Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, privately admitted last month that Gov. Greg Abbott (R) isn’t doing so hot in his bid for reelection, per leaked audio shared by Rolling Stone on Wednesday.
“Yes, Abbott is struggling,” Paxton told donors and lobbyists at a private fundraiser in Washington, D.C., last month.
He noted that Abbott, however, has “a lot” more money and is more recognizable than his Democratic opponent, state Rep. Gina Hinojosa.
Recent polling shows Abbott, who hopes to win an unprecedented fourth term in an effort to become the longest-serving governor in the state’s history, holding on to a narrow lead over Hinojosa.
Paxton — who has been struggling himself, trailing Democratic opponent James Talarico in a growing list of polls — proceeded to stack himself up against Abbott, arguing that the governor didn’t have a “brutal” primary race filled with negative ads like he did.
He then named the “disadvantages” he’s facing in his race: “not having time to raise more money,” negative ads, and a “well-funded and well-known” opponent.
Later in the recording, he predicted that he doesn’t see the Texas Legislature “getting better” for Republicans, adding, “We’re probably going to lose some seats.”
The clip is the latest in a series of leaks from an event where the candidate blamed Donald Trump’s Iran war, higher fuel prices and the president’s midterm convention in Dallas for being a “drag” on his campaign.
In one clip, shared by Politico, Paxton admitted to attendees that his campaign was “all coming from D.C.”
Paxton, in another obtained by The Texas Tribune, warned that cuts to federal benefits programs could be a “reality” and people are going to have to “suck it up.”
Paxton told Fox News on Sunday that he wasn’t worried about the leaks “at all,” adding, “Just because they were able to clip a few things doesn’t mean that’s actually what I meant.”
A spokesperson for Paxton, in a statement to Rolling Stone, claimed that the latest leak was a result of the magazine “combing through cherry-picked audio from a private fundraiser,” calling it “nothing more than a partisan hit job.”
“It’s the same tired playbook the left has run against Ken Paxton for years. It hasn’t worked once,” the statement read.
It continued, “Republicans across Texas are united behind the Attorney General because they know what’s at stake, and no amount of selectively clipped audio is going to change that.”