Republican U.S. Senate nominee Ken Paxton last week privately disparaged President Donald Trump's midterm convention in Dallas and said it hurt him politically, according to an audio recording published by The New York Times.

At a recent fundraiser before a small group of conservative lobbyists and donors, The Times reported, Paxton was asked, "Do you feel like he's a little bit of a drag?" The recording does not make clear whether the question referred to Trump, though Paxton's response suggested as much.

"So to be honest with you, the numbers - when we did that convention - it dropped our numbers," Paxton responded in the recording.