Source: Politics<\/p>\n
Ken Paxton and his MAGA allies framed his stunning impeachment trial as the last gasp of the GOP\u2019s weakened establishment.<\/p>\n
“RINOs and far-left radicals” were coming after him, Paxton said of the trial that has engulfed Texas politics for more than a week. Former President Donald Trump issued a similar warning<\/a>, while Donald Trump Jr. is threatening to organize primaries against any Republican state senator who votes for the state attorney general\u2019s conviction, promising \u201cRINO hunting season starts soon!!!<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n But as the trial nears its conclusion \u2014 a decision could come as early as this weekend \u2014 what the Paxton saga truly laid bare is something that\u2019s far less revealing about the establishment wing of the party than about its MAGA base.<\/p>\n Even if he avoids conviction, Paxton has been damaged, with an ideological mix of Republicans aligned against him and his public approval rating ticking down. If the Texas trial proves anything, it\u2019s that there may be at least some limits to the partisan tribalism of the Trump era.<\/p>\n Even in the reddest of states, the forces buoying Trump within the GOP do not extend equally to the former president\u2019s allies and hangers-on.<\/p>\n “There are some apt comparisons to Donald Trump here because Ken Paxton is still very popular with the Republican Party base in Texas,” said Brendan Steinhauser, Austin-based Republican strategist who has led campaigns for Sen. John Cornyn and Reps. Michael McCaul and Dan Crenshaw (He has also advised Paxton’s wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, who has recused herself from voting in the trial).<\/p>\n However, Steinhauser said, “The Texas Senate is actually ideologically very aligned with Paxton, so if he gets convicted, it’s not because these are the establishment people.”<\/p>\n Of all the hard-line Republicans who have embraced Trump in an effort to further their own careers, few have been so embattled \u2014 or so closely associated themselves with Trump \u2014 as Paxton. Texas Republicans for years stuck with him, including in his defeat of George P. Bush, a scion of the Bush dynasty, in Paxton\u2019s reelection last year.<\/p>\n But while Trump\u2019s impeachments and, later, criminal indictments only served to rally the Republican base around him, Paxton is paying a price for his controversies with the Republican electorate \u2014 a sign Trump’s partisan halo extends only so far.<\/p>\n Between when the Republican-led House voted 121\u201323 to impeach him in late May \u2014 something Trump had lobbied them against doing<\/a> \u2014 and shortly before the beginning of his trial, Paxton saw his approval rating crater by 12 points, to 27 percent, according to a University of Texas\/Texas Politics Project Poll<\/a>. An all-time high 23 percent of Republicans now disapprove of him.<\/p>\n Cornyn, himself a former Texas attorney general, has called the allegations against Paxton<\/a> “deeply disturbing.” Texas GOP Rep. Chip Roy, a former Paxton lieutenant, has previously called for his former boss\u2019s resignation. Paxton primary challenger and former Rep. Louie Gohmert wrote that pursuing Paxton is not an example of “corrupt prosecution<\/a>.” Konni Burton, a former Texas state senator who had the most conservative voting record, said she believes Paxton \u201cabused the office<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI do think there are a lot of grassroots people who look at this, they equate it to what’s going on with Trump,\u201d said a Texas Republican consultant granted anonymity to speak freely about intraparty dynamics. \u201cPaxton has done a very good job of trying to play the Trump card and say these are Democrats, this is a witch hunt, whatever else. But here again, when you look at who voted to impeach him, they\u2019re Republicans. When you look at the people that brought the charges against him, these are conservatives that worked in his office. These are not Democrats. These are not RINOs.\u201d<\/p>\n Even Rick Perry, the former three-term Texas governor and former Trump Energy secretary who was himself indicted while in office \u2014 although charges were dismissed \u2014 cautioned against outside groups working to delegitimize the impeachment proceedings.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a sitting governor who was once wrongly indicted, I know that processes can be abused. But that isn\u2019t what I see here,\u201d Perry wrote in The Wall Street Journal<\/a>. \u201cWe should be praising, not vilifying, them for taking their responsibilities seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n Paxton, facing a historic, 16-article impeachment trial after years of allegations of corruption and bribery, has dismissed the proceedings as a “kangaroo court” in the Texas Legislature, while Paxton\u2019s lawyer derided the case as \u201ca lot of nothing.\u201d And the verdict is far from clear. Paxton needs 10 Republican senators to vacate the charges, and six Republicans have consistently supported every motion favorable to his case.<\/p>\n Trump is still standing firmly beside him. “Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was easily re-elected last November, but now establishment RINOS are trying to undo that Election with a shameful impeachment of him,” Trump wrote on Truth Social<\/a> on Thursday, calling Paxton “one of the TOUGHEST & BEST Attorney Generals in the Country.”<\/p>\n He added the Democrats are “feeling very good right now as they watch, as usual, the Republicans fight & eat away at each other.”<\/p>\n Matt Mackowiak, an Austin-based Republican strategist and chair of the Travis County GOP, said he suspected \u201cTrump\u2019s been persuaded that this has been sort of a Republican establishment attack on a conservative.\u201d<\/p>\n But despite some parallels between their legal problems, he said, \u201cIt\u2019s obviously a Texas issue.\u201d<\/p>\n For the Texas Senate Republicans, crossing Trump is still perilous. Siding against Paxton could potentially result in them being primaried.<\/p>\n This summer, one conservative group, Defend Texas Liberty PAC, sent out mailers and text messages and put up billboards<\/a> around the state targeting Republicans who voted for Paxton\u2019s impeachment trial. Another group, Texans Strong Borders, sent out text messages<\/a> in support of Paxton featuring Donald Trump Jr.\u2019s praise for the attorney general and calling for donations. \u201cSTOP THIS SHAM IMPEACHMENT!\u201d, the text message read.<\/p>\n Republican activist and donor Steve Hotze set up the site \u201cStandwithPaxton.com\u201d to raise money and petition against the trial.<\/p>\n “You’re gonna see a lot of candidates step up and run primary challenges, and then you’re going to see these operatives get behind them with money and know-how, and a built-in system to support them,\u201d Steinhauser said. \u201cNow whether or not that leads to two or three incumbents getting taken out or 20 or 30, I don’t know. But I think that it’s a real effort.”<\/p>\n But to a far greater degree than with Trump, Paxton\u2019s party is no longer in lockstep.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are already dozens of conservative Republican challengers to the liberals in the Texas House who teamed up with Democrats to pass this impeachment,\u201d said Luke Macias, a conservative podcaster and director of Defend Texas Liberty PAC. Illustrating just how much the Paxton trial has animated some on the right, Macias also wrote a song and produced a music video about the Texas House, written from the perspective of the kind of \u201cRINO\u201d member his group is targeting.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere I come from, we overturn some elections and impeach your Ken,\u201d Macias sings to the tune of a Montgomery Gentry country music song.<\/p>\n