President Donald Trump denied hearing leaked audio of Ken Paxton, the Republican Texas Senate nominee, complaining that the Republican National Committee midterm convention did not help boost his campaign against Democrat James Talarico.
“Well, I haven’t heard that, but I can tell you that the convention was amazing, as you probably know,” Trump told reporters Wednesday afternoon when asked about the audio. “We had 107 million views.”
According to an audio recording reported by the New York Times, Paxton was heard telling donors and lobbyists that the convention hurt his poll numbers. “So to be honest with you, the numbers — when we did that convention — it dropped our numbers,” Paxton said. “Everybody’s numbers dropped. Right now, yeah, not good.”
But Trump’s focus on Wednesday was about the views the convention had in contrast to the two NFL games that also aired during the two-night event earlier this month.
“Think of this: We had over 100 million views. I think 107. The NFL had 25 million views, so we had four times what the NFL did,” said Trump.
The president did concede that maybe Paxton had a point about his comments. Paxton is trailing Talarico by 3 points, according to aggregate survey data from RealClearPolling. The GOP and aligned groups will have spent more than $300 million boosting the scandal-plagued Texas attorney general against Talarico, who is also a prolific fundraiser.
“And you know, it’s possible that could be true. I don’t know if it’s possible, but other people were helped greatly,” he said. “This was a national convention, midterm convention, never been done before, and we went directly against the NFL.”
According to CNN, Trump’s primetime address reached 3 million viewers, while the NFL’s 2026-27 season kickoff game between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots reached more than 25 million viewers.
PAXTON ABSENT AS VANCE RALLIES IN TEXAS
Trump also said the RNC will likely hold another convention in the future.
“I would imagine they do it again often. Somebody said it won’t do as well because I won’t be around, but I’ll be around in some form,” said Trump. “I don’t know what form I’m going to be around in. But … the convention, you know, just based on the views that it got, it … was the most-watched thing on television, and that included the NFL, which is pretty amazing.”
