Paxton launches first attack against Dem opponent
Attorney General Ken Paxton, widely seen as the most vulnerable Republican holding statewide office, has come out with his first attack ad against his Democratic opponent Rochelle Garza, calling her “the most radical politician ever nominated by a major party in Texas.”
Paxton has mostly ignored Garza until now, but the ad marks his first major acknowledgment of the Democrat who’s trailing him by just a few percentage points in public polling. The most recent poll last week by the Hobby School of Public Affairs at the University of Houston showed Paxton hardly ahead of Garza with 45 percent to her 42 percent.
In the ad, Paxton hones in on immigration and crime, two issues that have been shown to be top-of-mind for Texas voters in recent polling, accusing Garza of wanting “open borders” and no border wall or enforcement. He also quotes her as calling Border Patrol agents “shameless” and “cowardly” and comparing them to terrorists.
Garza, in her campaign and in her response Tuesday, has focused on Paxton’s biggest liability: his mounting legal issues. That includes his indictment on felony securities fraud charges that has yet to go to trial for more than seven years and an FBI investigation of corruption claims by his former top aides.
He’s also using taxpayer funds to defend himself against a suit by the Texas Ethics Commission accusing him of professional misconduct related to a legal attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Paxton has maintained he is innocent in all cases.
“This attack ad is just a desperate attempt to distract from Ken Paxton’s criminality and the issues Texans truly care about,” Garza said. “Criminally indicted Paxton is terrified that Texas voters are finally seeing him for what he is — a crook, through and through . ... He is the weakest Attorney General in the country and is too extreme for Texas. Texans deserve better, and that’s why I’m running — to be an attorney general for the people.”
A Garza campaign spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the claim that she is against the Border Patrol.
That accusation from the ad appeared to be referring to a tweet by Garza about a 2019 Brownsville protest against the Trump-era Remain in Mexico policy where she witnessed some agents “shooting smoke bombs on the bridge” where there were children.
In the tweet, which included a video, she used those two critical words to describe the agents and added they were “terrorizing our community.”
On her campaign website, Garza says the Remain in Mexico policy, which the Biden administration put to an end in August after the Supreme Court gave it the greenlight earlier this summer, created a humanitarian crisis at the border.
If elected, she says she will put a stop to border initiatives by Gov. Greg Abbott, both his state-funded border wall and the Operation Lone Star program in which he’s ordering state troopers and National Guard members to arrest migrants on various state charges, mostly misdemeanor trespassing.
Garza, echoing the cries of immigration attorneys and other advocates, says the program, which has so far cost the state $4 billion, is unconstitutional.
“The people suffering at our border must be treated with compassion and respect,” Garza said.