‘They Both Stink!’ CNN Data Guru Warns Trump and Paxton’s Unpopularity May Lead to First Texas Dem Senator in Decades

CNN data Guru Harry Enten warned Thursday that voter hatred for both Attorney General Ken Paxton (R-TX) and President Donald Trump could lead to a massive blue shift in the Texas race for U.S. Senate.

Trump is heading to Texas Thursday to campaign for Paxton, but it wasn’t clear whether the president’s support would actually help the scandal-plagued AG.

Leaked audio of Paxton revealed him disparaging Trump’s midterm convention appearance, claiming, “when we did that convention — it dropped our numbers. Everybody’s numbers dropped.”

“The Texans, you know what they say?” Enten asked. “They both stink! They both stink!” he said of Paxton and Trump. “And Ken Paxton especially stinks. He’s the worst of the worst.”

Paxton’s past troubles include an impeachment trial on corruption charges in the Texas House, but he was later acquitted in the Senate. In addition, Paxton’s wife, state Senator Angela Paxton, (R) filed for divorce on “biblical grounds” of adultery. Regardless, she recently encouraged GOP women to vote to preserve the red seat in Congress, despite her soon-to-be ex-husband’s faults.

Enten continued:

I mean, just look at this key GOP senate nominee’s popularity. Look who’s at the bottom of this list. It’s Ken Paxton! He’s at minus-16 points. The worst of the worst. None of these other key Republican senate nominees are positive. But yet Ken Paxton beats them all in the negative direction. Minus-16 points, worse than in Ohio, minus-11. Minus eight in Michigan, minus-seven in Maine, minus-two in Iowa. Ken Paxton is by far the least popular Republican senate nominee in a key state. When you look at all the polling, Texans simply put — they hate him!

Enten added, “Congratulations to Ken Paxton! You have done it. You are the least popular Texas GOP senate nominee this century.”

“You’ve managed to do it. And when I was looking at the data, no one else was even in the negative. And you’re at minus-16 points at this point,” Enten said. “This is record-breaking for Texas. Texas is normally a Republican state, almost always the Republican senate nominee is in positive territory. But Ken Paxton just isn’t in negative territory. He is deep in negative territory, deep under the Gulf of Mexico, or again, in Trump’s language, the Gulf of America.”

Some Republicans claim that had Trump supported Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) instead of Paxton, the race would have been in the bag. As it stands now, James Talarico (D-TX) was up four points over Paxton in the newest Texas poll.

The Big Data Poll showed 43.6 percent of respondents said they would back Talarico, while 39.3 percent said they would back Paxton, and 5.2 percent would vote for the Libertarian candidate. The percentage of people who were undecided was 11.9 percent.

Watch the clip above via CNN.

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