizes what the rest of America realizes: that the policies aren’t working. Now he wants to avoid being tied to Trump.

It gets even more awkward when you remember what happened at that very convention Paxton is referring to. The president actually made fun of him while showing support:

“The fact is that some may not like the way he dresses. I don’t,” said Trump. “They may not like the way he talks.”

So, just to recap: Trump brings Republicans to Texas for a convention designed to help Republican candidates, like Ken Paxton. Then Paxton privately says his poll numbers dropped after said convention. And at the convention, the president is essentially doing a roast of his own Senate candidate’s wardrobe, speaking style and appearance before ultimately telling voters they should still elect him.

Vice President Vance campaigned in South Texas just yesterday, an area where Trump won overwhelmingly in 2024. Perhaps the president’s poor decisions are the exact reason that the VP is spending valuable campaign time shoring up a state that Republicans have long considered safely red.

It’s clear that the Trump brand is not helping Republican candidates in places where voters are being asked to make a choice about their local representative, not the president. The Wall Street Journal’s latest poll puts Trump’s approval at just 37 percent, the lowest pre-midterm approval rating for any president in the Journal’s poll going back to 1990 .

And a recent NBC News poll found 43 percent of registered voters said their midterm vote would be a signal of opposition to Trump — the highest level recorded in that question since NBC began asking it in 1998.

Now let’s look at all the money spent. More than $155 million has been spent or reserved for television and digital advertising supporting Paxton, according to AdImpact, and it hasn’t been effective in giving him a strong lead against James Talarico. That is a lot of money to spend trying to convince Texas voters that everything is fine.

I mean, Republicans can spend millions. They can bring in the vice president. Trump can hold a convention and tell voters to support his candidates, but none of that changes what voters are experiencing: a bad economy, high gas prices, higher medical insurance premiums…

Paxton’s leaked comments don’t prove every Republican candidate believes Trump is hurting them, of course, but the fact that he is saying this is certainly revealing.

I’m going to say it again: maybe it’s policies that actually make people feel better about their lives, not the rallies, not the promise of $5,000 checks, not the millions political action committees spend. The Republican Party is not doing a great job laying out how the policies pushed by this administration are positively affecting anyone.

And, in Paxton’s case, perhaps a campaign that comes with a little less political baggage wouldn’t hurt either.

Lindsey Granger is a NewsNation contributor and co-host of The Hill’s commentary show “Rising.” This column is an edited transcription of her on-air commentary.