Paxton trumpets affordability message with new tax proposal as Senate race hits stalemate

Ken Paxton rolling out a tax cut plan the same week his campaign admits it's stuck in a dead heat tells you something. This isn't a policy paper born of deep conviction about the tax code. It's a Hail Mary dressed up as an affordability agenda, timed to distract from the fact that a race Republicans should be walking away with is instead a coin flip.

That doesn't mean the substance is wrong. Texans are getting squeezed by property taxes and inflation same as everyone else, and a candidate who wants to talk about cutting the cost of living is talking about something real. But voters aren't stupid. They can tell the difference between a plan built around their kitchen table and one built around a campaign's internal polling memo. If Paxton believed in this a year ago, why is it landing now, right as Talarico closes the gap?

The bigger problem for Paxton isn't messaging, it's baggage. He's spent years fighting off ethics allegations and an impeachment trial, and no tax proposal, however sweeping, erases that from voters' minds. Talarico doesn't need to out-argue him on economics. He just needs to remind Texans why this race is close in the first place.

Republicans in Texas should be winning this seat comfortably. That they're not is a message in itself, and it has nothing to do with tax brackets.