Trial for Ken Paxton’s Messy Divorce Is Scheduled to Start in a Few Weeks

AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

Hell hath no fury like a Senate candidate’s wife scorned.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) sailed to a primary runoff victory over Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) Tuesday evening, but his path to the general election is expected to be rockier, partly due to his messy and contentious divorce with his soon-to-be ex-wife, Texas State Sen. Angela Paxton (R).

The primary battle between Cornyn and Paxton was viciously brutal, with the incumbent widely viewed as a stronger candidate in the general election due to Paxton’s series of scandals, lawsuits, and controversies.

The attorney general drew support from the MAGA wing of the GOP for his combative, far-right stances, and scored President Donald Trump’s endorsement late in the runoff.

The primary was far less fractious on the Democratic side. State Rep. James Talarico (D) surpassed Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) by a comfortable margin and without needing a runoff; she conceded the race the next morning and tweeted a call for her supporters to “remain united” and “rally around our nominees.”

Since then, Crockett has used her social media to take swings at Trump and other Republicans, including bashing the president’s endorsement of Paxton.

Several major election forecasters shifted the Texas Senate race in the Democrats’ favor after Paxton secured his primary win, including the Cook Political Report and the “Crystal Ball” ratings at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.

With Paxton, “Republicans are saddled with a controversial candidate who’s been a weak fundraiser,” wrote The Cook Report’s Jessica Taylor, because he “has a litany of ethical lapses for Democrats to exploit — from allegations of bribery and misuse of his office to marital infidelity, which led his wife to divorce him on ‘biblical grounds.'”

Taylor noted the “national environment” — Trump’s abysmal approval ratings are widely expected to be a drag on Republican candidates in the midterms — and said the race “certainly may have become competitive even if Cornyn had won, but Paxton’s flaws warrant an immediate move” from Likely Republican to Lean Republican.

The NRSC has been purging its website pages and social media of content they had posted during the earlier stages of the primary attacking Paxton, while Texas Democrats have merrily joked that Talarico can just recycle the GOP primary ads opposing Paxton and not need to create his own.

Still, the content of those primary ads, purged from the internet or not, is information that was already known about Paxton. In a country where millions of people voted for thrice-married, serial adulterer, repeated bankruptcy filer Trump, these ads are likely to have a diminished impact.

The Paxtons’ divorce, however, poses a risk for the candidate of exposing damaging information that is not yet publicly known.

Last July, Angela Paxton announced she had filed for divorce “on biblical grounds” in a social media post, and her divorce filing listed adultery as the grounds for divorce.

The Paxtons had originally fought to keep the records from the divorce proceedings private, but several state and national news organizations filed motions to intervene, arguing the records should be unsealed because both Paxtons were elected officials, divorce proceedings were normally publicly available in court records by default, and “[t]he grounds alleged for divorce and the disposition of property are of substantial public interest because they bear on integrity in public office, potential use of public resources, and transparency in judicial proceedings.”

Eventually, last December, the Paxtons agreed to allow the records to be unsealed, other than privacy redactions like Social Security Numbers and home addresses.

Angela Paxton seems disinclined to make the proceedings easier for her soon-to-be former husband.

On Tuesday, the day of the primary runoff, she posted a list of her endorsements for several races, notably omitting the Senate primary.

Several media outlets have reported that the trial for the Paxtons’ divorce is scheduled for June 24 through 26, pursuant to the Collin County court records, a little over four months before the November general election.

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