When Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton launched his Senate campaign last year, he skipped the traditional local political circuit.
Instead, the MAGA firebrand announced his run on Fox News, cleared his schedule and stayed at an Augusta, Georgia hotel during the Masters golf tournament — a trip that cost Texas taxpayers at least $25,000, records show.
The excursion was part of a broader pattern during Paxton's turbulent 11 years as Texas' top law enforcement official. As his national profile grew and he became a prominent ally of President Donald Trump, Paxton increasingly traveled outside the state, according to an Associated Press review of state and campaign records.
Since taking office in 2015, Paxton has left roughly 730 workdays blank on his official calendars and taken more than 275 out-of-state trips, including visits to California wine country, Caribbean resorts and European tourist destinations.
Those trips have cost Texas taxpayers at least $1.9 million in security-detail expenses. Records do not make clear how Paxton paid for much of his own travel.
The trend accelerated as Paxton became a fixture in conservative media and filed numerous lawsuits challenging Democratic President Joe Biden's administration, helping cement his standing in Trump's MAGA movement.
While Paxton's calendars were packed with official business early in his tenure, more than 90 workdays were blank in 2021. That climbed to 112 days in 2024, the latest full year the AP examined.
Texas law does not require the attorney general to disclose his daily schedule, and state records often provide little information about the purpose or duration of his trips.
But taxpayer spending on his security detail outside Texas soared from about $30,000 in 2015 to nearly $400,000 in 2024.
"There is clearly a pattern of behavior here that may make some voters question how seriously Ken Paxton has taken the job," said Joshua Blank, research director for the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.
"At the same time, Ken Paxton has been accused of a lot of things and those accusations have not hurt him in any significant way yet."
Paxton’s trips revive questions over alleged affair
Questions about Paxton’s travel habits and his record as attorney general have emerged in a Senate campaign that could prove pivotal in deciding party control of the chamber.
His Democratic opponent in November's election, James Talarico, criticized Paxton for spending July 4 in Great Britain and accused him of focusing more on his status in Trump’s political movement than on issues facing Texans.
Calling attention to a spelling mistake regarding a Texas town on social media, Talarico wrote on Sept. 20: "It’s Cypress, not 'Cyprus,'" adding, "But for all the time you spend on luxury vacations in Europe, it’s no surprise you don’t know Texas."
The trips have also served as an uncomfortable reminder of Paxton’s complex personal life.
Last year, his primary opponent, Sen. John Cornyn, posted an image online showing Paxton at the 2024 Kentucky Derby with a group including a woman he has since been seen traveling alone with.
"Quite the unforgettable day for Crooked Ken and Tracy Duhon!" Cornyn wrote, adding, "If you know you know."
Multiple news organizations have reported an alleged romantic relationship between Paxton and Duhon, a Christian influencer and author, though both have declined to comment.
Paxton’s wife, Texas state Sen. Angela Paxton, filed for divorce last year on "biblical grounds" and accused the attorney general of infidelity. Duhon, who was not named in the divorce filings, did not respond to a request for comment.
Paxton's campaign would not make him available for an interview and declined to comment for this story. Madison Cercy, a spokeswoman for Paxton, directed all inquiries to the Texas Attorney General's office, which did not directly answer detailed questions regarding Paxton's travel or how it is funded.
In an unsigned statement, Paxton's office maintained 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."
Paxton’s office stated that he has helped secure substantial legal settlements from tech companies and drugmakers, requiring regular travel. The office added that Paxton, like other high-profile state leaders, travels with a security team due to threats "stemming from his courageous work … fighting on behalf of the people of Texas."
"Attorney General Paxton leads an agency of more than 4,000 employees and is briefed daily on the most pressing matters across the office," the statement reads. "His schedule is built to be immediately responsive to the most pressing issues in order to best serve Texans."
How Paxton survived scandal after scandal
Clouded by scrutiny throughout his more than ten years in office, the former state lawmaker and probate lawyer has navigated persistent legal and ethical challenges.
Although the FBI investigated Paxton, it brought no charges. He subsequently paid restitution to settle a felony securities fraud case filed by state prosecutors without admitting guilt. Furthermore, despite being impeached by fellow Republicans over allegations of bribery and power abuse, he was later acquitted.
His political survival relies on strong support from his Christian conservative base and a close alliance with Trump. Early in his tenure, Paxton cemented this tie by turning his office into an operational hub for the conservative movement, launching legal battles to advance its agenda.
Notably, Paxton led an unsuccessful campaign to challenge Trump’s 2020 presidential election defeat to Biden. Once Biden took office, Paxton filed over 100 lawsuits against the Democratic administration, a statistic he routinely promotes while campaigning.
While Paxton did not originate the "activist" framework for attorneys general, he utilized it to elevate his political stature, noted Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston.
"The culture war litigation became a central function of his office rather than a peripheral one," said Rottinghaus. Paxton, he added, "learned that litigation itself generated political capital."
That intense politicization led Tom Phillips, a former Republican chief justice on the Texas Supreme Court, to endorse Democratic candidate state Sen. Nathan Johnson in the race to succeed Paxton as attorney general.
"The office of attorney general should be conducted in a nonpartisan fashion. Not to advance their own political agenda," said Phillips.
Paxton spent more time on conservative media than office business
Public records show how Ken Paxton’s transition into a national political figure is reflected in his official calendars. Early in his tenure, his daily schedule was filled with the standard responsibilities of a state attorney general.
During his first year, for instance, his itinerary regularly included strategy sessions with senior staff, constituent greetings, public speeches, and meetings with state legislators.
In the past five years, however, listings for those routine duties became far less frequent. The calendars appear to corroborate statements made by two former deputies to impeachment investigators in 2023, who noted that he routinely skipped meetings and appeared disinterested in managing daily agency operations, leaving them to top leadership.
"I didn’t have a whole lot of contact with Attorney General Paxton," Mark Penley, a former deputy attorney general, told impeachment investigators in 2023. "He was gone a lot, he was traveling, he was out."
Records show that over a two-year period ending in 2024, Paxton traveled to Taiwan, South Africa, Israel, India, and the Caribbean; made three separate trips to Europe; and visited five different ski destinations in the Rockies, including multiple stops in Park City, Utah.
In the summer of 2022, while running for reelection, Paxton embarked on a multi-stop European tour visiting Italy, Albania, Greece, and Malta, as previously reported by the Dallas Morning News.
Paxton also visited a resort town in Idaho and hosted a fundraiser at Trump’s Bedminster golf club in New Jersey. Taxpayers spent roughly $230,000 that year to reimburse members of his security detail for travel costs, according to records.
As the number of blank days on Paxton’s calendar increased throughout his time in office, other scheduling trends also developed.
In 2022, Paxton’s calendar recorded 79 blank days, along with 96 days when his only scheduled activities were interviews with conservative media outlets.
By the following year, his calendar featured 122 conservative media interviews, exceeding the 98 scheduled events dedicated to his office's day-to-day operations, records show.
Paxton slams California but taxpayers fund his trips there
Texas conservatives, Paxton among them, regularly attack California, with Republican Gov. Greg Abbott frequently using the catchphrase "Don’t California My Texas" as a disparaging shorthand for the liberal values linked to the West Coast state.
Paxton recently took aim at California while railing against his November challenger. "California already has two senators. It doesn’t need a third. But that’s exactly what James Talarico would be," Paxton declared earlier this month as Republicans met in Texas for a midterm election summit convened by Trump.
Yet that clear disdain hasn't stopped Paxton from frequenting California, where he spent part of his youth. Public documents demonstrate that Paxton has undertaken more than 25 trips to the state, accumulating a bill for Texas taxpayers exceeding $175,000.
"I like places in California, even though I don’t like to admit that I go to California. But it’s beautiful," Paxton said during an appearance on the "Swimming with the Sharks" podcast last November.
Records show he has a particular fondness for northern California’s wine region, visiting the area at least five times.
In 2019, campaign finance filings show Paxton deployed $11,000 from his campaign funds for lodging at a Napa Valley boutique hotel, vineyard tours, and stops at two wineries, categorizing the journey as a fundraising cost. Records show taxpayers also covered an additional $8,100 in security fees for the trip.
A separate journey to wine country in 2024 cost the public more than $14,000, according to records. During that travel, Paxton moved near Yosemite National Park, where campaign funds paid for dining, including $436 at Mammoth Rock Restaurant, a French-inspired brasserie featuring upscale selections like escargot and duck confit.
How Paxton funds the majority of his frequent travel remains unclear. Although he used campaign money for select costs, neither his Senate campaign nor his office commented.
While he was not wealthy when he joined the legislature in 2002, Paxton’s personal wealth has expanded dramatically in recent years. A financial disclosure recently submitted to the Senate shows he holds millions of dollars in assets.
Still, the filings offer an incomplete overview. As attorney general, Paxton earns about $153,000 per year and says he is not required to disclose assets held in a trust.
His net worth has varied significantly across periodic reports filed with the Senate, which present figures in broad ranges rather than exact amounts.
One document submitted last year suggested he carried considerable debts and might have a negative net worth. However, an August disclosure indicated he could be worth more than $20 million, largely tied to a growing real estate portfolio.
Paxton’s road to MAGA prominence ran through Mar-a-Lago
Paxton has been a frequent visitor to Washington, traveling there more than 31 times after Trump's initial 2016 election victory. As Trump planned a return to politics after losing the 2020 election, Paxton frequently traveled to Palm Beach, where Trump’s private Mar-a-Lago estate is located.
During Trump's period of political exile in early 2021 due to his involvement in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, Paxton joined him for a round of golf. Campaign finance filings reveal that Paxton also spent close to $50,000 to host his own fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago that year, arriving in West Palm Beach on a private plane.
According to official records, he has returned to the area 11 additional times, along with 28 separate trips to other Florida cities, including two stops at Disney World.
