Republican U.S. Senate candidate Ken Paxton had some unlikely supporters at his campaign stop at a Mexican restaurant in Allen on Tuesday.
Collin County Republican State Representatives Jeff Leach and Matt Shaheen both voted to impeach Paxton, who’s also from Collin County, in 2023 over corruption allegations.
Leach was one of the lead prosecutors of the impeachment trial in the Texas Senate. He told the Senate during closing arguments he knew his decision to impeach Paxton, his political mentor, would be controversial.
Shaheen and Leach also backed Sen. John Cornyn in the contentious GOP primary runoff.
Still, both Leach and Shaheen threw their support behind Paxton at the Allen campaign event on Tuesday.
“We need Ken Paxton to step in because he's got the courage to fix Obamacare and all the other failed liberal democratic policies that Washington D.C. has stepped on us with,” Shaheen said.
Republicans need to come together, Leach said, to defeat Talarico.
“Every Republican, no matter who you supported in the primary, no matter what you feel about certain things, the time for that is in the past,” he said. “We are at war for the future of the state of Texas.”
Leach had a very different message when Paxton was facing impeachment.
“There comes a time for each of us not to ask yourself what is safe, or popular or politic, but what is right,” he said.
The Senate failed to convict Paxton in the impeachment trial. The Attorney General later endorsed several Republican primary challengers who ran against statehouse members who voted in favor of his impeachment, including Leach and Shaheen.
And days before election day for the runoff, Leach criticized Paxton in a post on X for a plea deal his prosecutors offered Adam Hoffman, a Waco attorney charged with repeatedly sexually abusing a young boy.
“A real and dangerous predator — a present threat to Texas children — will be as free as you and me,” he wrote. “A slap on his wrist and a spit in the face to his victim. Why?! How?! Because that’s the deal he made with Ken Paxton. Vote accordingly.”
Paxton, who had previously called for Leach’s resignation over text messages to the judge in the Robert Roberson capital punishment case, thanked Leach for speaking at his campaign event.
“Jeff Leach, introducing me in his district was pretty awesome,” he said. “So thank you, Jeff.”
Paxton and his Democratic opponent, state Rep. James Talarico, both launched their economic plans in North Texas this week, a consequential region for the upcoming statewide election.
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