Getaway cars, affairs, Dubai fugitives: Trump’s pick Ken Paxton brings baggage to Senate race in Texas

The Republican state attorney general appears uniquely ill-chosen as a candidate – but he is a political survivor who could yet frustrate Democratic dreams Depending how you look at the situation, it is either predictable that Ken Paxton , Texas ’s attorney general and Republican candidate for US Senate , is struggling in the polls – or impressive that he is not doing worse.

Beloved by hardcore Maga voters and regarded with skepticism by the broader voting public, Paxton is also puzzlingly bland.

Recently, Donald Trump told a crowd of supporters that the 63-year-old Paxton “may not dress right, he may not talk exactly perfectly, and he may not be the best-looking guy I’ve ever seen”.

The president was endorsing him.

Yet it is Paxton’s ability to attract – and somehow scrape through – scandal that makes him a less charismatic, perhaps, but still kindred spirit of “ Teflon Don ”: nothing sticks.

He has survived state prosecution (on securities-related charges that he settled without admitting guilt), impeachment by the Republican -led Texas legislature (on abuse-of-office charges of which he was later acquitted), and so many controversies that it can be difficult to pin down the most outrageous.

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