Ken Paxton says Trump’s convention hurt the GOP. He has a point

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It seemed a highly questionable decision even at the time — to hold an unorthodox GOP midterm convention dubbed “ Trump-a-palooza ” largely focused on a historically unpopular president. But President Donald Trump muscled the idea through anyway, and no Republicans seemed willing to object.

Now it’s pretty clear it was a dud – and might well have hurt the GOP.

And even the man who seemingly could have benefitted most is apparently saying that out loud.

The New York Times on Wednesday published audio of Texas Senate candidate Ken Paxton privately complaining to conservative donors and lobbyists that Trump’s much-hyped midterm convention — which was held in Paxton’s home state and focused heavily on him and his race — did more harm than good.

“So to be honest with you, the numbers — when we did that convention — it dropped our numbers,” the Texas attorney general said. “Everybody’s numbers dropped. Right now, yeah, not good.”

(In a statement to CNN, Paxton senior adviser Nick Maddux called the Times’ story “manipulated nonsense” to “create a story that doesn’t exist.” He didn’t elaborate on that claim.)

But no one has to take Paxton’s word for it; the publicly available data point in the same direction.

While we’re largely talking about shifts within the margin of error, the GOP’s numbers have clearly trended in the wrong direction since the convention was held in Dallas on September 9 and 10. And at the very least, the convention didn’t provide any sort of “bounce” that presidential nominating conventions often spark .

That’s most evident if you look at the so-called “generic ballot” — i.e. asking voters to choose between an unnamed Republican and an unnamed Democrat.

The major polling aggregators including Nate Silver and FiftyPlusOne all show that, if anything, it’s Democrats who have gotten a bump since the midterm convention. They both show Democrats expanding their margin on the generic ballot by at least two points since September 9.

Indeed, Democrats appear to have gotten a sudden spike that actually started around that point.

And individual polls bear this out too:

Democrats expanded their lead among registered voters from 7 points in June to 11 points shortly before the convention to 12 points in a Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday.

They expanded their lead from 5 points in late August to 7 points right after the convention to 8 points last week, per Reuters-Ipsos polling.

They went from up 6 points in August to up 8 points a week after the convention in polling from Strength in Numbers-Verasight.

An NPR-PBS-Marist College poll around the same time showed them leading by 12 points — after leading by 9-10 points in the spring.

Three other polls — from CNN , NBC News and Fox News — all showed no change from previous polling. But that also suggests the convention was a waste.

Only one high-quality poll, from the New York Times and Siena College, showed the generic ballot improved for the GOP after the convention. But the prior poll there was from back in May.

Beyond the generic ballot, the data also suggest the convention didn’t help the GOP much with its enthusiasm deficit . The Marist poll shows 76% of Democrats said they cared a great deal about who wins control of Congress, compared to 67% of Republicans.

There is some uncertainty here, because the shifts are small and the convention wasn’t the only variable that could have moved voters. It seems relatively few people watched the convention beyond the most politically inclined — despite Trump’s false boasts of massive ratings. So it’s entirely possible the impact was negligible and the movement we’re seeing comes down to other factors.

But consider this: If there is one person who seemingly stood to gain, it should have been Paxton.

The convention wasn’t just held in his home state, after all; this is also a candidate who is struggling to rally his base behind him in a red state. Trump could at the very least help with that, one would assume.

Of course, Trump also spent much of the convention rather curiously ragging on the way Paxton looks, dresses and speaks .

And polling suggests Paxton’s problems very much remain — or have grown worse.

A ReconMR-Siena College poll that spanned the convention and a Marist College poll last week both showed Democratic state Rep. James Talarico leading by 6 points (the former among likely voters and in the latter among registered voters). Those are Talarico’s biggest leads to date in the general election period.

A Texas Southern University poll , meanwhile, shows a 47-46 Talarico advantage.

But perhaps more to the point, both the Siena and Marist polls showed Paxton’s image ratings still languishing badly. His net favorability was 17 points underwater in the former (38% favorable to 55% unfavorable) and 21 points underwater in the latter (33%-54%). He did improve slightly in the Texas Southern poll, but he was still in the red by double digits.

(Maddux, the Paxton adviser, added in his comments to CNN that “every serious pollster will tell you that our numbers have improved since early September. Ken Paxton is going to win this race, and he looks forward to closing strong alongside President Trump including when he comes to Texas this week.”)

So it seems the convention did no favors to the one man it really could have served to benefit. And, combined with the weird personal insults, one could perhaps understand why Paxton might feel a little sour about that.

But if history is any indication, Trump is unlikely to accept that his attempts to make the midterms about himself could be hurting Republicans.

He’s more likely to plow forward and keep the spotlight on himself.

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即使在当时，举办一场名为“特朗普狂欢节”的非传统共和党中期选举大会，主要聚焦于一位历史上支持率极低的总统，这似乎也是一个极具争议的决定。但唐纳德·特朗普总统还是强行推进了这一计划，而且似乎没有一位共和党人愿意提出异议。

现在看来，这显然是个失败之举——而且很可能对共和党造成了损害。

甚至连那个看似最有可能从中受益的人，也公开表达了这种想法。

《纽约时报》周三公布了一段录音，录音中德克萨斯州参议员候选人肯·帕克斯顿私下向保守派捐助者和游说者抱怨说，特朗普大肆宣传的中期选举大会（在帕克斯顿的家乡举行，并重点关注他和他的竞选）弊大于利。

“说实话，自从我们召开那次大会以来，我们的支持率下降了，”德克萨斯州总检察长说。“所有人的支持率都下降了。现在，情况确实不太乐观。”

（帕克斯顿的高级顾问尼克·马杜克斯在给CNN的一份声明中称，《纽约时报》的报道是“捏造的无稽之谈”，目的是“编造一个根本不存在的故事”。他没有详细说明这一说法。）

但大家不必完全相信帕克斯顿的话；公开数据也指向同一个方向。

虽然我们主要讨论的是误差范围内的变化，但自9月9日至10日在达拉斯举行大会以来，共和党的支持率明显朝着错误的方向发展。至少，这次大会并没有像总统提名大会那样，带来任何“反弹”效应。

这一点在所谓的“通用选票”上体现得最为明显——即要求选民在一位未具名的共和党人和一位未具名的民主党人之间做出选择。

包括Nate Silver和FiftyPlusOne在内的主要民调机构的数据均显示，中期选举大会以来，民主党的支持率反而有所上升。两家机构的数据都显示，自9月9日以来，民主党在普选中的领先优势至少扩大了两个百分点。

事实上，民主党人的支持率似乎出现了突然飙升，而这实际上正是从那时开始的。

个别民意调查也证实了这一点：

昆尼皮亚克大学周二公布的一项民意调查显示，民主党在注册选民中的领先优势从 6 月份的 7 个百分点扩大到大会召开前的 11 个百分点，再到大会召开前的 12 个百分点。

根据路透社-益普索民调，他们的领先优势从 8 月下旬的 5 个百分点扩大到大会后的 7 个百分点，上周扩大到 8 个百分点。

根据 Strength in Numbers-Verasight 的民调显示，他们在大会后一周的支持率从 8 月份的 6 个百分点上升到 8 个百分点。

大约在同一时间，NPR、PBS 和马里斯特学院联合进行的民意调查显示，他们领先 12 个百分点——此前在春季时他们领先 9 到 10 个百分点。

CNN、NBC新闻和福克斯新闻的其他三项民调均显示，结果与之前的民调相比没有变化。但这同时也表明，这次大会毫无意义。

只有《纽约时报》和锡耶纳学院联合进行的一项高质量民调显示，共和党全国代表大会后，其普选支持率有所上升。但此前的民调结果还是在五月份公布的。

除了普选结果之外，数据还表明，党代会并没有显著提升共和党的热情。马里斯特民调显示，76%的民主党人表示他们非常关心谁能赢得国会控制权，而共和党人中只有67%的人持相同观点。

这里存在一些不确定性，因为选民倾向的转变幅度很小，而且党代会并非影响选民的唯一因素。尽管特朗普谎称收视率很高，但除了那些政治倾向最强烈的人之外，似乎只有相对较少的人观看了党代会。因此，党代会的影响可能微乎其微，我们看到的选民倾向转变可能归因于其他因素。

但想想看：如果说有一个人似乎会从中获益，那应该是帕克斯顿。

毕竟，这次大会并非只在他的家乡举行；而且，这位候选人还在一个共和党占优势的州努力争取支持者。人们或许会认为，特朗普至少能在这方面帮上忙。

当然，特朗普在大会期间还相当奇怪地花了大量时间抨击帕克斯顿的外貌、穿着和说话方式。

民调显示，帕克斯顿的问题依然存在，甚至更加严重。

ReconMR-锡耶纳学院联合民调（涵盖了党代会期间）和马里斯特学院上周的民调均显示，民主党州众议员詹姆斯·塔拉里科领先6个百分点（前者针对可能投票的选民，后者针对已登记选民）。这是塔拉里科在大选期间迄今为止的最大领先优势。

与此同时，德克萨斯南方大学的民意调查显示，塔拉里科以 47 比 46 领先。

但更重要的是，锡耶纳学院和马里斯特学院的民调都显示，帕克斯顿的形象支持率仍然低迷。在前者中，他的净支持率比反对率低17个百分点（38%支持，55%反对），在后者中则低了21个百分点（33%支持，54%反对）。他在德克萨斯南方大学的民调中略有改善，但仍然落后两位数。

（帕克斯顿的顾问马杜克斯在接受CNN采访时补充说：“所有严肃的民调专家都会告诉你，自9月初以来，我们的支持率有所提高。肯·帕克斯顿将会赢得这场选举，他期待着与特朗普总统一起全力冲刺，包括本周访问德克萨斯州期间。”）

看来这次大会对唯一一个本可以从中受益的人毫无益处。再加上那些莫名其妙的人身攻击，或许就能理解帕克斯顿为何对此感到不满了。

但如果历史可以作为参考，特朗普不太可能接受他试图将中期选举变成他个人秀的做法可能会损害共和党人。

他更有可能勇往直前，继续成为众人瞩目的焦点。