It Could Happen Here - How Ken Paxton Became The Most Corrupt Man In Texas Politics

Episode Date: August 13, 2026

Our Robert sits down with Texas journalist Robert Downen to discuss the rise and hopeful fall of Texas AG Ken Paxton.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Welcome back to It Could Happen Here, a podcast about it happening here. and in this case the here we're talking about is Texas, and the it we're talking about is one of America's most corrupt and evil politicians, Ken Paxton. And I'm using corrupt and evil in like an objective scientific sense. I need you to understand this is not a matter of opinion. The Vatican convened a series of scientists who did confirm that Ken Paxton has the evil equivalent of midi-chlorians in a concentration never before seen in an American politician. And to talk to me about Ken Paxton and say things that are real and accurate and not nonsense is a guy who actually reports on Ken Paxton directly as part of his professional job as a real journalist Robert Downen.

Robert, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. Thank you for that incredible introduction. You got to have a little fun with Ken. Okay, Pax. Yeah, yeah. First off, you want to introduce yourself, put up your plugs up front here. Sure.

My name is Robert Downen. May writer at Texas Monthly. I've been in Texas for almost a decade now where I've kind of covered, I guess you could say religion, the convergence of far-right politics and religion, extremism, et cetera, which is to say, you know, now I basically just cover the current Texas GOP because they are kind of the incubator for a lot of policy that goes national. Yeah, it is like the breeding Warren and the center of the fever swamps in a lot of ways. Yeah. You and I met a couple of years ago, at the RNC during 2024, which was a lot of fun.

And I'm kind of curious, because I don't know that I actually asked you then, when did you start kind of covering Ken Paxson? Do you remember when you first really became aware of him in a meaningful way? Yeah, I don't know if you remember this. I think we were actually in the middle of talking about it, and we were at some stake joint, and I looked to my right and recognize a very large Rambo-esque bodyguard sitting next to us who happens to be Ken Pax's bodyguard.

And realize that Kempax is sitting right next to. us. So I don't think we were finished the conversation. You're right. I don't think we did. Fucking the RNC guys. It's a wild time. Yes. And then I met Roger Stone was great. Yeah, yeah. Fucking Ted Cruz walked in. What a day. I started covering Ken Paxton probably officially in 2022, 2023. Before that I had kind of covered, you know, Southern Baptist stuff. I was really focused more on the religion side of stuff. So like he's always been in my peripherals, but never, you know, been a sole focus. And then about, you know, five years ago,ish,

like I guess four years ago, is, I started really focusing on this far right movement in Texas, the billionaires behind it, who, you know, for that movement, Ken Paxson is kind of the tip of his fear. So he's been not a primary focus of mine, but, you know, someone who I'm paying very frequent attention to for quite a while. Yeah. So Ken is, he's not a Texan by birth, obviously, which doesn't matter to anybody,

but some Texans. But he was he was born in North Dakota, if I'm remembering correctly. And he first kind of comes on the scene politically in like 2003 when he's a, he's a state representative, right? Right. Yeah. It is kind of the first really notable moment in the Ken Paxton saga in your opinion. Like when you go back to like, where does this guy start to differentiate himself from everyone else? I think you really, to kind of understand Ken Paxton's rise and especially at the political climate of Texas right now. You have to go to this 2009, 2010 period where Texas really was on the forefront of what would become the Tea Party movement. We started to see this huge influx of billionaire oil money in particular, these two dudes named Ferris Wilkes and Tim Dunn,

who I'm sure we'll get to in this conversation. Yeah. You know, they kind of coalesce around this strategy in the Texas House in particular, where they're going to basically just accuse anyone who's not sufficiently far right enough for them as being a rhino and pump all of this money into a media and political ecosystem or you know network that kind of just becomes almost like this this way that they are holding people's feet to the fire to the point where you know they are funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars millions of dollars to primary opponents uh for incumbent lawmakers a lot of these you know these candidates are you know dead on arrival they have no actual chance of winning a primary, but the whole point is just kind of like bruise up these lawmakers

deplete their campaign coffers and kind of make them second guess anytime that they're thinking about defying this political network in the next session. And so Paxton really emerges out of that, I guess, kind of movement. You know, you start to see around 2012, 2012, 2013, these groups that are funded by Tim Dun & Ferris Wilkes really start to hold him up as this taxpayer champion. And then in 2014, he launches what was kind of thought to be a long-shot bid for Attorney General that he ends up winning against a little bit more moderate Republican candidates with key help from these billionaires. And that kind of, you know, is off the races from there. Yeah. So this is a really, as you bring up, a really interesting thing that starts happening to Texas politically.

It starts like right as the Bush years are coming to an end because obviously George W. Bush was not just the governor of Texas, but he's, he was kind of the governor of Texas who his victory sort of heralded the defeat of the Democratic Party in Texas in a way that it, I mean, it still hasn't recovered from. At least, you know, that's kind of the way I often see it. And you have, you have Bush come in and then obviously become the president. But because of the unpopularity of the neocons, Texas also winds up becoming kind of this incubator of the backlash, the conservative backlash to Bush, too. And And Paxton embodies that to some extent because he literally defeats a Bush as part of his rise to power, right? Like much later on.

But that is interesting to me. Yeah, I mean, I think the way to really understand the Texas TEOP is for the longest time. It was this coalition of, you know, big business interests, specifically oil. But then, you know, you had the evangelical cohort. And they kind of existed in harmony with each other for a while. You know, there were obviously rough patches for the party. but, you know, overcoming, you know, the democratic establishments that had the ruled the state for so long, I think, kind of, you know, it's much easier to stick together when everyone's winning. But then out of this, out of the Obama years, in the post-Obombie years, you have this Tea Party movement that is, you know, really led by Ken Paxton, these billionaires to many degrees. They turn their sights on those in the party. Yeah. So again, you have just this really, really ugly early days of what turns into a hole on Civil War within the party. And so again, you have just this really, really ugly early days of what turns into a hole on Civil War within the party. party where, you know, people who in most other states would be considered, you know,

the most far right member of the legislature are being branded like rhinos and traitors. And this is, you know, this is in the pre-Trump era before that was kind of the, I guess, you know, animating philosophy of, you know, borrowing from this no enemies to the right framework. That was something that was really, I think, defined all of what's happening in Texas first and not national. And do you do you have a sense personally of when can sort of ultra-right, beliefs begin? Is this something that's always a thing for him, or is this something that he adopts opportunistically? Is it becomes clear that that's the future of the party? Yeah, I mean, it's a really

tough question and something I think a lot of us have spent a lot of time trying to figure out. He almost is so emblematic of the direction of the Texas CHOP in general that it's almost impossible to differentiate whether, you know, he always harbored these beliefs and then translated that into political momentum towards them, or if the political momentum, drove him toward, you know, it's a chicken and egg situation, Alma. But I will say that, you know, starting, as soon as he becomes attorney general, he really starts to use that position to aid the political objectives, both on social policy, but also on campaign finance reform, you know, all these other issues, really start to push the state and the state

party towards the, I guess, policy positions of this far-right billionaire now. Yeah. Now, when it comes to Ken himself, his first big scandal, is kind of like a bribery allegation, right? Is I'm recalling? Yes. So in 2011, when he is still a state rep, he meets at a dairy queen with the CEO of a software company. Very Texas.

As we continue this conversation, you're going to notice there's a lot of fast food. Yeah. This man loves a fast food joint. You know what? North Texas, born and Ray, well, not born, but Ray's. So I do get that. Yeah.

Anyways, so he meets this guy to Dairy Queen. And again, this is all allegedly. this court case was settled, I think in 2024, but basically the allegation from the SEC, which later indicted him, was that he was offered 100,000

shares in this new company. Ken Paxton claims that he tried to pay the CEO for the shares and the CEO was like, no, God told me to give this to you. You can't give me any money. And then so Paxton allegedly goes on and sells something like, you know, almost a million dollars worth

of shares in this company to people without allegedly telling him that he was also an investor. So he gets indicted in 2015 on felony security fraud. And that charge is kind of hanging over his head for the next almost 10 years. And as we'll get into, it is kind of like just looming off in the distance for all of its political rise, but also plays an important part of his impeachment. But there's one other scandal that, you know, wasn't criminal that kind of predates the impeachment, which is that in 2014, as he's right.

running for attorney general. He is at a courthouse in the Dallas area, and there's a video of this. A guy in front of him in the security line leaves $1,000 month long 10 in the, yeah, yeah, this is one of my favorite K-Pax tales. Yeah, there's this little video of Ken Paxon just kind of plucking it out there and putting it into his pocket. And yeah, so.

Yeah, saw something he liked and he took it. Pretty funny. Yeah. Oh, God, that is beautiful. We have a lot more beautiful Ken Paxton stories to come, but first, some ads. You've heard the chaos. Now you can see it. Do we want to jump right in? Watch all your favorite podcasts from start to finish right inside the free IHard Radio app. Make some noise.

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I'm trying to set you up for success here. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. I guess one of the things that occurs to me just kind of as I've, every time I've looked over Ken's background is how much of his election history is ran unopposed in the primary, ran against a Democrat who had no chance of victory. Right. Like once he gets in, this isn't totally the case, but once he gets into office, a lot of his elections are almost like a rubber stamp pro forma. a Soda deal. Kind of, yeah.

I mean, I think that I'd have to go back and look at the actual margins, but I think that he is actually historically kind of lagged behind, you know, as far as the margins he's winning by have always kind of lagged behind what other top Republicans are winning by. Yeah. In 2018, you start to see some cracks. Yeah. And then in 2020 is when you started to see, you know, the quote, quote,

establishment, Texas GOP, starting to fund his opponents. And ultimately, that doesn't work. And that lays the groundwork for, I guess, the kind of. conspiracy theories around his impeachment, which I'm sure we'll get to. It is interesting that Ken has never been a great campaigner. He's benefited from the Republican Party's dominance in Texas and, like, the amount of funding and whatnot that he's able to raise his result of that. But as you said, he's like lagged behind other Republicans in terms of like his electoral performance.

And he has had some real close squeakers in the past, too, which is one of the reasons why, like, this current election is so interesting. But what do you think the Republican Party, the state party, starts to turn against him? What is it that does that? Is it just sort of the weight of scandals that this guy accumulates? Because we've only talked about a couple of them.

Or is it something else? I think that, again, he becomes very emblematic of this far right flank of the Texas GOP that's funded by Tim Dun & Farris Wilkes. Like, there's this moment in 2017-2018-ish where the Texas House and the Texas legislature has just gotten out of this brutally, you know, controversial session where they were, you know, doing early versions of the bathroom bill.

There was really just acrimonious within the party. And there are these quotes of these, I guess, you know, we would call them more moderate Republicans, but again, still very right wing in any other state. Yeah. But they come out, you know, there's a famous quote from then, you know, the man who became the house speaker where basically says, you know, we're done bashing the gays. Basically trying to move the party away from these, you know, I guess, for lack of a better term, culture war issues that really the far right flank is trying to coalesce around.

And I think that Ken Paxton is very much seen as a kind of emblem of that flank that for a while looked like it was on the verge of being on the outs of Texas politics. I mean, if you go back to that summer before his impeachment, there are so many different things that happened in the lead-up to that where you're like, oh, this Tim Dun-Farris-Wilk Network looks like, you know, this is a death-rattle moment for it. And instead of dying, it becomes more powerful than ever and starts exporting all of its stuff nationally. Why do you think that is? How the fuck does this guy, sorry, how is this guy, though, the one who manages to like reincarnate himself at this moment that should have been his end?

I think. I know that, yeah, there's not an answer to that, but I guess I'm, yeah, your feelings on it. Yeah. So before we got on, I just was like, I need to almost refurb. fresh myself on everything that happened with his impeachment. And at the time I was covering it, like turn to the screw, like wall-to-wall coverage, every single second of the impeachment hearing. And I don't think unless you were paying that much intimate attention to everything that was going on, people are fully capable of understanding just like how wide-ranging and frankly insane the entire episode was. And I think because of that, it was really easy for Ken Pax's defenders, both in the

impeachment hearing and, you know, just outside in the political realm, it was much easier for them to take this complicated scandal and turn it into just a, oh, this is a witch hunt. They're going after you can't faxing because they can't get to you. It's worth also backtracking here. Yeah. There are a significant number of people because of this Tim Dun & Farris Wilkes operation that believe fundamentally that the Texas legislature and state has been under the control secretly of Democrats for more than like 20 years.

I mean, this is how successful this is. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It sounds insane, but it's the truth. And so, you know, when Ken Paxton gets impeached, he becomes, again, this stand-in for everything that these people fear about this supposed democratic rhino cabal. And I think that that coupled with just like the complexity and often absurdity of the impeachment charges more broadly really insulates him in a way that turns him into a folk hero once he survives him.

feature. Great. I mean, yeah, that's, that's as much sense as I think can be made of the Ken Paxton story. Sure. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. I mean, it's this whole thing, you know, and I've noticed this even just in my time covering tech or politics is there used to be a moment where if we wrote a negative story about someone, there were maybe not consequences, but like people cared. And now it's not only that people don't care. It's to be attacked by the, quote, unquote, you know, liberal media is in and of itself a badge of honor that, like, yeah, yeah. And I think that he really exemplifies that. They're waiting for it. Yeah. So how would you describe Ken Paxton as an attorney general, which is kind of, because obviously he's a state legislator, too, before that, but like, he's most known and has been most influential

as the AG. How would you describe his, his work? I think that he, has done a remarkable job of advancing a once not explicit but now explicit Christian nationalist movements that is very far right in its views on immigration, LGBTQ rights, abortion, and basically every other social issue. I mean, he has used his office as, you know, at times a pretty blunt instrument in this, I guess, the lack or better term, cultural war, has used it to investigate political groups on the left has used it to advance 2020 election fraud conspiracy theories. I mean, name something within the hodgepah, you know, the hodgepodge of right-wing kind of culture war issues. And I guarantee you he is used his office supping. Yeah. There's some

questionable decisions that attorneys under him have made about some specific relevant cases, including a pedophile. That's one of the biggest, like, most recent scandals against Ken. And I talk about this on the ED that we did a week or so ago. And one of the things that you have to, like, encounter looking at him is that throughout all of these horrible things that he and people have done kind of as part of his office, none of it has knocked him out. And you get interesting quotes from different people who have run against him that are all variants of like, well, I had all of these opposition files. But also we had to make a decision of like how much to talk about it because there's so much out here. And like, what more do you say about, Ken, if you're trying to run against him that could be. matter now. Yeah, I mean, I think that he has a similar, you know, ethos as Trump, where it's like,

people have heard so much about him for so long that they just kind of, you know, at least amongst a lot of the Republicans, they've been able to just tune it out entirely. I mean, going back to his impeachment, which, you know, that that is an episode onto itself, everything that happened. But the people who were, who brought about Ken Paxton's impeachment were top deputies in the OAG's office. One of them was almost confirmed for a federal judge. in like 2019, but was deemed two anti-trans at the time to survive a Senate confirmation hearing. My God. Another one of these guys went on to be a vice president at Alliance Defending Freedom,

the group that, you know, has been kind of the tip of the legal sphere in the Christian nationalist movement. Yeah. So not the wokes. No, arguably some of the most right-wing people, not argue, some of the most right-wing people in the world at this point. Yeah, they would argue some of the most right-wing people in the world. Yes, right.

And, I mean, we're talking, you know, like the platonic ideal of a Texas ranger Like people who, by all extent, purposes should be people who are taking very seriously by the Republican voters in Texas. And yet he, again, because of, you know, just there's something about Ken. I don't know. Man, it's so fucking weird.

There's something about Ken. And there's also something about the sponsors of this show who we're going to go back to for a minute and then we'll return. You've heard the chaos. Now you can see it. Do we want to jump right? and watch all your favorite podcasts from start to finish right inside the free iHeart radio app make some noise

wooee catch every laugh and eye roll on shows like bestie listen hey jonas and lost cultureistas now with full video i'll just leave that there it's the same hosts and the same chemistry with all the hilarious moments you've been missing right on your screen open the free iHeard radio app search video podcasts and tap watch our town is small taters by most standards right but to the people who grew up here, it's everything. What happens when a quiet Tennessee town becomes the front line in a battle over the future of America? Developers with right-wing ties have purchased hundreds of acres of land in the area. The first thing you see when it pops up is pioneers in Appalachia.

But they weren't just planning houses. We need cities on a shining hill that exemplify and embody the Christian way of life. Stop right there. Is that normal? A podcast about what happens when. a small town becomes the site of a social experiment. God need men to rule. Great. And decides to fight back.

Do not use my hard work to sell your bull-h-h-hue. They're not just opposing what's being planned for here. Our hometown is not a test tube. They feel like they're standing in opposition to an entire administration. Guess you didn't move in on a bunch of dumb hillbillies now, did you? Listen to our town on the I-Heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, Portlandia fans. Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen here.

You know us, or rather, you know them. Tony and Candice, Nina and Lance, Spike, and yes, The Chicken. We've played a lot of iconic characters over the years, but today we're showing up as ourselves to tell you about Podlandia, AEO, rewatch, our brand new podcast. Each week, we'll revisit an episode of Portlandia from the very beginning, breaking down the sketches, exploring the backstories of our most iconic characters, revisiting the Portland locations you know and love, and opening up about our creative process.

How did any of this get made? Why do we think that was a good idea? We're ready to talk about it. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life. Guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Chryssel, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more.

Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvised, not just words, but a song, a melody. Well, I thought he was going to write. I thought you were all going to write a song. I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia. Ayo rewatch on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport.

And Sean Clements. We host the podcast, Hollywood Handbook. Every episode we're trying to help our guests improve their careers by mainly focusing on how they can help us improve our careers. The show's famously super accessible so you can easily jump into any of our 650 episodes and understand what's going on. We recommend some of our recent episodes with Ben Stiller. The definition of what is a movie has kind of changed. Genetically, too, right? What do you think it is now?

It's images and words being spoken, captured by some sort of technology. Danny McBride. He loves over. Oh, that's fantastic. And you make it on, you make your own. That's great. I call him Terro Reed. It's a good name.

They're all named after cast members of American Pie. Yeah. I call, I don't, I never looked up if she was in this, but I call him Leachie Sobiesky. Yeah. I don't think she was an American Pie, but I still. Haven't looked it up. Haven't looked it up. She was prominent around the same time.

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Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right. We're back. So Ken Paxon is currently running for Senate. He just defeated John Corny. for the primary, and he's running against Democrat James Telerico. And I brought this up on EDI last week, but it's close and at least according to one poll currently, Telerico is ahead.

One poll isn't ahead by a good bit. Most of what I've seen has them pretty much neck and neck. There's a few big differences with this election so far and all of Kinn's previous elections. One is that he does not have a gigantic advantage in funding. and in fact, Telerico currently has a lot more money on hand. And the other is that, at least per some of the most recent polling, Talariko is actually beating him with non-college educated voters. That's the heartland for Ken Paxton.

So, yeah, it's very unclear what's going to happen again. I would say it's smarter to say this is a neck and neck race than Telerico is ahead. But, yeah, how did we get here? I mean, I think a couple of important things. One, James Talarico has, I think that he has done a good, and maybe this is just the religion reporter in me. I think he's done a good job of finding palpable messaging around Christianity in ways that like an appeal to the, you know, Republican-leaning white Christian voter of Texas. That coupled with his kind of, you know, campaigning frequently on, you know,

it's not left versus right. It's top versus bottom. That kind of stuff, I think, is playing really well here. The other thing about Paxton, though, is that, you know, I've mentioned Tim Dunn and Ferris Wilkes in this conversation a bunch of times because they're really are crucial to this story. They both have basically entirely pulled out from supporting in the Senate. Yeah, that is really interesting. Ferris Wilkes, as a result of some very long story,

but in 2023, there was some reporting I did about their network, having, you know, meeting with Nick Fuentes and having a bunch of ties to other pretty avowed white nationalists. There was a big fallout in that network. And from what I understand, drove Ferris Wilkes out of politics entirely. And in the same time, Tim Dunn was adamantly opposed to Ken Paxton running for Senate from everything that we've heard. And so it wasn't

until literally, I think, on Monday, Tim Dunn's one of his super PACs spent $100,000 to send out tax messages against Alarico that we saw any kind of movement from Tim Dunn or Fares Wilkes in support of Paxton. And I think that that does actually kind of speak to their level of concern that, you know, they have sat out all of this for almost two years now and suddenly with three months to go are getting engaged so yeah it's it's it's it's really been yeah kind of stirring to see i'm not resigned as i usually am in a kin pax in election to like well clearly at some point he's just going to like leapfrog ahead of this fucker and wind up back in office as he and maybe that'll happen but it doesn't feel like it it doesn't feel like that's the only thing that could happen i should say right and you know to be

fair there's this kind of myth that texas is secretly blue if it's just a voter turnout problem that's not true it's not it's not No. Texas is solidly red. Yes. In order to win statewide here, like there's a reason why Beto, when he ran here,

he went to every single one of our 254 counties. Yeah. It's because you have to really turn out rural voters. And try to make personal connections with them. Yeah. Exactly. Because of that, it's easy for Republicans in the state

to wave away any kind of forward momentum from a Democratic statewide candidate. But if you look at the polling in this race between Taliq and Paxon, like, Tala RICO has been polling way ahead of where Beto was, where any, you know, comparable Democratic statewide candidate has been over the last, you know, 30 years. And I think that that kind of, you know, disbelief amongst Republicans that this state could ever elect

a Tala RICO or flip blue, I think has potentially left them kind of asleep at the wheel and made a lot of them much more willing to support someone like Paxton, despite his many flaws as a benefit. So I guess as we close out here, is there anything else you wanted to say about, Ken, anything we didn't get to that you think is really important to talk about? I mean,

do we have 45 more minutes we can talk about his impeachment? Yeah, I mean, get in a little bit. I'm just going to read my notes, just a few fun things. Sure. Fast food joints in all capital. Yes.

Walter Jr. from Breaking Bad was somehow involved. There's a lot there. Not directly involved, but his family. My point being, it was insane. Awesome. Yeah. Oh, man. Is there any reading you'd recommend to the listeners on the Kintaxen impeachment?

Honestly, there's 4,000 pages of court documents. I think that's it. I mean, someone's got to do a story about it. I mean. Okay. Okay. Well, maybe we'll hire you to do that if we came. Yeah.

We'll get Walt Jr. on it. Yeah. You know, I did want to say, because it's, it's, very wrong when people think that Texas is like a secret blue state. But it's also not red in the way most of the red in it isn't necessarily red in the way that people think of it. Because like I think back to my family who are like, we're like solidly red and would never vote for a Democrat. But like, my mom didn't own guns and didn't really think they should be legal and was very much like pro-abortion. She was culturally a Republican. And that's like an important thing. Like that was, it's not just a

belief system. It's that that is your culture and your team. And so much of the difficulty is there are a lot of people in Texas whose values personally certainly do not align with a man like Ken Paxton. But breaking rank is not a doable thing for a lot of them. I don't know how else to describe it. Like it would be like getting someone who was born and raised rooting for the Packers to like support the Dallas Cowboys in a game against the Packers or something. Like it's that fucking kind of mindset in a lot of ways.

Yeah, I mean, I think that the other thing about it is kind of the ethos of Texas politics for the longest time has been this real antipathy towards, you know, D.C. Like, one of the things that it's always been kind of, you know, we are not D.C. And like, kind of the circus of it all, it plays here differently. There's circus here, but it's a different circus, I guess. So what you have is, like, a lot of these people, again, the other thing about Texas is just so damn big. Like, there are parts of Texas that are closer, like, there's a part of Texas that's closer to Chicago than it is to El Paso.

And I think that, like, people really don't understand what that does. of the politics here as far as just like making people view politics as this really far off thing off in the distance that like it's like a libertarian almost like you don't don't mess with me and I won't engage with you kind of ordeal. And as I think that the state has become more DCified for lack of a better term, I think that that's starting to really test some of these, you know, some of that kind of mentality you were speaking to. And then you add on, you know, the fact that the schools here are just really in bad shape. We're doing school voucher legislation. All of these things that are actually rural issues are being kind of flipped on their head.

And I think that that has the potential maybe not to flip those voters, but if enough of them stay home and you see enough energy in the cities, like that is enough. Yeah. So. Yeah, that is enough. And like as individuals, some of those people can flip on a candidate. You know, they might not flip party-wise. There's certainly a lot less likely to vote for like a Democrat for president.

That may be completely out of the question. But you might be able to get them to vote for a senator or something like. that. Like, that's not impossible for everybody. And it certainly looks like, I think he's, he's got about four or five percent of Republican voters voting for him right now. Yeah, I mean, he's got a lot of crossover. Yeah, which is a good amount of crossover, by the way. Like, that's low in objective numbers, but it's pretty good for a candidate in Texas. Right, right, right. Cool. All right. Well, that has been a brief version of the Ken Paxton story. We'll have more about K-Pax in the future. And hopefully we'll have Robert back as well.

You have anything you want to plug before we end here? Just, I'm on Blue Sky at Robert Downen. So describe to Texas monthly for $25. You can get two years of print magazine and digital edition. So the best deal in journal. Awesome. Check that out. Please do sign up.

And yeah, we'll be back probably tomorrow. Anyway, go do something else now. It could happen here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Coolzone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com. Or check us out on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for it could happen here

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