In a leaked audio recording, Texas Attorney General and Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton privately admitted that President Donald Trump\u2019s disastrous midterm convention in Dallas hurt Republican candidates.<\/p>\n
At a private fundraiser in Washington last Thursday, Paxton spoke candidly about the event, according to a recording shared with The New York Times<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In the recording, Paxton is asked: \u201cDo you feel like he\u2019s a little bit of a drag?\u201d It is not immediately clear to whom the speaker is referring.<\/p>\n \u201cSo to be honest with you, the numbers\u2014when we did that convention\u2014it dropped our numbers. Everybody\u2019s numbers dropped. Right now, yeah, not good,\u201d Paxton said.<\/p>\n Three other people confirmed Paxton\u2019s attendance at the fundraiser to the Times<\/i>. Two recalled that Paxton was asked this question, and one recalled his negative response. The person who recorded the audio opposes Paxton\u2019s Senate campaign.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Paxton\u2019s comments are obviously a humiliating gaffe for Trump, who backed the attorney general against Senator John Cornyn in a shocking political maneuver<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Republican midterm convention in Dallas earlier this month was key to Trump\u2019s plan to energize his base\u2014but polls have shown<\/a> that Democrats benefited far more than Republicans did. RealClearPolitics<\/a>\u2019s Generic Congressional Vote, which averages results of other major polls, showed a sharp rise in support for Democrats after the convention, while Republicans\u2019 support stayed about the same.<\/p>\n Paxton has long struggled to match Democratic candidate James Talarico\u2019s funding. According to their latest quarterly filings<\/a> with the Federal Election Commission, Talarico\u2019s campaign had raked in $31.6 million, while Paxton had only raised $9.3 million.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Trump has repeatedly pledged his desire to see Paxton elected but hesitated to commit<\/a> any part of his $400 million MAGA Inc. war chest to help him win. Earlier this month, Trump held a fundraiser in Houston that was touted as a lifeline for Paxton\u2019s campaign\u2014but the money actually went to the Republican National Convention, according to the Wall Street Journal<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n The president\u2019s super PAC eventually gave $10 million<\/a> to fund two advertisements for Paxton\u2019s campaign. Meanwhile, Republican donors have been skittish<\/a> about contributing to Paxton\u2019s campaign amid mounting scandals<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=83222"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83223,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83222\/revisions\/83223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=83222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=83222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=83222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n