How Ken Paxton is seeking to extend the reach of his victory in the impeachment trial

AUSTIN — Perhaps it's the evolving character of a fast-growing state, but Ken Paxton hardly fits the mold of a Texas political titan who commands fierce loyalty and exudes the charisma to spur followers to action.

The three-term Republican attorney general, who was returned to office about a week ago after prevailing in his impeachment trial, lacks the swagger that propelled George W. Bush from the Governor's Mansion to the White House. And there's no trace in Paxton's voice of the rich Texas twang that made Ann Richards and Rick Perry national figures.

In fact, aside from those tuned into conservative broadcast channels, few Texans would even recognize the sound of Paxton's voice if they heard it.

But that voice has re-emerged in the company of friendly interviewers over the past week. And though it's absent the drawling humor of a Richards, the ranch-boss reassurance of a Perry or the confident certainty of a Bush, it sounds very much like a man ready to settle more than a couple of scores and of one who might see in the mirror the face of the next iteration of the Texas Republican Party.

Paxton's rise to political prominence defies nearly all of the mythos of an up-and-coming Texan. He's not a native, and instead was born on an Air Force base in North Dakota and hopscotched from one state to another growing up. In the Legislature, he represented not the oil patch or ranch country but the suburbs north of Dallas. And if he ever got his hands dirty in the oil business, it was more likely from the blowback from a gas pump while over-filling the tank at the corner Tiger Mart than from a blowout at the wellhead in the Permian Basin.

But given all of that, Paxton was cast as a martyr for today's Texas Republican Party during the impeachment process beginning in late May, when the House first brought charges, and ending Sept. 16 when the GOP-led Senate acquitted him.

Former President Donald Trump even came to Paxton's aid, praising him on social media as a conservative loyalist and castigating the "RINOs" who brought the charges. After the acquittal, Trump sought to claim the credit. If such a claim had merit, Trump was essentially saying that the Republican state senators had disregarded the "so help me God" oath they took with their left hands on the venerated Sam Houston Bible to listen only to the evidence presented in the trial and instead had listened only to him.

It's fair to note that sympathy for the attorney general has be fueled in part with the help of deep-pocket conservatives who paid "influencers" to spread the word that Paxton was being hunted by RINOs — Republicans in Name Only — who were being led by Democrats frustrated by their lack of success at the ballot box.

More: Why 'RINOs' are at the center of Ken Paxton's impeachment trial in a GOP-led Texas Senate

Once back in office, Paxton made no secret that he's the one hunting now, and his mission is to drive to extinction the strain of Texas Republicans who voted to impeach him and send him packing.

In an interview with North Texas radio host Mark Davis, and before that with ousted Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson, Paxton made clear his sights are trained on some big targets. Among them are Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan and the GOP members of the impeachment committee he appointed.

And he foreshadowed a possible 2026 primary challenge to U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, who had used his own megaphone to call Paxton "a source of embarrassment" for the party because of the attorney general's well-chronicled legal challenges dating back several years.

Paxton called Cornyn a tool of the Bush family, perhaps still smarting over George P. Bush's ill-fated bid to oust the incumbent AG in 2022. And he said the four-term senator has outlived his usefulness to Texas.

"Someone else needs to run for (Cornyn's) spot, whether it's me or somebody else," Paxton told Davis. "His time is done."

It's true that for the past several years, the hardcore conservative wing of the Texas Republican Party, which came to Paxton's rescue, has been on the ascent while the once-dominant business-minded bloc that lifted Cornyn to the Senate and helped keep him there in three reelection campaigns shows signs of fading.

The major parties are almost divided into factions. That was true when the Democrats held power. The two sides, and sometimes the three and four sides, would fight among themselves in odd-numbered years and set aside their differences in the even-numbered ones and keep the Republicans wandering in the woods.

More: Political scandals are not uncommon in Texas. Here's what makes the Paxton saga unique.

You don't need a degree in political science to understand that Texas Democrats lost power once those differences could no longer be set aside. Put simply, the liberals ran off the conservatives, and the Democrats have been marginalized in Texas ever since.

Paxton said that regardless of whether he challenges Cornyn in three years, he plans to "be spending a lot of time" in the 2024 primary season campaigning against Phelan and his allies with an eye toward replacing them with candidates in the mold of the modern conservatives. If that effort succeeds, Paxton might end up with a lot of the credit. And if that effort succeeds too well, Paxton might find himself being the face of the next marginalized political party.

John C. Moritz covers Texas government and politics for the USA Today Network in Austin. Contact him at jmoritz@gannett.com and follow him on X, formerly called Twitter, @JohnnieMo.

This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: Winning impeachment battle opens new doors for Ken Paxton