Vice President J.D. Vance traveled to Texas on Tuesday to rally support for state Attorney General Ken Paxton, just days after President Trump made his third trip there in a month.
It’s a burst of attention for a seat that the GOP typically wins without much effort. But with state Rep. James Talarico, the Democratic nominee, leading in the polls and the GOP facing stiff affordability headwinds, Republicans are looking to erase the idea that Mr. Paxton is losing his grip on the marquee contest.
Mr. Vance said Mr. Paxton is a fighter who has taken on powerful interests on Texas’ behalf. He pointed to the attorney general’s lawsuits against Big Tech companies and drugmakers, along with the more than 100 lawsuits he filed against the Biden administration.
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“You don’t mess with Texas, and you know why you don’t mess with Texas?” Mr. Vance told the crowd in Tyler. “Because if you do, Ken Paxton is going to kick your ass. That’s why.”
Turning to Mr. Talarico, Mr. Vance mocked him for running on “unconventional ideas” about gender, race and religion. He called the Democrat “crazy” and a “fake and fraud,” saying he is soft on crime and immigration and represents a threat to the livelihoods of ordinary Texans and the state’s energy industry.
Then he got more personal.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this man is a freak,” he said. “James Talarico needs to take a week or two to get his own head examined because he’s lost his damn mind.”
That was a nod to Mr. Talarico’s recent absence from the campaign trail, which set off a slew of speculation. Some right-wing activists went as far as to charge that he had checked himself into a mental hospital in Ohio.
Mr. Talarico’s campaign flatly denied the claim and gave The New York Times time-stamped videos that it says prove he was at home recovering from a tough flu.
Mr. Paxton, speaking to the crowd in East Texas, took a similar line of attack, though he framed it as a matter of ideology.
“This is the difference between a constitutional republic and democratic socialism, Marxism,” he said.
He urged supporters to go after swing voters, saying many of them “don’t know” Mr. Talarico or his record. Mr. Paxton said Mr. Talarico has “no accomplishments, and everything he did was radical.”
He also cast the Democrat as a liberal who has shifted his positions since winning the nomination, claiming he wants to raise taxes and pass climate change legislation that would hurt the state’s oil and gas industry. On top of that, Mr. Paxton said, Mr. Talarico is soft on crime and immigration, and is running on a twisted view of Christianity.
The GOP’s money is backing up the message.
Republicans have been hammering it across the airwaves, and as of Sept. 30, the party had poured $144 million into the race on behalf of Mr. Paxton. That easily outpaces the $65.3 million spent by Mr. Talarico and Democrats, according to tracking from AdImpact.
The blizzard of attack ads is expected to continue through Election Day.
The New York Times reported Tuesday that Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a Texas resident, has pumped $276 million into the midterms since July, including $158 million to the Senate Leadership Fund, the Senate GOP’s campaign arm, and $10 million to the pro-Paxton Lone Star Liberty PAC.
All of this comes as Mr. Paxton trails Mr. Talarico in the polls. Those numbers have been met with deep skepticism, given that Democrats have not won statewide in Texas since President Clinton’s first term.
After Mr. Talarico returned to the campaign trail over the weekend, the news cycle soon turned to Mr. Paxton.
The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that Mr. Paxton, who is going through a divorce, welcomed 2025 by watching the fireworks from a skyscraper in Dubai with his girlfriend, Tracy Duhon, and two Americans, Anosh Ahmed and Sameer Suhail. The two men had been indicted in federal court in Illinois in 2024 on charges that they embezzled $15 million from a Chicago hospital and, at the time, had failed to report to U.S. authorities.
The Journal also reported that Ahmed had donated $190,000 to Mr. Paxton, including $25,000 days after he was indicted.
The revelations add to the swirl of controversy surrounding Mr. Paxton as he enters the general election. It’s baggage he has carried for some time. He defeated Sen. John Cornyn in the GOP Senate primary, and he won a late-in-the-game endorsement from President Trump despite concerns about his personal and political history.
His wife filed for divorce last year, alleging infidelity. And in 2023, he was impeached by the Texas House on allegations of bribery, abuse of office and obstruction of justice, though the Senate later acquitted him.
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