A newly surfaced video of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton celebrating in Dubai alongside two men wanted for massive healthcare fraud is bad news for Republicans in a Senate race that already looks shaky.

• Paxton, the state's top law enforcement official, was filmed in Dubai with his girlfriend and two men indicted for stealing $15 million from a Chicago hospital, one of them also charged in a $195 million fake COVID-test scheme.
• Both men gave Paxton large campaign donations, including $25,000 that arrived days after an indictment.
• The story hits hardest with traditional Texas business and country-club Republicans, who vote straight ticket but find Paxton personally distasteful.
• Elon Musk has now put $275 million into Republican campaigns, with Texas getting the most — he lives there and SpaceX and Tesla's big plants are there.
• A parallel smear claiming Democrat James Talarico had secretly checked into an Ohio mental hospital collapsed when the hospital said he was never a patient and home security footage showed him sick at home.

Outlook: Republicans are betting on turnout and attack ads rather than persuasion, and the fake-hospital stunt suggests growing panic as the race slips.