When President Donald Trump backed Ken Paxton for U.S. Senate at the national Republican midterm convention this September, he mixed his praise with a few jabs.
"Some may not like the way he dresses. I don't," said Trump from the stage at the American Airlines Center in Dallas. The president continued, saying some may not like Paxton's looks or "the way he talks."
But Trump also offered strong praise for his longtime ally.
"Here's the news: In the history of Texas, he is the single greatest attorney general you've ever had," Trump said. "Maybe the top attorney general in the whole United States."
Paxton has spent the last decade building his relationship with Trump — and more than two decades building his political career in Texas, where he's served as attorney general since 2015.
Throughout his career, Paxton candidate has survived scandals, criminal charges and even an impeachment, all while building a strong conservative following. He's also won every election he's run in, including defeating longtime incumbent U.S. Sen. John Cornyn in May's Republican primary runoff.
But now, Paxton is facing a different kind of challenge: A fiercely competitive Senate race against Democrat James Talarico. The conservative following that has carried him to victory again and again may not be enough to win in November.
Building a conservative following
Paxton was a lawyer whose political career began in Collin County, where he was first elected to the Texas House in 2002.
He represented the McKinney area for five terms in the House, where he helped pass laws changing property tax appraisals and requiring local tax rates to be posted online.
"I spent my whole time in the legislature fighting higher taxes," Paxton recently told young conservatives at the 2026 Texas Youth Summit.
Josh Blank, research director of UT Austin's Texas Politics Project, said Paxton consistently appealed to voters who wanted Republicans to go further on conservative policies.
"Paxton's rise has been based on his continuous and assiduous courting of the most conservative voters in the electorate," Blank said.
Ahead of the 2011 legislative session, he challenged fellow Republican Joe Straus for House speaker as Tea Party activists argued their party's leaders weren't conservative enough.
Paxton withdrew from the race after a preliminary vote among the chamber's Republicans showed Straus had more supporters. But Blank said the challenge helped him build support among those voters.
He won election to the Texas Senate in 2012, where he voted for abortion restrictions the following year.
That record helped Paxton argue he would push conservative policies further than other Republicans when he ran for attorney general, Blank said.
Paxton defeated state Rep. Dan Branch in the 2014 Republican primary runoff, then won the general election. He was already attorney general when Trump announced his presidential campaign in June 2015.
Attorney general and Trump ally
As attorney general, Paxton challenged federal immigration policies and defended Texas' voter-identification requirements in litigation over claims that the requirements discriminated against minority voters.
"I spent a lot of my time as attorney general suing the Obama and the Biden administrations," Paxton said during the Texas Youth Summit.
His office filed more than 100 lawsuits against the Biden administration alone. While Paxton has touted an 80% success rate during his U.S. Senate campaign, a Texas Tribune analysis found that Texas got the legal outcome it wanted in about two-thirds of those cases.
"Paxton's rise has been based on his continuous and assiduous courting of the most conservative voters in the electorate." — Joshua Blank, Texas Politics Project at UT-Austin
"Even CNN, not exactly my best friend, admitted that Texas was a legal graveyard for Biden policies," said Paxton at a recent campaign rally in Wichita Falls.
But Paxton has also built a record on issues that don't neatly fall along partisan lines.
"He's been a more consumer-friendly attorney general than his social issues would indicate," said Nancy Sims, a political science lecturer at the University of Houston.
His office reached major settlements with technology companies, including Meta over child safety and Google over privacy violations.
It also participated in opioid settlements and pursued health care fraud.
Paxton's loyalty to Trump extended into efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. After the election, he challenged the results in four states won by Joe Biden. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected his lawsuit for lack of standing.
He spoke at the pro-Trump rally in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, before the attack on the U.S. Capitol, and later attended Trump's criminal trial in New York.
Paxton kept winning elections despite his own legal troubles. He was reelected in 2018 and 2022 while facing felony securities fraud charges.
Those charges were dismissed in 2025 after he completed an agreement requiring restitution, community service and ethics training. He did not plead guilty.
In 2023, the Republican-led Texas House impeached him over allegations including bribery and misuse of office. During his Senate impeachment trial, Trump took to Truth Social to defend him.
The Texas Senate ultimately acquitted him on all 16 articles of impeachment.
A separate federal corruption investigation ended without charges following a decision by the Justice Department during the final weeks of the Biden administration.
Paxton has consistently denied any wrongdoing and called the investigations political attacks.
Sims said his loyalty to Trump helped him retain Republican support.
"The Trump philosophy — political philosophy — is stronger than people's distaste for behavior," she said.
But some Republicans have broken with Paxton. Every Republican House member from his home county voted to impeach him in 2023.
Running for the U.S. Senate
Paxton again campaigned as the more conservative alternative when he challenged U.S. Sen. John Cornyn. With Trump's endorsement, he defeated Cornyn in the May 2026 Republican runoff.
Michael Ratke, a farmer and business owner from Farwell, Texas, said he backed Paxton over Cornyn because he wanted a senator who would support Trump's agenda.
"That's what I'm looking for is somebody that will do their job and represent the kind of interest that I have, and I didn't think Cornyn was doing it anymore," Ratke recently told Houston Public Media.
Now, Paxton faces Talarico in a competitive general election that could help determine which party control of the Senate for the final two years of Trump's term.
Paxton's campaign platform promises to advance Trump's agenda in Washington, including cutting taxes, completing the border wall and deporting immigrants in the country illegally.
He has pointed to his work as attorney general as evidence of what he'd do in the Senate.
"I'm not asking you to imagine what I do as your senator," he said at an Oct. 20 campaign stop. "I'm asking you, look at the record."
Both candidates have proposed expanding the child tax credit to help families. Paxton also wants tax deductions for medical expenses and first-time homebuyers.
Talarico wants to roll back Trump's tariffs and raise taxes on billionaires and corporations. He proposes restoring federal help with health insurance premiums and expanding a tax credit for affordable housing.
Of course, either candidate would need support from the fellow members of Congress to make any of those plans a reality.
Republican voter Greg Graves said he didn't choose Paxton in the primary but would support him in the general election to help Republicans hold the seat.
"Paxton was selected as our candidate, and I'm 100% behind him, as I would any other candidate," Graves recently told KEDT Corpus Christi.
Blank said appealing to the most conservative primary voters used to all but assure Paxton a general-election win. But this year, polls have shown a much closer race, with some putting Talarico in the lead. At Trump's Oct. 27 rally in Lubbock, Paxton asked West Texas Republicans to help turn out voters.
"The election may depend on West Texas," Paxton said. "Get every Republican out to vote and we will win Texas."
Election day is November 3rd.
Additional reporting for this story was provided by Andrew Schneider of Houston Public Media and Spencer Cihak of KEDT Corpus Christi.
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