Like Ken Paxton, Without the Baggage

A crucial midterm contest is happening right now in Texas, one that could determine the future of the state and its influence on federal policy and national politics.

No, not the U.S.

Senate race—though everyone is watching that one, and with good reason.

The Republican, Ken Paxton—who has served as Texas’s attorney general since 2015—is an unusually weak candidate, beset by personal and financial scandals and a reputation for using his office for right-wing culture-war fixations, and weighed down by a deeply unpopular president.

On the other side is James Talarico, an unusually strong Democratic candidate, fluent in the language of faith and without the cloud of scandal that haunts his opponent.

“This is the most competitive election that we have seen in Texas” in decades, James Henson, the executive director of the University of Texas at Austin’s nonpartisan Texas Politics Project , told me.

But the race I’m talking about is downstream of that: Who will succeed Ken Paxton? The two major-party candidates vying to be attorney general are Nathan Johnson, a Democratic state senator from Dallas, and Mayes Middleton (“MAGA Mayes,” as his own ads call him), a Republican state senator and GOP mega-donor whose district covers parts of Harris, Brazoria, and Galveston counties.

An October poll from the Texas Politics Project shows a dead heat, with Johnson at 48 percent and Middleton at 47 percent.

The Texas attorney general is a very powerful position, one that has frequently been a springboard to higher office—John Cornyn held the job before becoming a U.S. senator, as did Greg Abbott before becoming the state’s governor.

The AG is meant to defend the laws of the state, and has certain specific responsibilities, such as enforcing child support and investigating Medicaid fraud.

Over the past few decades, however, the role has become something more: a way for ambitious politicians to wage culture wars, cultivate a national profile by taking on right-wing causes, and shape law and policy not just in Texas but nationwide.

The attorney general “helps set legal policy across the country,” Justin Nelson, a Democrat who came within a few points of unseating Paxton in 2018, told me.

The race between Talarico and Paxton may be capturing everyone’s attention right now, but “when you’re a senator, you’re one of 100,” Nelson pointed out.

There’s only one attorney general of Texas.