Nick Maddux
Role at the time: Senior adviser to Paxton's Senate campaign
Denied
Response to this claim
The Republican midterm convention in Dallas lowered Paxton's poll numbers and those of other Republicans.
“Every serious pollster will tell you that our numbers have improved since early September”
Open source (opens in a new tab)Ken Paxton privately said Trump's convention hurt his Senate bid · The Texas TribuneFull article
Why we used this label
The reference point is Paxton's recorded remark that the Dallas midterm convention "dropped our numbers." Maddux says "our numbers have improved since early September", the opposite of what the remark describes, so we labeled it Denied. The closest competing label is Challenged characterization; it loses because he asserts a contrary fact about the polling rather than only disputing how the remark was described.