Leaked audio has Paxton calling Iran war and gas prices his campaign's biggest problem hours before Trump rally

Hours before President Trump took the stage with him in San Antonio on Wednesday night, Texas Senate candidate Ken Paxton was caught on tape privately blaming Trump's Iran war and high fuel prices for his campaign's struggles.

Axios obtained and published audio from a closed door Washington fundraiser last month. Asked by a donor what was dragging on his campaign, Paxton answered: "It's not tariffs. It's the war, it's gas prices. Diesel is over $6 a gallon. People are feeling the pinch. That's probably the biggest problem and that's by far our biggest problem." He added that fuel costs were pushing up food prices and everything else, and conceded he could do little about either: "I don't make the decisions and I don't know what's behind some of the decisions." He pointed instead to a proposed tax cut package with new housing and health care deductions and an expanded child tax credit, saying, "I'm just trying to figure out ways I can help people. That's the only way, I can propose legislation."

A Paxton campaign spokesperson dismissed the recording and said Trump is doing everything he can to bring prices down. The leak is at least the third damaging audio to surface in recent days, after recordings of Paxton venting about Washington Republicans' influence over his campaign and trashing last month's GOP midterm convention in Dallas as a drag on his numbers.

The timing could hardly be worse. Trump held his third Texas rally in a month Wednesday evening at San Antonio's Freeman Coliseum, remarks at 6 p.m. Central, in a race Republicans cannot afford to lose. Polls show Democrat James Talarico leading: the New York Times Siena poll of 615 likely voters taken September 21 through 30 had Talarico at 51 percent to Paxton's 45, and an October 1 Fox News poll had it 51 to 49. The RealClearPolitics average puts Talarico ahead by 3.1 points. Gov. Greg Abbott skipped the rally.

The read writes itself: a Trump backed Republican admitting the president's war is his biggest problem, on the same day the president flies in to save his campaign, tells you where the midterms are really being fought. Not on tariffs. At the gas pump.