Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton faces a tight Senate race against James Talarico as early voting starts on Monday. Paxton previously tried to overturn the 2020 election results. Now, many wonder if he will use his office to challenge his own potential loss in this very close November contest.
The Texas attorney general's powers could come under scrutiny in a close Senate contest, though election experts say courts would likely constrain him.
In the immediate aftermath of the 2020 election, President Trump's allies searched for a Republican state attorney general willing to back a last-ditch legal effort to challenge the results.
They found their man in Texas: Ken Paxton.
"No one had the courage or the clarity of legal understanding to do it," Aaron Reitz, a top deputy to Mr. Paxton at the time, said in an interview. "Paxton and I were adamant that something needed to be done."
The suit quickly failed at the U.S. Supreme Court, which found Texas had no standing to try to invalidate votes cast in another state. But it firmly established Mr. Paxton, the Texas attorney general, as a partisan fighter willing to wield the power of his office to aid Republicans, attack Democrats and challenge election results. It made him a conservative star and helped him secure Mr. Trump's critical endorsement, propelling Mr. Paxton forward as the party's nominee this year for U.S. Senate in Texas.
Early voting starts on Monday.
Since 2020, Mr. Paxton has continued to use his office to intervene in election disputes and pursue political opponents. Mr. Paxton has sued the former congressman Beto O'Rourke, tried to shut down a Latino voter registration group, opposed the counting of provisional ballots in Houston and unsuccessfully tried to criminally indict a sitting county election administrator.
Now, as he is locked in an extremely close contest against James Talarico, the Democratic nominee, Mr. Paxton's record of election-related legal challenges and partisan legal actions has raised the question of how he would respond, in his capacity as attorney general and as a candidate, if he were to lose in November.
The Texas Senate race appears to have all the makings for a potential post-election legal fight by Mr. Paxton, should he lose. The contest is especially important to Republicans, who risk losing a statewide race for the first time in three decades and whose control of the U.S. Senate could hinge on the outcome. Current polls show Mr. Talarico with an edge in a tightening race.
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