Warren Kenneth Paxton, Jr., was born on Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota in 1962. His father was in the U.S. Air Force, and he lived in multiple states across the country, ultimately graduating from high school in Oklahoma. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree and a Master of Business Administration from Baylor University in Waco, Texas, and then received a Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia. After law school, he worked for a law firm and then served as in-house counsel for J.C. Penney. He opened his own law practice in 2002, less than a year before he ran for his first political office in Texas.
Since 2002, Paxton was a representative in the Texas House of Representatives from 2002 to 2013, the Texas Senate from 2013 to 2015, and then the Texas Attorney General from 2015 to the present. He won the attorney general’s election in 2014 without a single Texas newspaper endorsement. Considering that the newspapers in Texas lean way left and have for decades, it isn’t that surprising. He holds conservative positions, the New York Times and The Guardian going as far as to say his positions are far right or ultraconservative. Translate that as you will.
He supports a ban on abortion and has worked to end abortion access in Texas to the point of threatening to prosecute doctors who provide abortions. He sued a New York doctor who provided abortion drugs to a Texas resident and joined 14 other attorneys general to petition Congress to take action to preempt abortion shield laws. He does not support the Affordable Care Act and has started a lawsuit seeking to have the ACA ruled unconstitutional in its entirety. He does not believe in cannabis decriminalization and has sued several Texas cities to remove the decriminalization that those cities adopted.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, in 2020, Paxton threatened to sue cities that hadn’t rescinded stay-at-home orders and rules regarding the use of face masks. In March 2021, he sued the City of Austin and Travis County after they continued their face mask requirements even though Gov. Greg Abbott had signed an executive order ending statewide mask mandates. He created a human trafficking unit in his office in 2015 and has actively worked with 23 other states to have Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, DAPA, removed in its entirety. As of 2026, DAPA was still in effect, but Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, DACA, has not been implemented in Texas because of Paxton’s efforts. Everything listed above is only a small slice of what Paxton has done in the Texas Attorney General’s office.
His efforts have gone far and wide, covering everything from voter fraud to LGBT rights to homestead exemptions. He is a popular attorney general, having been reelected twice since his first term in office. He never fell below 50% of the vote in either 2018 or 2022, although it was really close in 2018, when he won by 50.57% over Democrat Justin Nelson’s 47.01%. In 2022, he won by 10% over the Democrat. In 2025, he made the decision to run for the U.S. Senate and unseat the ten-term incumbent, John Cornyn (R-TX). While there was a runoff in May of 2026, Paxton defeated Cornyn by more than twenty-five points, becoming the first person in fifty-six years to win a primary against an incumbent. His opponent in November will be James Talarico, a Democrat.
Do any of his successes as Texas Attorney General or his success at the ballot box mean that he hasn’t had problems either with the law or in his personal life? Of course not. Paxton is a politician, and he’s always been a politician. Yes, he has had problems, really big problems, including impeachment by the State of Texas for improper use of taxpayer funds. He was later acquitted of all charges. At the start of his political career, he was indicted on three criminal charges involving state securities fraud. He reached an agreement with the special prosecutor’s office in order to keep from going to trial. The State Bar of Texas pursued professional misconduct charges filed by Galveston, Texas, Democrats, still a little spicy over President Biden’s near loss, claiming that Paxton had raised a “frivolous and unethical challenge” to Biden’s election. That charge was later dismissed.
His private life is anything but private now. Married in 1986 to Angela Allen, he has four children and five grandchildren. An extramarital affair ruined his marriage and caused his wife to divorce him in 2025 on “biblical grounds.” The New York Times, always on the lookout for some disaster befalling Republicans, gleefully reported that "It was not clear whether the divorce litigation would hurt the attorney general’s political standing in his then-anticipated primary challenge to John Cornyn in that state's U.S. Senate campaign.” It didn’t.
To look at Ken Paxton, those outside of Texas are wondering why he beat the incumbent. He has managed to screw up his life both professionally and privately multiple times. Why isn’t he in jail? You would think he was a Democrat. He’s not; he’s a Republican and happy to be one. If he were a Democrat, no one would know anything about his professional or personal battles. As a Democrat, he could do no wrong. But because he has an R behind his name instead of a D, the whole world knows all of his business.
For all of those reading this who claim that Democrats aren’t that bad, I have two words for you: Ted Kennedy. He killed a woman, and nothing ever happened to him. Even today, Democrats get away with things for which Republicans would have been locked up. The two-tier system is alive and well. It has never gone away. Go ahead, Democrats, throw everything you have at Paxton. He’s already screwed up everything in his personal and professional life. The voters in Texas don’t appear to care.
Now, does this mean that he’ll beat Talarico and go on to be a senator from Texas? Absolutely not. As of today, with all the problems and issues and ugliness in his life, he is leading Talarico by less than one point, 45.2% to 44.6%. In a time when the Democratic Party is supposed to be leading a ‘blue wave’ to victory in November, there simply isn’t much there with the Democrats. Talarico has had major problems connecting to the voters he needs to win in November.
Related: James Talarico = Beto 0.5
We can also add to the mêlée that will be the 2026 midterm elections that Talarico’s largest backer is a financier whose name appears in the Epstein files. Talarico had attempted to tie Paxton to the notorious pedophile, but like everything else he’s tried, it blew up in his face.
Is Ken Paxton the perfect candidate? No, not even close. Is he miles better than anything the Democratic Party has to offer? Absolutely, 100% yes. Ken Paxton has had his entire life, both personal and professional, paraded before the entire country for months now. It hasn’t slowed him down, and I doubt that it will slow down his voters, including this author. It might be close, but as I have been told, close only counts in horseshoes. I believe that when the midterms are done, Ken Paxton will be the junior senator from Texas.
Editor's Note: The mainstream media continues to deflect, gaslight, spin, and lie about President Trump, his administration, and conservatives.
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