Paxton Goes Soft? $20M Family-Ad Campaign Floods Texas.

Has Ken Paxton really gone soft? Yes … and it’s about time. 

Until now, Paxton and the GOP have largely relied on outside PACs for their Senate campaign in Texas. MAGA Inc and Elon Musk’s America PAC have bought heavy TV rotation for relentless attack ads on James Talarico. Senate Republicans joined the campaign last month with an eight-figure buy through Texas PAC after Donald Trump buried the hatchet with John Thune and John Cornyn, the latter more ostensibly than substantially. Talarico and his allies either ran out of cash in September or hoarded it for October, as his ads all but disappeared from television.

Paxton’s own campaign had kept relatively quiet since the summer, too, leading to speculation about fundraising issues. Today, however, Team Paxton launched a $20 million ad blitz of their own, a positive-message, soft-focus strategy to sell Paxton as a father and a man with an agenda to deliver growth and prosperity to Texans and the US. Punchbowl reported on the launch this morning:

THE NEW PAXTON ad, which we scooped in @PunchbowlNews AMhttps://t.co/6h0PbJJmlv pic.twitter.com/AQRbvZfXEE

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) October 2, 2026

Translation: The anti-Talarico ads may have reached the saturation point. That doesn’t mean that the PACs running them will take them off the air. They likely have new versions of the same message ready to roll out – that Talarico is “weird” (an explicit ad message I watched last night), that he’s in league with radicals, and that his pretensions to Christianity are mainly heretical. 

Those are potent attacks, but Texans have absorbed those messages for weeks now. With the home stretch approaching – and more importantly, the start of early in-person voting coming in the next two weeks – Paxton has to give voters something to choose as well as something to oppose. He needs to redefine himself after months of attacks on his character and controversies, and he needs to do it quickly.

Hence, we have his new ad, “Mattie.” As Jake Sherman reports, Mattie Hayworth presents a much more human and caring vision of Paxton as a father and grandfather:

Can we vote for Mattie? I kid, I kid, but that’s the point. Mattie Paxton Hayworth gives a very effective soft pitch for her father at a moment when Paxton’s own character has mainly been a punching bag. Paxton has significant baggage in Texas, and while he’s won three statewide elections as Attorney General, he has never faced the avalanche of money and resources facing him in this election. It’s not enough to disqualify Talarico; the 2024 presidential election demonstrated the limits of the DQ strategy. Candidates have to offer a positive vision of themselves and a clear agenda for positive change if they want to win, even in states where their party gives them significant advantages. 

Of course, it’s easy to go soft while Paxton’s allies Elon Musk and Donald Trump stay on the attack. That’s exactly what outside PACs do. The notable absence of a strong positive-message campaign from Paxton is what created the imbalance, but now that Paxton has corrected his fundraising deficits, it appears he’s ready to hit the sweet spot. 

Did Paxton wait too long? Early in-person voting begins in less than two weeks, so Paxton has a little wiggle room, but even Trump says he’s “worried about Texas” while hitting the campaign trail:

President Donald Trump warned Republicans that Texas and Michigan are among the states the party is “worried about” ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, while speaking to voters in Oklahoma on Thursday.

Fresh off an event in Texas, Trump told a crowd in the reliably Republican state that he was not concerned about Oklahoma but that Republicans needed to turn out voters in other states.

“I feel a little foolish, you know. I’m saying, ‘go out and vote, go out and vote.’ You’re gonna, they’re gonna win in the last half, but still go out and vote,” Trump said. “But we’re not worried about them. We’re worried about Michigan. We’re worried about Texas. We’re worried about a few states.”

Trump clearly wants to create a sense of urgency with this talk, but … there is reason to worry. People need to turn out and vote, and to do that, they need a reason to vote. Paxton needs to pour it on in the next five weeks. 

Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.

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