Ken Paxton May Have ‘Chilling Effect’ on Ted Cruz Election: Analyst

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s recent raids, ordered as part of his ongoing election integrity investigation, could hurt his fellow Republican, Senator Ted Cruz.
Paxton announced last week that his Election Integrity Unit executed multiple search warrants after receiving allegations of voter fraud.
On Tuesday, the nation’s oldest Latino civil rights groups raised an alarm that several of its members had their homes raided as part of Paxton’s investigation. The League of United Latin American Citizens asked the Justice Department to investigate the raids, calling the attorney general’s actions “point blank voter intimidation.”
“LULAC will fight for the right of every Latino to exercise the right to vote,” Roman Palomares, the group’s national president, said at a Monday press conference outside Paxton’s office in San Antonio.
Although the Lone Star State was never going to be in play for Vice President Kamala Harris (Texas has not elected a Democratic presidential candidate since Jimmy Carter in 1976), the raids conducted by Paxton’s office and the allegations lobbied by Latino voting groups raise questions about what this means for the state’s Senate race.
Democrats are hoping to flip the seat currently held by Senator Ted Cruz in November, electing state Representative Colin Allred in his place.
The race is currently ranked “likely Republican” by the Cook Political Report, but recent polls suggest Allred could catch up to Cruz. A YouGov/University of Houston poll released last week showed Allred trailing behind his Republican opponent by just 2 points. In June, the incumbent had been up 3 points.
The allegations being lobbied at Paxton could mean another boost may be on the horizon for Allred.
“These raids will absolutely have a chilling effect on the Latino vote in South Texas,” Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor specializing in Texas politics at the University of Houston, told Newsweek.
“Allred is already struggling with the Latino vote, and big turnout in these communities may very well be the difference,” Rottinghaus said.
Newsweek reached out to Cruz’s reelection campaign via email for comment.
Latino voters only favor Allred over Cruz by a margin of six points, according to a poll conducted by the University of Houston’s Hobby School of Public Affairs and Texas Southern University earlier this month. Comparably, female voters prefer Allred by seven points. Gen Z voters favor Allred by 27 percent, and Black voters favor Allred by 52 percent.
Texas Hispanics hit a major milestone in 2021 when Latinos officially became the largest share of the state’s population, narrowly outnumbering white residents by 40.2 percent to 39.8 percent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
“Turnout in the Latino community is the most important challenging part of Democrats winning elections in Texas,” Rottinghaus said. “If the numbers from these communities is low, so the chances for Democrats to win state-wide.”
Joshua Blank, research director of the Texas Politics Project, was more skeptical about Paxton’s raids boosting voter turnout.
“Historically, actions that can be described as hostile to Latino voting have done little to impact their perceptions about the voting process in the state,” Blank told Newsweek.
“Ultimately, there are larger factors at play with respect to Latino turnout, with both parties, but especially the GOP, in recent years attempting to make inroads among Hispanic voters, particularly in South Texas,” he said. “It’s notable that Attorney General Paxton has taken the lead on this issue at the moment given that he is not on the ballot again until 2026.”
Blank added that while playing up suspicions of voter fraud is a common tactic for Texas Republicans, “Cruz has tried to strike a much more pragmatic tone in this campaign, painting himself as something of a great compromiser despite his history as unbending on the immigration issue.”
“Anything that inhibits the right of any member of a minority group to vote in Texas jeopardizes Allred’s chances of winning,” political consultant Jay Townsend told Newsweek. “Paxton knows this, and it should surprise no one that he would do all in his power to discourage Hispanics from voting or claim fraud if they do.”