With estranged husband on the ballot, Angela Paxton tells group of Texas women to vote GOP “even if we’re mad at them”

By Gabby Birenbaum, The Texas Tribune
September 22, 2026

For the first time since announcing she was divorcing Ken Paxton, State Sen. Angela Paxton appears to be wading into the U.S. Senate race, encouraging a group of conservative women to vote for Republicans “even if we’re mad at them.”

Angela Paxton, a McKinney state senator, said she was filing for divorce on “biblical grounds” in 2025, three months after her husband Attorney General Ken Paxton announced he was challenging U.S. Sen. John Cornyn in the primary. Her original petition for divorce cited adultery as grounds for divorce. 

On Friday, Angela Paxton delivered a speech to a ticketed meeting of Texas Federation of Republican Women of more than 100 board members in Round Rock, entitled “The Elephant in the Room.” There, she encouraged women in attendance to vote for their party values over the individual.

“It’s not the people — it’s the seat,” Paxton said in a video clip of the speech posted to Facebook by State Republican Executive Committee member Cheryl Thompson-Draper and the DeWitt County GOP. “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. 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?”

Sen. Paxton has remained quiet about her divorce and the Senate race this year. She issued a series of Republican runoff endorsements in statewide primary races, including the attorney general, railroad commissioner and Texas Court of Criminal Appeals contests, but did not indicate who she was backing between her estranged husband and Cornyn.

Angela Paxton did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Ken Paxton ultimately defeated Cornyn by a 28-percentage point margin and became the party’s nominee. He is now locked in a competitive race against Democratic state Rep. James Talarico, with polls showing the Democrat with a narrow lead, on average, within the margin of error — a rare sight in the Lone Star State, which has not elected a Democrat to statewide office in over three decades.

In her Facebook post, Thompson-Draper, who was not immediately available for comment, said that Paxton “NEVER mentioned his name — not even once, but encouraged the women to vote for EVERYONE on ‘OUR R TEAM!’”

Jill Dutton, a former state representative and district director with the Texas Federation of Republican Women, confirmed in an interview that Angela Paxton never said her estranged husband’s name.

“One of the things she said that really resonated, I think, with all of us in the room, was that she said I understand your moral dilemma,” Dutton said. “And I think for all of us in that room, we’ve all been struggling with that moral dilemma. As well as what we’ve been hearing feedback from other women across Texas that are good strong Republicans, good strong conservatives. And we do look up to Senator Paxton.”

Another woman who was in the room for the speech, who spoke to the Texas Tribune on the condition of anonymity because the meeting was not open to the public, said Angela Paxton was direct in discussing the stakes.

“She just said that Republican women will decide this election, and she said that if you can’t vote for a candidate, then you need to vote against their opponent,” the woman said, adding that Angela Paxton also discussed Sen. Ted Cruz’s narrow victory in the 2018 Senate race — in which Republicans lost critical downballot races at the legislative and county judge level — and the implications that the top of the ticket races can have further down the ballot.

Ken Paxton’s alleged adultery was key to the allegations in his 2023 impeachment as well. His former chief of staff testified in front of the Texas Senate about an alleged extramarital affair, which came up as part of a bribery accusation, saying that the attorney general confessed to it in a 2018 meeting with aides. Paxton was ultimately acquitted by the Texas Senate of all charges raised during his impeachment. Angela Paxton was not allowed to cast a vote, but sat through days of testimony about her husband’s alleged indiscretions.

In her Friday remarks, Angela Paxton suggested to women that the party would keep members in their place.

“I guarantee you, when a Republican breaks ranks, there are repercussions to that,” Paxton said in the clip. “And when a Democrat breaks ranks, there are repercussions to that, too. The party comes with the person. So, when you vote for that person, because you like this one better or whatever, you just need to understand — they are not alone. They’re not like a standalone thing.”

The Texas Republican Federation of Women group Paxton addressed has over 10,000 members throughout the state. The group has hundreds of local clubs that conduct massive get out the vote operations for Republican candidates.

This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.