GOP busted scrubbing attacks on 'disgusting' MAGA candidate after his primary victory

The National Republican Senatorial Committee spent months calling Ken Paxton corrupt, adulterous, and incompetent. Then he won — and the receipts started disappearing.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton defeated incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in a Republican Senate runoff Tuesday, making Cornyn the first Republican senator from Texas to lose his party's nomination for reelection. Within hours, the NRSC was quietly deleting its own ads and press releases attacking the man it will now be expected to elect.

Danny Dabbs, Senate director at American Bridge 21st Century, was first to flag the purge. "NRSC is also actively scrubbing their website on Ken Paxton releases," he posted on X. "So embarrassing." He later confirmed the links were "all leading to 404s."

But the NRSC couldn't outrun the Internet Archive. A cached version of the committee's July 2025 statement on Paxton's divorce — still accessible online — shows NRSC Communications Director Joanna Rodriguez declaring: "What Ken Paxton has put his family through is truly repulsive and disgusting. No one should have to endure what Angela Paxton has, and we pray for her as she chooses to stand up for herself and her family during this difficult time."

Screenshots captured before the scrub show the NRSC had published at least eight ads and press releases targeting Paxton, including ones headlined "Ken Paxton's Lies and Incompetence Keep Piling Up," "Ken Paxton Caught Using Taxpayer Dollars to Buy Hotel Rooms for Donors," and "Texas Deserves Better than Ken Paxton." All now return 404 errors.

Paxton will face Democratic state Rep. James Talarico in the general election in a race expected to be one of the most expensive in the nation. He captured 63.4% of nearly 903,000 votes.

Paxton was impeached on bribery and corruption charges in 2023 by a GOP-controlled state House; the state Senate acquitted him. His wife filed for divorce last year on what she described as "biblical grounds."