Angela Paxton filed for divorce and accused Ken Paxton of adultery. She wants Texans to vote for him regardless

Texas state Sen. Angela Paxton filed for divorce from Attorney General Ken Paxton last year and accused him of adultery. She is now telling voters she will back the Republican ticket in the U.S. Senate race, where he is the GOP nominee. In a new ad, she never says his name.

She frames the choice as a party contest rather than a vote on one person. In her telling, holding Republican seats matters more than how voters feel about any single candidate on the ballot. The spot is her public case for staying with the ticket on Election Day.

“Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. In a general election, it’s not as much about the individual players on the team. It’s about getting the whole team across the finish line,” she says in the ad. “Either we hold every Republican seat or we hand the future of Texas to the other team. That’s why I’m voting for the Republican ticket on November 3,” she added. 

A September speech made the same case without using his name

CNN points out that the ad follows comments she made on September 18. Speaking to Republican women, she asked them to support GOP candidates even when they have reservations. As in the ad, she left her estranged husband unnamed.

“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?”

Republicans are trying to keep the Senate seat as they work to hold the chamber. The race is a leading contest this cycle. The seat had long been treated as safely Republican, and it is now increasingly seen as a toss-up, in part because of Ken Paxton’s scandals.

The Texas House impeached him over years-long corruption allegations. The state Senate acquitted him afterward. He has faced fresh allegations since, such as when a tourist caught him with his mistress on the streets of London. He stayed in office as attorney general.

A New York Times/Siena poll out Saturday had Democratic nominee James Talarico ahead of Paxton by 6 percentage points.