‘Why did you cheat on your wife?’ Ken Paxton’s campaign baggage crashes his town hall

Ken Paxton wanted to discuss the future of Texas. One caller wanted to discuss the past of Ken Paxton.

During a telephone town hall Monday, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate was greeted politely before being hit with a question possessing all the subtlety of a two-by-four:

“Nice to meet you. I’m just wondering—why did you cheat on your wife?”

No filibuster. No throat-clearing. No “with all due respect.” Just straight to the marital misconduct allegations that have followed Paxton from the Texas statehouse into what is becoming an unexpectedly competitive general-election campaign.

Paxton declined to answer the allegation directly.

“Um, I’m not gonna talk about personal issues that relate to my family, just like I don’t think you would wanna discuss your marriage on a call with thousands of people.”

He then shifted the focus to his children and grandchildren.

“All I can tell you is that I’m proud of my kids. I’ve got four wonderful kids. I’ve got seven grandchildren—well, six and one on the way.”

Paxton continued:

“There’s a lot at stake, and so while I care about this country, I’m not gonna talk about things that would affect them, so thank you very much for your question.”

It was a restrained answer to a brutal question—but it did nothing to make the underlying political problem disappear.

Paxton’s estranged wife, Republican Texas state Sen. Angela Paxton, filed for divorce in 2025, saying she had done so “on biblical grounds” following “recent discoveries.” Court documents reportedly cited adultery. The divorce trial was subsequently removed from the court calendar while the two sides pursued a settlement.

The story acquired another round of jet fuel this summer after Paxton was photographed traveling through Europe with Christian influencer Tracy Duhon, a woman with whom he has been accused of having a romantic relationship. Paxton’s campaign has disputed reporting surrounding his personal life, characterizing some of it as baseless tabloid material.

But when a candidate runs as a defender of faith, family and traditional values, voters are not likely to treat questions about alleged adultery as an entirely private matter. That may be unfair to the children and grandchildren Paxton invoked, but it is also Politics 101: When your public message rests partly upon character, opponents will inspect the foundation.

And that inspection is now occurring in a race Republicans once might have expected to win while barely breaking a sweat.

A Fox News poll released July 30 found Democrat James Talarico leading Paxton 51% to 48%, although the difference was within the survey’s margin of error. More ominously for Paxton, 59% of voters said they were concerned he lacked the character to serve in the Senate.

Republican pollster Daron Shaw told Fox News that Paxton’s bitter primary battle against longtime Sen. John Cornyn had left “scars.”

“He has considerable work to do with non-MAGA Republicans and independents, and that undoubtedly requires aggressively tying Talarico to the Democratic Party’s far left.”

That is exactly where Paxton has been trying to move the contest. In a recent Fox News interview, he portrayed Talarico as a “fake” moderate concealing a left-wing record.

“All of his positions suddenly changed for the general election,” Paxton said, “but we have his votes, and we have his words, and those will be out.”

There is certainly plenty in Talarico’s record for conservatives to examine. A Democrat does not become a political moderate merely by putting on a pleasant smile, quoting Scripture and avoiding the phrase “democratic socialism” when television cameras are nearby.

But Paxton has a political arithmetic problem. Every day spent answering questions about alleged affairs, divorce proceedings and European travel companions is a day he is not defining Talarico’s record for Texas voters.

Cornyn warned Republicans about precisely this during the primary, telling Fox News that Paxton’s “flaws and the baggage he brings to the general election” would be exploited by Democrats “to the fullest.”

The town hall caller did not need a multimillion-dollar opposition-research operation to prove his point. She needed only nine words.

Trump’s endorsement helped Paxton defeat Cornyn and secure the Republican nomination. Now Paxton must convince Texas voters that his conservative record matters more than the personal controversies surrounding him—and that Talarico’s carefully polished moderation is political packaging rather than reality.

That argument can still win in Texas. But Paxton had better start making it forcefully, because Democrats would dearly love to turn this election into one long trial about Ken Paxton’s character.

WIRE SOURCES