‘We cannot ignore the elephant in the room’: Ken Paxton’s estranged wife speaks to GOP women

By Patrick Svitek, CNN

(CNN) — Angela Paxton, who is divorcing Texas Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton, posted a video Monday of recent remarks urging Republican women to support GOP candidates in Texas this fall even if they have reservations about them.

In the speech, titled “The Elephant in the Room,” Angela Paxton, a Texas state senator, did not mention her husband or his hotly contested race against Democrat James Talarico. But she made multiple references to Texas Republicans feeling conflicted about how to vote in the November election, particularly amid Ken Paxton’s long history of legal and ethical controversies.

Angela Paxton filed for divorce last year from the state’s attorney general and cited “biblical grounds,” accusing him of adultery.

“The reality is, while we are the party of values, we have some vulnerabilities on our ballot, some real vulnerabilities,” Angela Paxton said in the speech. “And I’ll be honest with you, I think Republican women will decide this election, because some of those vulnerabilities, I think, have been particularly alienating to women that hold our values.”

But she suggested that the now-concluded primary — in which Paxton resoundingly defeated Sen. John Cornyn — was the time to litigate those issues and that Republicans now need to prioritize the “seat” over the candidate.

“Because we have more control over that seat and the future when we control the seat — when it’s still in the family, even if we’re mad at them,” she said. “But if we lose it to the other team, the nuances that we want to fix with maybe a certain candidate are nothing compared to what it’s going to take to get it back, right?”

Angela Paxton released the full video of her September 18 speech after the Texas Tribune reported on a roughly two-minute clip that was posted on social media by an attendee. She delivered the remarks at a quarterly board meeting of the Texas Federation of Republican Women.

Republicans are sweating the Senate race as Talarico, a state representative from Austin, continues to lead Ken Paxton in most recent polls for a contest critical to maintaining the GOP’s narrow majority. A top Republican super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund, is spending well over $100 million to advertise on Paxton’s behalf, while President Donald Trump is planning multiple trips to the state to boost him.

Some Texas Republicans have long been concerned about Ken Paxton’s viability as a candidate due to his record of scandals, including multiple allegations of infidelity. Cornyn, whom Paxton defeated in the primary with Trump’s support, has declined to campaign for his rival.

The longtime GOP strategist Karl Rove declined to say Saturday whether he was voting for Paxton and rattled off a list of his scandals, including an allegation at his Texas Senate impeachment trial in 2023 that he used a secret Uber account to see a mistress.

“Can you make this sh*t up? I mean, really?” Rove said, speaking at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin.

The Republican-led state Senate acquitted Paxton under pressure from Trump. Angela Paxton, elected to the chamber in 2018, was not allowed to vote in the trial, which dealt with broader accusations that Paxton abused his office as attorney general. His lawyers broadly denied wrongdoing through the trial and called it politically motivated.

Angela Paxton’s divorce filing in July 2025 reignited speculation about Ken Paxton’s personal life. He issued a general denial of her petition but has otherwise mostly avoided addressing allegations of infidelity on the campaign trail.

The Paxtons’ divorce trial was scheduled for June but was canceled. Ken Paxton’s lawyers said at the time they were nearing a “final agreement.”

Angela Paxton did not make an endorsement in the primary runoff between Ken Paxton and Cornyn, even as she backed candidates in other statewide contests.

While Angela Paxton did not bring up her estranged husband in her recent speech, she addressed a handful of things other Texas Republicans have said about the Senate contest, such as their desire to leave a race blank on the November ballot. She urged them not to do that.

She also cast the decision as one that could have implications for the next election in Texas, when she is up for reelection and when voters will be picking a new president.

“We cannot ignore the elephant in the room,” Angela Paxton said. “If we do, we will lose, and in two years, we’ll be fighting not a battle, but a war.”

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