Paxton Senate bid is testing Texas GOP’s faith coalition — who’s out? | Opinion
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- Paxton supporters deride evangelicals who joined Cornyn’s faith council.
- Faith leaders join Cornyn council urging higher moral standards.
- Paxton’s Collin County support fell; he’s linked with one Christian influencer.
Now let me get this right.
To the cult worshippers who support outlaw lawyer Ken Paxton, state Rep. James Talarico is the devil because he is a liberal mainline Presbyterian who says Christians should show both conviction and compassion.
But to the same Cult of Ken, long-serving conservative Southern Baptist church pastors such as Jack Graham of Prestonwood Baptist, Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Dallas and national evangelical leader Gus Reyes of Arlington are also the devil.
That’s because they agreed to advise U.S. Sen. John Cornyn just weeks before a Cornyn-Paxton rematch in a May 26 runoff election for the Republican Senate nomination.
Texas Republicans will need a big tent revival of faith-and-values voters this fall to keep the U.S. Senate seat.
Paxton is building a very small tent.
The Presbyterian Church (USA) is apparently in for a year of searing political attacks and ridicule from the Cult of Ken over Talarico, a divinity school student. That’s even though nearly half its members voted for President Donald Trump in 2024.
Southern Baptists are apparently no longer welcome in the Paxton tent, either.
Their leading Texas pastors were openly derided by a Paxton-supporting political committee simply over past support for some legal immigration.
Followers of widely popular Church of Christ minister Max Lucado or Abilene Christian University President Phil Schubert also got the boot from Paxton’s supporters.
Lucado and Schubert joined Graham, Jeffress and Reyes on Cornyn’s newly named Faith Advisory Council. Cornyn has attended Churches of Christ.
In a letter announcing the council, the five ministers wrote that Texas needs “leaders who serve with principle, wisdom and integrity,”
In other words: Not Paxton.
“Scripture teaches,” the ministers’ letter went on, “that those who aspire to lead should be held to a higher moral standard.”
Cornyn, they wrote, will serve with “grace and dignity worthy of the office.”
In an example of today’s demon-driven politics, they were criticized for supporting immigration law reform.
If the Southern Baptist Church and the Churches of Christ are now considered too liberal, it’s time to get worried.
I have followed Paxton since he ran for attorney general in 2014.
He won that race with a strong base of Christian conservatives and faith-and-values voters. At the time, he and his wife, now-Sen. Angela Paxton, lived in McKinney north of Dallas and went to Prestonwood Baptist in Plano.
In 2014, Collin County gave Paxton 70% of the vote against his Republican runoff opponent, Dallas state Rep. Dan Branch.
In the Super Tuesday primary two weeks ago, just 41% of Republican primary voters in Collin County picked Paxton.
Paxton’s official biography no longer lists a church or his estranged wife, Sen. Angela Paxton. Both have been erased, although some websites still list him as married and a member of Prestonwood.
But Paxton apparently still has religion in his life. The Daily Mail of Britain reported that his latest public extramarital alliance is with Louisiana car dealership executive Tracy Duhon, a prominent prayer leader and Instagram Christian influencer.
In an angry retort on a conservative political website, Paxton’s daughter Mattie Hayworth wrote that her father is “not perfect; none of us are” but that he is a man of “deep faith.”
She gave no more specifics. Yet her husband is pastor of a nondenominational “spirit-filled” church in Central Texas.
We can assume that church will be in Paxton’s very small tent.
This story was originally published March 12, 2026 at 11:21 AM.
