Indicted. Beneath F.B.I. Investigation. And Nonetheless Well-liked With Texas Republicans.

SAN ANTONIO — The race for Texas lawyer basic is asking Republicans to find out what number of indictments and allegations of corruption are too many. The reply could also be there isn’t a restrict — as long as the candidate has an endorsement from former President Donald J. Trump.

Ken Paxton, the Trump-backed lawyer basic, was indicted and arrested on felony securities-fraud charges which can be nonetheless pending. He has confronted requires his resignation after several of his top aides claimed he abused his office by serving to a rich donor. And he has been serving because the state’s prime lawyer whereas underneath menace of a doable new indictment, because the F.B.I. investigates the abuse-of-office and bribery accusations.

“The voters of Texas will tolerate an ideal deal,” stated State Senator Kel Seliger, a reasonable Republican who’s a former mayor of Amarillo. “They suppose if any individual is ideologically in sync with them, that’s what issues. I’d have thought in Texas that ethical instance is extra vital, however apparently it’s not.”

Within the pre-Trump period, indictments and investigations by federal regulation enforcement may have been deadly to a Republican marketing campaign. However Mr. Trump has instilled a deep distrust in authorities establishments just like the F.B.I. Mr. Paxton took the weird step of authorizing an investigation of an F.B.I. investigation — he appointed a particular prosecutor to look into the federal probe of the rich donor, an Austin actual property investor named Nate Paul whose dwelling and places of work had been raided by federal brokers.

The litany of allegations against Mr. Trump has allowed acolytes like Mr. Paxton to assert that they, too, are victims of a authorities conspiracy.

“That’s the Biden F.B.I., the Biden D.O.J.,” Mr. Paxton stated in a recent interview with a Fox Information reporter. “They had been underneath investigation by my workplace. I don’t know what they will do. All I can let you know is that we had been doing the appropriate factor. We’re going to proceed to do the appropriate factor. I don’t management what the Biden White Home does.”

Because the 2020 election, Mr. Paxton has made himself among the many nation’s foremost Trump defenders, submitting an audacious lawsuit with the Supreme Court docket searching for to delay certification of the leads to Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. He spoke at the Jan. 6 rally in Washington that preceded the attack on the United States Capitol, received an endorsement from Mr. Trump and earned reward from him at the former president’s rally outside Houston. And he has neglected the truth that, though he has claimed in any other case, the federal abuse-of-power investigation started underneath Mr. Trump’s F.B.I., not Biden’s.

Within the Republican major on Tuesday in Texas, Mr. Paxton received 43 percent of the vote, a gentle exhibiting for an incumbent however one indicative of the three well-funded challengers who saw him as politically vulnerable. Since Texas requires major candidates to win a majority of the vote to advance to the overall election, Mr. Paxton faces a Might 24 runoff towards the scion of essentially the most well-known household in trendy Texas politics: George P. Bush, the state’s land commissioner who’s the nephew of 1 president and the grandson of one other.

The Paxton-Bush runoff crystallized instantly as a contest between an incumbent with moral and authorized points and a challenger who can’t escape the institution model of his household title. In Texas Republican circles, some operatives forged the race as jail stripes versus pinstripes.

Mr. Paxton has withstood his authorized woes by delivering on the problems that drive Texas conservatives. He’s used his workplace because the state’s chief culture-war litigator — defending the brand new Texas abortion law, suing the Biden administration to drive the federal authorities to proceed constructing the border wall and becoming a member of a right-wing push to criminalize medical take care of transgender youth. Days earlier than the first, he issued an opinion stating that sure medical therapies for transgender youngsters may very well be thought of little one abuse, therapies that docs describe as gender-affirming care.

Mr. Paxton didn’t take lengthy to assault Mr. Bush as an emblem of the reasonable conservative politics that Mr. Trump has all however excised from the Republican Occasion.

“What has occurred with efficiency by the Bushes over the past decade, it’s been disappointing,” Mr. Paxton stated Wednesday during an interview on a conservative talk radio show in Lubbock. “I believe a whole lot of Republicans have had sufficient of it. The Bushes have had their probability. It’s time for the dynasty to finish.”

{That a} prime elected official in Texas may make such a surprising anti-Bush comment and face no political penalties illustrates simply how loyal Texas Republicans have develop into to Mr. Trump and Trumpism.

In Mr. Bush, Mr. Paxton has a near-perfect foil for a runoff election that’s more likely to have half or much less the turnout from Tuesday’s major. Mr. Bush has been an enthusiastic supporter of Mr. Trump, however his father, Jeb Bush, the previous governor of Florida and a 2016 presidential candidate, and his uncle, former President George W. Bush, have been harsh critics.

At a debate final month, the youthful Mr. Bush said President Biden was the rightful winner of the 2020 election and referred to as Mr. Paxton’s lawsuit to dam the election outcomes “frivolous” — statements Mr. Paxton’s marketing campaign is using to attack Mr. Bush as insufficiently conservative.

Mr. Bush stated in radio interviews in latest days that he has contacted Mr. Trump’s advisers to recommend that he change his endorsement from Mr. Paxton. A Trump aide stated that was extraordinarily unlikely. And Mr. Paxton stated he spoke with Mr. Trump himself and extracted a pledge that the previous president would proceed to help him by means of the runoff.

Nonetheless, Mr. Bush, whose father was savaged as “low energy” by Mr. Trump throughout the 2016 presidential marketing campaign, isn’t conceding Mr. Trump’s help. Final summer time he distributed pink koozies with a silhouette of himself shaking palms with Mr. Trump and a quote from the previous president: “That is the one Bush that likes me! That is the Bush that received it proper.”

Mr. Bush signaled he’ll lean into Mr. Paxton’s moral and authorized points, which have lengthy been talked about in Texas political circles. In 2014, after Mr. Paxton was first elected lawyer basic however had not but taken workplace, he was accused of taking a $1,000 pen that belonged to another lawyer. (He later returned it and stated the episode was a easy mistake.) The State Bar of Texas can be investigating whether or not Mr. Paxton committed professional misconduct by difficult the 2020 presidential election outcomes.

In his personal radio interview in Lubbock, Mr. Bush stated the F.B.I. investigation and the securities-fraud case “are a matter of public file and ought to be mentioned.”

Mr. Bush’s marketing campaign spokeswoman didn’t return repeated messages this week. Mr. Paxton declined to be interviewed.

Mr. Paxton has denied wrongdoing within the securities case and has rejected claims that he accepted bribes in workplace. Final August, his workplace produced a 374-page report that cleared him of any wrongdoing and stated there was “no proof” he had accepted a bribe. “A.G. Paxton dedicated no crime,” the report issued by his workplace acknowledged.

There have been indicators that Mr. Paxton’s litany of controversies has examined the boundaries of Texas Republicans’ persistence with him. Consultant Chip Roy, a conservative who used to work for Mr. Paxton, called for his resignation in 2020. Together with Mr. Bush, Mr. Paxton’s major challengers included Consultant Louie Gohmert, who gave up a protected East Texas congressional seat to run towards him, and Eva Guzman, who resigned from the Texas Supreme Court docket to problem him within the major.

Throughout his marketing campaign, Mr. Gohmert predicted Mr. Paxton would face a new federal indictment after successful the Republican nomination and lose the overall election to a Democrat. If Mr. Paxton certainly wins the nomination however is defeated in November, it could be a devastating first for Republicans: No Democrat has received any statewide workplace in Texas since 1994.

Within the Democratic major for lawyer basic, Rochelle Garza, a South Texas civil rights lawyer, garnered essentially the most votes and is headed for a runoff. Her Democratic opponent remained unclear. The third-place vote-getter, Lee Merritt, a civil rights lawyer, stated in an announcement he was not able to concede to the second-place candidate, Joe Jaworski, a former mayor of Galveston, as a result of army and different ballots had been nonetheless being counted. Ms. Garza stated she was assured the lawyer basic’s workplace may very well be flipped from pink to blue. In 2018, Mr. Paxton received re-election by narrowly defeating his opponent, Justin Nelson, by 3.56 share factors.

Mr. Paxton has disregarded any suggestion of a Democratic victory within the fall. “On this nation, allegations don’t convict you,” he stated within the Lubbock radio interview.

Mr. Paxton’s aides stated Texas Republicans don’t care concerning the allegations and controversies surrounding his workplace. They claimed credit score for attacking Mr. Gohmert and Ms. Guzman as a way to permit Mr. Bush to advance to the runoff. After the Paxton marketing campaign attacked Ms. Guzman in tv ads within the closing days earlier than the first, she dropped from successful 21 % of the vote throughout the early-voting interval to simply 14 % of the vote on Tuesday.

“These advertisements clearly price Eva a spot within the runoff,” Dick Weekley, the senior chairman of the mainstream Republican group Texans for Lawsuit Reform, which endorsed Ms. Guzman, wrote in an e mail to supporters after the first.

Each Mr. Paxton and Mr. Bush are sure to proceed to pitch themselves because the true steward for Trump supporters amongst Texas Republicans.

“It’s straightforward for me to say that I wouldn’t grovel for the Trump endorsement,” stated Jerry Patterson, Mr. Bush’s predecessor as land commissioner and a Republican who’s anti-Trump however is backing Mr. Paxton. “It’s simply rattling distasteful for George P. In some unspecified time in the future you simply need to have some satisfaction in your personal integrity.”

But Mr. Patterson stated he has no drawback with Mr. Paxton doing Mr. Trump’s bidding concerning the 2020 election and continuously stressing his Trump bona fides.

“For Paxton that got here naturally,” Mr. Patterson stated. “It’s not contrived.”

Kirsten Noyes and Kitty Bennett contributed analysis.