Paxton Team Denies Probe into Vote Amid
Claims Dems Stole Gov and Senate Seats
Capitol Inside
November 12, 2026
Outgoing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's camp sought on Thursday to defuse claims that the state had an investigation into massive voter fraud under way in the aftermath of a midterm election that produced a monstrous tsunami that swept Democrats back into power in a place the GOP ruled for the past 30 years.
"Who has opened it??," Paxton spokesperson Michelle Smith said in a post on X in response to unsubstantiated reports that Texas officials have zeroed in on 30,000 cases of ostensible illegalities in the general election here last week. "Not the OAG?"
But the nation's foremost election denier - former Minnesota gubernatorial contender and apparent Texas resident Mike Lindell - gave his followers the opposite impression on Friday when he contended that Paxton was "all on board" with his pursuit to show that the Democrats stole the U.S. Senate seat in Texas and Governor Greg Abbott's job as well at the polls last week.
"Ken Paxton won his race - everybody - that is a fact," Lindell said on his podcast on LindellTV. "Abbott won his race everybody. That is a fact."
The actual fact is that Democrat James Talarico won the U.S. Senate seat in Texas when he defeated Paxton by more than 12 points with over 55 percent of the vote. Abbott - to set the record straight - lost by more than 7 points to Democrat Gina Hinojosa when the challenger received over 55 percent of the midterm vote here last week.
But Lindell - furniture dealer widely known as Mr. Pillow - isn't buying the official totals that are posted on the web site of the Texas secretary of state who the Republican governor appointed to the post. Lindell said he's notified some - but not all - of other Texas Republicans who he claims were victims of a sophisticated heist that he says they pulled off with the manipulation of voting machines here.
Lindell said he plans to take all the evidence he claims to have to President Donald Trump, who's questioned the veracity of the Texas election count without going as far to say the Democrats turned the nation's second largest state blue by cheating. Lindell said Paxton will be in his corner for the fight.
"Ken Paxton has been with us since day one," Lindell argued. "Ken has been with me. He's been a great friend. He's been helping our movement and everything to get rid of the voting machines for a long time. A long time - as long as I've known him."
Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, who called Lindell a friend during an inauguration speech in 2022, said on election night that he accepted the fact that Democrat Vikki Goodwin beat him "fair and square" in the fight for the Texas Senate president's post the Republican was seeking for the fourth time.
Lindell suggested he became suspicious of the Texas results when he discovered that some Republicans in down-ballot contests were credited with more votes than some of the GOP candidates in major statewide races on the ballot above.
“These are impossibilities, everybody, not improbabilities," Lindell declared in a post on X on Thursday afternoon.
Lindell said the key to the heist was "a vote-flipping algorithm shifted 15% of Republican votes" to their Democratic opponents' column.
As Lindell intensifies his probe, he could come to realize that some Republicans in down-ballot races received more votes than the party's candidates above them because their races were closer.
"Remember - there was 1 million more Republican voters in this general election," Lindell added. "So the Republican voters came out."
Exit polls have shown that 10 percent to 20 percent of the Texas voters with GOP voting histories supported Talarico for the U.S. Senate battle here. Neither Abbott or Paxton have questioned the accuracy of the 2026 election here or raised the specter that their races were stolen.
Lindell suggested he'd had the Republican nomination in the Minnesota governor's race stolen from him after losing by 11 points in the primary election there despite an enthusiastic endorsement from Trump. But Lindell refused to foot the bill for a recount.
more to come ...
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