{"id":449173,"date":"2026-09-27T09:10:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-27T09:10:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/449173\/"},"modified":"2026-09-27T09:10:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T09:10:17","slug":"republicans-see-warning-signs-for-paxton-in-the-dallas-fort-worth-suburbs-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/449173\/","title":{"rendered":"Republicans see warning signs for Paxton in the Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Gabby Birenbaum for The Texas Tribune<\/a><\/p>\n

Jill Tate has spent 30 years building and maintaining the Republican majority in Texas.<\/p>\n

In all that time, she\u2019s never been more worried about an election.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is truly the first time I\u2019ve felt in my bones we could lose the Texas House, and we could lose a statewide seat,\u201d Tate said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s very scary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now president of Texas Federation of Republican Women, Tate organizes over 10,000 women who do the hard work behind the party\u2019s dominant grassroots operation \u2014 calling and texting voters, block walking, producing voter guides and sending postcards.<\/p>\n

If her fears come to pass, it could be Tate\u2019s backyard \u2014 the fast-growing, diverse suburbs of the Dallas-Fort Worth region \u2014 that delivers Texas to the Democrats.<\/p>\n

Long associated with the country club types who formed a backbone of red Texas, the area is in the midst of enormous change driven by rapid population growth, corporate relocations and shifting political views in the Trump era.<\/p>\n

The change makes suburban voters \u2014 and suburban women in particular \u2014 a key swing bloc that U.S. Senate candidates Ken Paxton and James Talarico are chasing this November.<\/p>\n

But with the election less than six weeks away, Republicans worry the region\u2019s typically reliable voters, disenchanted by Paxton\u2019s political baggage, could sit out the Senate race, a hesitancy that also could endanger GOP candidates for the Legislature, county commission and justices of the peace.<\/p>\n

In interviews with over a dozen people in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, many Republicans said they were struggling with how to vote in the Senate contest or knew friends and neighbors who were.<\/p>\n

\"AnAn attendee waits for the festivities at a primary night election watch party for Ken Paxton, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, on March 3, in Dallas.AP<\/p>\n

Jayne Howell, who chaired the Denton County GOP from 2018 to 2022, said that six months ago, she was leaning toward not voting in the Senate race. Now, she\u2019s decided to vote for Paxton \u2014 but she knows not everyone has had the same evolution.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like he was going to vote for more conservative policies than his opponent,\u201d Howell said at a coffee shop in Lewisville, a suburb about 25 miles north of Dallas. \u201cSo I\u2019m going to vote for Paxton. It goes against my personal beliefs, but I don\u2019t want Talarico to win. But I think there\u2019s a lot of people that aren\u2019t going to even come out to vote. That\u2019s going to affect the down-ballot races.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some, describing their hesitation or opposition as faith-based, cited accusations of extramarital affairs by Paxton. His wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton<\/a>, cited adultery<\/a> in her 2025 divorce petition.<\/p>\n

Some voters lumped Paxton in with a GOP they have soured on during President Donald Trump\u2019s second term. Others were turned off by allegations of corruption stemming from a 2015 indictment for felony securities fraud (charges were dropped in 2024 after Paxton, who didn\u2019t admit guilt, agreed to 100 hours of community service, 15 hours of ethics training and $271,000 in restitution) and 2023 articles of impeachment accusing him of misusing his office to benefit a friend and political donor (the Texas Senate voted to acquit him after a two-week trial).<\/p>\n

Dan Pence, a 68-year-old in Rowlett, has voted Republican in nearly every election in his life. After voting for Trump in 2024, he\u2019s found himself frustrated with the direction of the party. He still believes he will stick with Republicans for most statewide races, but he\u2019s undecided in the Senate contest \u2014 and leaning toward Talarico, whom he thinks he could \u201chold my nose\u201d and vote for. Paxton, he said, is a bridge too far.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t verbalize how much I dislike that guy,\u201d Pence said. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t even want to be in the same room as him. He exudes slimy.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the 2024 presidential election, nearly one in four Texas votes came from the region\u2019s core four counties \u2014 Dallas, Tarrant, Collin and Denton \u2014 making them enormously important to both candidates\u2019 hopes for success. The suburban area was a Republican stronghold before 2016 but has trended more blue in recent election cycles.<\/p>\n

Democrats flipped Tarrant County in the 2018 U.S. Senate race and narrowly won the county in the 2024 Senate race even as the state lurched right. Collin County, home to Plano and Frisco, has remained narrowly red despite statewide shifts, with Beto O\u2019Rourke, Joe Biden and Colin Allred receiving 46% to 47% of the vote despite running in wildly different cycles. Even Denton County, traditionally the most Republican of the bunch, has seen slippage in GOP support after Trump won by 20 points in 2016 and 13.1 points in 2024.<\/p>\n

To succeed in these counties, the Republican turnout operation will need to convert the hesitant.<\/p>\n

The Texas Federation of Republican Women this fall will host weekends of mass action in Tarrant, Williamson and Collin counties \u2014 all with significant suburban populations \u2014 to promote state-level and down-ballot Republican candidates and encourage voters to support the entire ticket.<\/p>\n

In addition, numerous GOP candidates and organizers said they are emphasizing to friends and neighbors the old adage that a vote is a chess move rather than a valentine.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have tried to say to some of our ladies who are not especially enthusiastic about voting for [Paxton] \u2014 and it\u2019s not just him, there\u2019s some other candidates [who are] not their favorite \u2014 we may not have perfect candidates, because we\u2019re all human,\u201d Tate said. \u201cWe all make mistakes. But we have perfect ideals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kronda Thimesch, a former Republican state representative from Denton County who voted to impeach Paxton and then lost a GOP primary, is president of her local Republican women\u2019s club. She said friends from church with deeply held biblical values are struggling with how to vote this November, and in some cases are so put off by Paxton that they\u2019re planning to skip the election entirely.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of people that I\u2019ve been having conversations with, [telling them] if you can\u2019t vote for one Republican, please continue to go down ballot and vote for the rest,\u201d said Thimesch, who lost her 2024 primary to Paxton impeachment attorney Mitch Little. \u201cBut unfortunately, a lot of people, they don\u2019t even want to walk into the polling location and vote \u2014 which is disheartening.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite hesitation from some voters, Paxton can still expect to get hundreds of thousands of votes out of these counties. Trump, as Paxton has noted, has been dogged by some of the same ethical baggage yet won Tarrant, Collin and Denton counties in 2024 en route to a blowout in the state.<\/p>\n

His campaign believes it has a compelling story to tell suburban women. One pro-Paxton ad focuses on a sex trafficking case that his office prosecuted. And the campaign plans to emphasize the attorney general\u2019s record pursuing consumer protection lawsuits on issues suburban women care about.<\/p>\n

\"DemocraticDemocratic Texas Senate nominee James Talarico speaks to supporters at his campaign event in Austin, Texas, in February.AP<\/p>\n

\u201cSuburban moms want someone who will actually fight the people putting their kids in harm\u2019s way: Big Food, Big Pharma, and Big Tech,\u201d Paxton spokesperson Madison Cercy said in a statement, citing the attorney general\u2019s lawsuits targeting misleading food labeling, forever chemicals and social media platforms that create addiction among kids.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re not looking for someone who treats their kids upbringing as a social experiment and views public safety as optional,\u201d Cercy said. \u201cKen Paxton is the fighter they have already trusted and the one they need, and that is the message our campaign will be bringing to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Polling suggests Paxton still has work to do to consolidate the Republican base \u2014 work that the various groups making up the Republican ground game are undertaking as get-out-the-vote efforts ramp up. Down-ballot candidates also are working their territories across the region, well aware of the stakes the Senate race could pose.<\/p>\n

Shelby Williams, a former Collin County GOP chair now running for county commission in a purple district in the west of the county, said he leads with local policy \u2014 infrastructure, property taxes, water \u2014 rather than his partisan allegiance. He has heard people \u201chere and there\u201d say they\u2019re planning to skip the Senate race. Like Tate, he wants voters to see that the election is a binary choice and encourages them to look at both candidates\u2019 records.<\/p>\n

\u201cEspecially amongst the Christian right \u2014 and I am a devout Christian \u2014 there\u2019s a tendency to look at the stains and say, well I can\u2019t get behind so-and-so,\u201d Williams said. \u201cWell, OK, you have to inspect the alternative \u2014 even if the alternative is an undervote. You\u2019re going to vote for something, even if it\u2019s by your inaction.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Paxton campaign is emphasizing the dangers of an undervote as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe stakes are clear: if voters stay home in the suburbs, they are not sitting out a personality contest. They are leaving their kids\u2019 food, phones, schools, and streets to the politician who has proven he will not fight those fights,\u201d Cercy said.<\/p>\n

Ross Hunt, a GOP operative in Dallas, said the Republican base rapidly consolidated behind Paxton after he secured the nomination in May, but the pace and intensity has not been uniform across regions.<\/p>\n

Hunt said he is more concerned about Republicans skipping the Senate race in North Texas than in other parts of the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cConsolidation has been stronger \u2014 not universally \u2014 but it\u2019s been stronger in other areas of the state than it has been in D-FW,\u201d Hunt said. \u201cAnd some of that has to do with the fact that we just have more George Bush-style Republicans up here. That\u2019s part of it. Some of it I think has to do with the fact that we have a lot of voters up here who are economically motivated, and are not really culture warriors at all, and are looking for someone who\u2019s focused on those issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s troubling the suburbs<\/p>\n

Laura Hill, the Republican mayor of Southlake from 2015 to 2021, hasn\u2019t missed an election since Gerald Ford was president.<\/p>\n

Hill runs in a wide circle of women in the Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs \u2014 women she described as successful, well-educated and politically engaged. But this cycle, many of them have told her they\u2019re planning to skip the Senate race on their ballots. Hill intends to do the same \u2014 and feels like the GOP political culture in Tarrant County has left her feeling increasingly unwelcome, particularly after losing a 2022 Texas House primary that she said included personal attacks on her businesses, employees and parents.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019ve created monsters \u2014 and that\u2019s what my friends are saying,\u201d Hill said. \u201cWe\u2019ve all done things that we\u2019ve had to ask for forgiveness, and that is between us and our Lord. But at some point, you no longer speak for the Lord when you continue to have to ask for forgiveness and you have a chosen lifestyle. Live it! But don\u2019t tell me that I need to vote for you just because you are a Republican.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TexasKen Paxton, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, poses for a selfie with a supporter during a primary election night watch party on March 3, in Dallas.AP<\/p>\n

Hill said among the skeptical Republican women she\u2019s talked to, about 40 percent plan to vote for Talarico.<\/p>\n

Dorothy Burton, the former Republican mayor pro tem of Duncanville, left the GOP in 2019 and now considers herself partyless. A member of Republicans for Talarico, Burton believes there\u2019s a quiet network of Republicans planning to pull the lever for the Democrat while continuing to vote with the GOP in other races.<\/p>\n

Being a Republican, she said, is about more than a party \u2014 it\u2019s an identity. But she believes the willingness by some in the GOP to criticize Paxton will let more Bush-aligned Republicans vote for Talarico \u2014 or skip the race \u2014 without feeling like they\u2019re compromising that identity.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow that some have given permission that it is OK to vote for Talarico, it\u2019s like, I can do that and still be Republican,\u201d Burton said.<\/p>\n

John Huffman, a Republican who followed Hill as Southlake mayor and finished third in the initial special election for Senate District 9 in the Fort Worth area, has been a vocal critic of his party\u2019s direction and the political doom he believes it could bring in November.<\/p>\n

\u201cI especially think suburban women \u2014 but maybe just your average suburban professional in Tarrant County and elsewhere \u2014 looks at Paxton, and looks at the personal and the professional and political baggage he comes with, and starts to think: is this the best we have?\u201d Huffman said. \u201cIs this really the best we can do as Republicans?\u201d<\/p>\n

A good portion of the more establishment wing of the party will likely come home for Paxton. Republican advertising has gone hard on Talarico, criticizing his record on taxes and comments supporting transgender Texans, to drive home the point that a Talarico victory would be anathema to their values.<\/p>\n

Darlene Stanaland, a 79-year-old in Frisco, voted for Paxton in the primary and plans to vote for him again in the general election.<\/p>\n

Stanaland first met Paxton, a longtime fixture in Collin County politics, years ago at a Tea Party protest outside Frisco City Hall. She appreciated that Paxton was active in filing legal challenges against the Biden administration.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe at least fights for Texas,\u201d Stanaland said. \u201cThat\u2019s more than most of them do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stanaland, a lifelong Republican who never misses an election, said her social circle is also firmly behind Paxton.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody\u2019s got a past and everybody\u2019s got a personal life, and that\u2019s not what this is about,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is about conserving our state, and I think he does that.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Huffman, who said he cannot vote for Paxton and likely will skip the Senate race, believes the Republican Party will leave votes on the table \u2014 support it potentially cannot afford to lose.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a candidate, you\u2019re trying to sell yourself \u2014 and you sell on trust,\u201d Huffman said. \u201cAnd there are so many issues with Paxton. He has broken trust with many, many people. I think for him particularly, you are testing the outer limits of the average general election voter\u2019s ability to be loyal to the concept of lesser of two evils.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several lifelong Republican voters from the Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs echoed Huffman\u2019s sentiment.<\/p>\n

Kelly Sayre, a 75-year-old in Corinth, was once the Denton County GOP vice chair. But he became disillusioned with the GOP after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol; in 2024, he voted for Kamala Harris for president and Ted Cruz for Senate.<\/p>\n

Sayre said he thinks he\u2019ll vote for Talarico this November \u2014 both as an opportunity to vote against Trump and Paxton (\u201cI just don\u2019t believe he\u2019s a good person\u201d) and because he sees something positive in the Democratic seminarian.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter 10 or 12 years of name-calling and outright cruelty, I don\u2019t see that coming from him,\u201d Sayre said. \u201cPeople feel differently about this, but for me, it\u2019s important in that I see him to be a practicing Christian that\u2019s far closer to living like we\u2019re supposed to live than the alternative.\u201d<\/p>\n

Betty Graham, an 82-year-old in Plano, is a lifelong Republican who voted for Trump two years ago. A native of West Texas, she recalled meeting George H.W. Bush at a fundraiser in Abilene in the 1980s and working on a Republican campaign in Nolan County. But she\u2019s been disappointed by the president\u2019s second term \u2014 especially over the Iran war and the administration\u2019s pursuit of border infrastructure in Big Bend National Park and surrounding areas.<\/p>\n

Graham has come to regret her Trump vote and finds herself heartbroken by the direction of the party. She could have voted for Cornyn, she said, but refuses to vote for Paxton. Now, she considers herself an independent \u2014 and she\u2019s planning to skip the race or vote Libertarian. Voting for a Democrat is out of the question.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t, in good conscience, vote on any of the Republicans,\u201d Graham said. \u201cAnd I certainly am not going to vote on the Democrat, because I don\u2019t believe their ideology at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democrats see an opportunity<\/p>\n

Voters like Graham represent the potential and the pitfalls for Talarico.<\/p>\n

\"SupportersSupporters of James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Texas, react as results come in during a primary election watch party on March 3 in Austin, Texas.AP<\/p>\n

Every Republican voter who skips the contest helps the Democrat, but to win, Talarico also needs to pick up crossover and independent support. Republicans are now spending tens of millions to emphasize Talarico\u2019s negatives in the hope of moving unsure or unmotivated Republicans into Paxton\u2019s camp.<\/p>\n

This is not the first statewide race where Democrats have looked to the suburbs for an edge \u2014 and in the past, they\u2019ve ultimately been disappointed. In 2018, O\u2019Rourke posted the best results Democrats had seen in decades in Tarrant, Collin and Denton counties but still lost to Cruz by 2.6 percentage points. In 2020, Biden saw record high Democratic vote totals and similar percentages to O\u2019Rourke but lost the state by 5 points. And even as Allred achieved similar results in Tarrant, Collin and Denton counties as his Democratic predecessors, he lost to Cruz by a larger margin in 2024 as his party underperformed in the urban cores and in South Texas.<\/p>\n

The results beg the question: Are there enough untapped suburban votes for Talarico and Democrats to capitalize on?<\/p>\n

State Sen. Taylor Rehmet<\/a>, a Garland mechanic and union leader, represents the bullish case for Democrats. In a district Trump won by 17 points in 2024, Rehmet emerged from a January special election with a 14-point victory in a Tarrant County district that contains a portion of Fort Worth and its northern suburbs. Special elections, with smaller totals, can produce unusual results \u2014 but Rehmet\u2019s victory in Senate District 9 inspired enormous Democratic enthusiasm.<\/p>\n

Democrats see opportunity beyond dissatisfied Republicans \u2014 enthusiasm driving increased turnout by their voters and swings away from the GOP in the suburban Hispanic population. Rehmet relied on both in his shocking special election victory in Tarrant County.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are targeting the working class folks,\u201d said Allison Campolo, chair of the Tarrant County Democratic Party. \u201cWe are a county with a huge amount of working class people, but also a lot of union people \u2014 Lockheed Martin, Bell Helicopter, a bunch of others. And so making sure that these working-class union voters know who\u2019s standing up for workers\u2019 rights, affordability and good jobs is a really big deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Majority-Hispanic precincts shifted<\/a> by an average of 34 percentage points toward Rehmet relative to the 2022 race for the Senate district. Jason Villalba, a former Republican state representative from Dallas who runs the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation, said even with the usual caveats about low turnout in special elections, the size of the Hispanic vote swing toward Rehmet was too large to be dismissed.<\/p>\n

He suspects the swing is not limited to Fort Worth.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re seeing similar effects, at least anecdotally, in all of the major suburbs,\u201d Villalba said. \u201cPlano is largely Hispanic \u2026 we\u2019re seeing the same trends. Arlington, Grand Prairie, Cedar Hill, Mansfield \u2014 all of it showing the same trends.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democrats also believe a bevy of newer issues \u2014 frustration with data centers and Flock cameras among them \u2014 will drive voters toward the party. Numerous Democrats also said the state\u2019s ban on several hemp-derived THC products is an issue they\u2019re hearing a surprising amount about as they campaign door to door.<\/p>\n

Delia Parker-Mims, chair of the Denton County Democratic Party, said THC could be a sleeper issue for suburban women and younger voters. There are smoke shops, she said, in the more middle class and well-to-do suburbs, and middle-age women are increasingly using THC products for health reasons.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Housewives] are into THC, and now you\u2019re taking that away,\u201d Parker-Mims said. \u201cI do think that is pissing a lot of people off.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some Republicans agree that this cycle is different from past ones. Many emphasized that in 2018, when Republicans narrowly held onto victory, Cruz had the Republican Party unified behind him.<\/p>\n

But in North Texas, some no longer see that enthusiasm. Several GOP voters who plan to leave the Senate race blank or vote for Talarico also stressed they would\u2019ve had no trouble voting for Cornyn.<\/p>\n

Hill consistently voted for Cornyn and Cruz, saying they \u201ccarry themselves in a manner that is important to our party.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think because we have so much power and we think Republicans are untouchable in Texas, we\u2019ve decided that we can put up anybody,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

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