Governor Greg Abbott and former Vice President Kamala Harris have something in common — they both served as their state’s attorney general. And their time in that role helped launch their national political careers.
Harris and Abbott aren’t the only notable AGs who moved up and may have had — or still harbor — presidential ambitions. U.S. Senator John Cornyn preceded Abbott as Texas Attorney General.
And former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, served as the New York AG before he was elected governor. His predecessor, Eliot Spitzer, was also the New York AG before he was elected governor.
The role of State Attorney General has become more powerful. Governors and U.S. Senators across the nation got their start as their state’s Attorney General and leveraged opportunities to gain recognition on the national stage.
Attorneys general used to be more nonpartisan after elections. AGs were known for consumer protection and antitrust lawsuits. But as the partisan divide has grown, national political parties have used attorneys general to challenge the federal government, making many attorneys general a household name outside of their home states.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has built a reputation as a fighter for conservative values and President Donald Trump. It’s a legacy that’s driving his campaign for the U.S. Senate as he challenges Sen. John Cornyn, a former Texas AG, in his ambition for greater power. And for those looking to succeed him as AG, it’s a tradition they’ll have to embrace or oppose as they seek to fill a role
that has taken on national influence.
Statewide candidates
Paxton has been Attorney General for over a decade. Voters across the state have seen his name on the ballot several times. Attorney General is a statewide office, the same as governor or U.S. Senate.
Running for Attorney General is good practice for campaigning for higher office, said Thomas Gray, an associate political science professor at the University of Texas at Dallas. Getting elected requires funds and name recognition, just like running for governor or senator.
"It's like the backup quarterback has already played a bunch of games against the first string and has shown he can do it,” Gray said. “And so, when you put him in, it was no surprise that he succeeds because he's already done it."
The state has reelected Paxton multiple times despite his scandals, including securities fraud charges that were later dropped and corruption allegations that led to a failed impeachment. Cornyn has hammered Paxton for his troubled past in the GOP Senate primary, which is headed for a runoff election May 26. But a recent poll from Texas Public Opinion Research has Paxton leading Cornyn in the runoff by eight percentage points among likely voters.
Primary election turnout is low — and primary runoff turnout is even lower. The voters most likely to hit the polls for those elections are socially conservative, said Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University.
"The Republican primary electorate, because of the dominance of social conservative voters in that primary, are willing to make Ken Paxton politically immune, even as legal challenges loom,” Jillson said.
Paxton has faced criticism within the Republican party. A majority of Texas House Republicans voted in favor of his impeachment. But the Attorney General hasn’t shied away from his critics or controversy. He points to it as an example of his resiliency, said Rebecca Deen, a political science professor at the University of Texas at Arlington.
"He's painted himself as someone who stood up to the establishment folks within his own party who were out to get him, and he's emerged victorious,” Deen said.
Heir apparent?
Paxton has built a national identity that voters recognize, something the candidates for the next Texas Attorney General are fighting to build.
Aaron Reitz, Paxton’s former deputy and chosen successor, came in last in the GOP primary for Attorney General. Reitz has backed State Senator Mayes Middleton in the primary runoff election.
Middleton is presenting himself as Paxton’s natural heir, a fighter for Trump’s agenda.
“We need someone in that office like me who will use every resource and tool to back up President Trump and his America First agenda, and that is exactly what I will do,” he said at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Grapevine in March.
Congressman Chip Roy, Middleton’s opponent in the primary runoff, has also touted his relationship with the president. But he has also publicly criticized Trump. Roy previously said in a press release that Trump’s conduct during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol during President Joe Biden’s inauguration was “clearly impeachable” but called the Democrats’ articles of impeachment flawed.
He told the Texas Tribune ahead of the primary election the state needs an attorney general who's focused on Texans’ interests, not blind loyalty to the president.
“You need somebody who’s demonstrated strength and independence,” Roy said. “We’ve got to defend the state of Texas, defend our borders, defend our streets, keep it safe and defend ourselves against the federal government interfering with us, no matter who’s there.”
Polls predicted Roy would be the front runner in the Republican primary. Roy had more name recognition with voters as a member of Congress. But Middleton outperformed the polls and earned about 39% of the vote, compared to Roy’s 32%.
Middleton, the CEO of his family’s oil company, spent millions of his personal fortune on advertisements. His campaign peppered the airwaves with ads dubbing him “MAGA Mayes.”
Name recognition is key to winning elections — it’s one of the reasons why incumbents tend to succeed in reelection bids. None of the candidates for Texas AG have run a successful statewide campaign. One way to connect with voters, Gray said, is advertisements.
“There's not a ton of evidence that ads can’t buy you an election,” he said. “But what they can do is get you a seat at the table by making people know who you are.”
Roy’s campaign budget isn’t as large as Middleton’s, but he’s still spending millions of dollars. The Democrats aren’t in the ballpark of millions for their campaign spending, Jillson said. And it’s unlikely, he said, voters will recognize their name.
“A Democrat that far down the ballot is usually going around the state with a tin cup trying to raise lunch money,” Jillson said.
A Democrat hasn’t won a statewide election in Texas in decades.
Democrats managed to flip a Republican Texas Senate seat during a special election in Northwest Tarrant County, what had previously been a GOP stronghold since the early 1990s.
The Democrat, Taylor Rehmet, won by 13 points despite the Republican candidate, Leigh Wambsganss outspending Rehmet by $2 million.
Joe Jaworski, the former mayor of Galveston and Democratic AG candidate, said that signals change.
“The midterm is going to be brutal for Donald Trump, and there's very little he can do to reverse the trend between now and November,” Jaworski said.
State Senator Nathan Johnson is Jaworski’s opponent in the Democratic primary runoff election for AG. Johnson said Texans across the aisle are frustrated with how Paxton has run the office of attorney general.
Focusing on partisan issues takes away from the office’s intended functions, Johnson said.
“If you're using it as a right-wing headline machine, if you’re using it for political persecution, by definition you're taking time and staff to chase those things, they are not going to have time to do the things they should be doing,” he said.
Political Image
Texas has become the leader of championing conservative interests under Paxton. He sued the Obama administration 17 times during the short period his time in office overlapped with the administration after he took over from Abbott as attorney general in 2015. Paxton later sued President Joe Biden’s administration over 100 times, including a failed attempt to overturn the 2020 election results.
Focusing on those issues is strategic. It builds support with voters, Deen said.
"If done right, you can sort of tick the boxes of the constituencies that you will need in future,” she said.
Many of Paxton’s lawsuits have focused on GOP priorities at the national level like abortion access and banning gender-affirming care for minors. He has sued multiple out-of-state providers for allegedly mailing abortion pills to Texas in violation of state law, which bans most abortions and prohibits mailing or distributing abortion medication. And he filed lawsuits to block transgender youth in Texas from accessing gender-affirming healthcare.
Attorneys General have more autonomy over their office than other state actors. There aren’t as many statewide or national obligations compared to governors or senators. They can file cases to advance their political agenda, said Joshua Blank, the research director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.
“They really don't have a lot of limits on their ability to choose the issues on which they want to align themselves, and that's a really powerful asset,” Blank said. “There's no other office in state government like that.”
The freedom to pursue an agenda makes the AG role an ideal launchpad, where the occupant can build their resume for higher office, he said.
Legislators don’t have that luxury. Even when their party is in the majority, have to cooperate across the aisle to get things done. Cornyn, who has been in office since 2002, has had to contend with a Democratic majority in the senate during his tenure.
Paxton has delivered conservative policies with little compromise, something he argues makes him the more conservative candidate in the runoff race, Gray said.
"Senator Coronyn compromises,” he said. “Senator Cornyn gives in to liberal demands. And what AG Paxton has done is basically never give in to that compromise."
National Player
Paxton isn’t the first attorney general in Texas to challenge the federal government on GOP causes. Abbott spent much of his time as Texas’ attorney general leveraging his office to battle then-president Barack Obama on conservative priorities, refining ways for a political activist to put the Texas Office of the Attorney General on the national stage. He filed 31 lawsuits against the federal government during his tenure as attorney general, with many of them focusing on environmental regulations he argued were harmful to the Texas energy industry.
Paxton, Jillson said, ramped up the partisan angle.
"What Paxton has done is to make the office much more partisan, much more ideological, and much more focused on national political battles than on Texas legal issues,” he said.
Critics say Paxton spent more of his tenure fighting for Trump and national political interests than defending Texans. But supporters say that’s necessary in the current political climate.
Attorneys general across the aisle are joining partisan battles on the national stage. That’s a shift from previous decades, where attorneys general focused on state affairs, said Paul Nolette, a professor and director of Marquette University’s Les Aspin Center for Government.
"They have added new responsibilities on their portfolio,” Nolette said. “And so, they've become really important and powerful state actors that have a national influence."
Paxton is leveraging that national influence as he campaigns for higher office, something that paid off for his predecessors and other former AGs across the country. And whoever voters chose to succeed him as the Texas Attorney General will have the opportunity to build their own legacy, waiting in the wings to follow the path to greater power their predecessors have set.
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