Ken Paxton privately cites Iran war and fuel costs as problems in Texas Senate race

Ken Paxton, the Republican nominee for a US Senate seat in Texas, privately identified the Iran war and fuel prices as problems for his campaign, according to audio reported by Axios on October 7. The remarks offer a view of how Paxton described the pressure on his campaign ahead of November’s election; they do not establish that either issue caused a change in voter support.

Axios said it obtained the audio from a person who attended a closed-door fundraiser in Washington, DC, the previous month. The person opposed Paxton and was granted anonymity because the event was private. The precise date of the recording and the identities of other attendees were not established in the report.

What Paxton said about the Iran war and fuel prices

Asked which issues were dragging on his campaign, Paxton said, ‘It’s not tariffs. ... It’s the war, it’s gas prices, it’s diesel,’ according to Axios’s account of the recording. He described affordability as ‘by far our biggest problem’ and connected it to the campaign ‘having a hard time with numbers.’ Those are Paxton’s characterizations of the race, rather than a measured explanation of the polls.

Paxton said diesel prices above $6 a gallon pinched people and that higher fuel costs fed through to food and other expenses. He also said he could neither control gas prices nor stop the war, while saying he was trying to help through proposed legislation. Axios described his affordability proposals as including housing and health-care tax write-offs and an expanded child tax credit.

How the Texas Senate race stands

Paxton is facing Democratic state Representative James Talarico after defeating Senator John Cornyn in a Republican primary runoff in May, Axios reported. The outlet said polls had largely shown Talarico narrowly ahead. Texas Public Radio, reporting on separate leaked remarks the previous week, said most polling since midsummer had shown the candidates tied or Talarico slightly ahead. Neither account establishes that the war or fuel prices produced those results.

The contest has drawn substantial Republican spending. In independent reporting on campaign finances, the Associated Press said the Trump-aligned MAGA Inc. had nearly $416 million in cash at the end of August. Major Republican groups together had about $1 billion available, compared with roughly $579 million held by a comparable set of major Democratic organizations, AP reported. Those national totals show the scale of resources available to the parties; they are not sums committed solely to Texas.

AP said MAGA Inc. had spent more than $22 million in Texas during the preceding month. It also reported that a group aligned with Senate Republican leader John Thune had spent more than $83 million on advertising, citing figures from the ad-tracking firm AdImpact. AP said Republican groups buying advertising late sometimes paid more than five times the rates available to groups that reserved space earlier. Republican pollster Neil Newhouse told AP that October advertising was a ‘drop in the bucket’ beside advertising placed before Labor Day.

Texas has not elected a Democratic senator since 1988, according to AP. That history makes the competitiveness described in the current polling notable, but it does not predict November’s result. Nor do the national fundraising totals establish how much either side will ultimately spend in this specific contest.

Earlier leaked remarks about Trump’s convention

The latest recording follows a separate account of Paxton’s private comments. Texas Public Radio reported on September 30 that audio obtained by The New York Times captured Paxton saying a Republican convention in Dallas had ‘dropped our numbers.’ The radio report said the Times had verified the recording with three people knowledgeable about the event and that it was later reposted by a Democratic social-media feed.

Paxton adviser Nick Maddux called the Times story ‘more manipulated nonsense’ and said the campaign’s latest poll showed Paxton leading by three points, Texas Public Radio reported. That campaign claim sits alongside the broader polling picture described by the outlet, which showed Talarico tied or slightly ahead in most polls since midsummer. University of Houston political science professor Brandon Rottinghaus told the station the earlier remarks could affect perceptions of Trump’s usefulness to Republican candidates; he presented that as analysis, not an outcome already demonstrated.

Axios said Trump was scheduled to rally with Paxton in San Antonio on October 7. The available reporting establishes the planned appearance, not that it took place. It also leaves open whether Paxton’s private assessment reflects a wider view among voters: the recording shows what he told people at a fundraiser, while the polling and spending reports describe the race from different angles.