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Ken Paxton’s Lavish Travels Have Cost Texas Taxpayers $1.9 Million

adminOctober 1, 20263 Mins read0

Ken Paxton’s Lavish Travels Have Cost Texas Taxpayers .9 Million

Topline

Texas Attorney General and Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton’s out-of-state travel has cost taxpayers $1.9 million in security expenses, according to a new Associated Press report that found his trips have increased substantially throughout his 11 years as attorney general.

Texas Republican Senate candidate, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, speaks on stage on the first day of the 2026 Republican National Convention at the American Airlines Center on September 09, 2026 in Dallas, Texas. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

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Key Facts

Paxton has taken more than 275 out-of-state trips since he was elected in 2015, according to an Associated Press review of state and campaign records, including his official calendars, and has left about 730 workdays blank.

Last year, he was in Augusta, Georgia, during the Masters golf tournament shortly after announcing his Senate campaign, costing taxpayers at least $25,000, according to the AP.

From 2022-2024, Paxton traveled to the Caribbean, Israel, India, Taiwan, South Africa, took three trips to Europe and visited five ski towns in the Rocky Mountains, the AP reported.

He has taken more than 25 trips to California at a cost of more than $175,000 to taxpayers during his tenure, including a visit to Napa Valley in 2019 that cost his campaign $11,000, billed as a fundraising expense, and $8,100 in taxpayer-funded security costs, according to the Associated Press.

Thursday’s AP story isn’t the first time Paxton has been criticized for his travel—in 2022, when taxpayers spent $230,000 to cover security expenses related to his travel, he took a trip to Europe that included stops in Italy, Albania, Greece and Malta, the Dallas Morning News reported previously.

During Paxton’s impeachment probe in 2023 over bribery allegations, among other allegations of abusing his office, a former deputy attorney general, Mark Penley, told investigators, “I didn’t have a whole lot of contact with Attorney General Paxton . . . he was gone a lot, he was traveling, he was out.”

Contra

Paxton’s office said in a statement to the Associated Press that calendar entries do not “capture someone’s full workday, including hours of calls, negotiations, case strategy, and briefings with his team that fill every day,” adding that Paxton travels with security because he faces threats. Forbes has also reached out to Paxton’s office.

Chief Critic

Paxton’s Democratic opponent in the Senate race, state Rep. James Talarico, has criticized him over his travel, including spending the July 4 holiday in the U.K. In a Sept. 20 post on social media, Talarico wrote, “it’s Cypress, not ‘Cyprus,’ but for all the time you spend on luxury vacations in Europe, it’s no surprise you don’t know Texas.”

Tangent

As Paxton’s travel has increased, so have his appearances on conservative TV—his calendar reportedly showed 122 scheduled interviews in 2023 and included 96 days in 2022 in which interviews with conservative outlets were the only activities listed.

Key Background

Paxton has become a conservative firebrand and prominent figure in President Donald Trump’s MAGA orbit. He led an attempt to overturn Trump’s 2020 loss, and he sued the Biden administration more than 100 times, the AP noted. Trump endorsed Paxton over incumbent GOP Sen. John Cornyn, who is widely respected in the Senate, angering many of his colleagues. Paxton is trailing Talarico in most polls, however, as the GOP faces an uphill battle to overcome Trump’s low poll numbers. Paxton appeared to acknowledge the disadvantage in a leaked recording obtained by The New York Times this week. “When we did that convention—it dropped our numbers. Everybody’s numbers dropped. Right now? Yeah, not good,” he said in response to someone who asked if he felt like Trump was “a little bit of a drag.” Paxton was referencing Republicans’ unprecedented move to hold a midterm convention, which most major networks did not devote prime time coverage slots to.