Indicted. Under F.B.I. investigation. And still popular with Texas Republicans.

The race for Texas attorney general is asking Republicans to determine how many indictments and allegations of corruption are too many. The answer may be there is no limit — so long as the candidate has an endorsement from former President Donald J. Trump. Ken Paxton, the Trump-backed attorney general, was indicted and arrested on criminal securities-fraud charges that are still pending. He has faced calls for his resignation after several of his top aides claimed he abused his office by helping a wealthy donor. And he has been serving as the state’s top lawyer while under threat of a possible new indictment, as the F.B.I. investigates the abuse-of-office and bribery accusations. “The voters of Texas will tolerate a great deal,” said State Senator Kel Seliger, a moderate Republican who is a former mayor of Amarillo. “They think if somebody is ideologically in sync with them, that’s what matters. I would have thought in Texas that moral example is more important, but apparently it’s not.”

In the pre-Trump era, indictments and investigations by federal law enforcement could have been fatal to a Republican campaign. But Mr. Trump has instilled a deep mistrust in government institutions like the F.B.I. Mr. Paxton took the unusual step of authorizing an investigation of an F.B.I. investigation — he appointed a special prosecutor to look into the federal probe of the wealthy donor, an Austin real estate investor named Nate Paul whose home and offices were raided by federal agents. The litany of allegations against Mr. Trump has allowed acolytes like Mr. Paxton to claim that they, too, are victims of a government conspiracy. “That’s the Biden F.B.I., the Biden D.O.J.,” Mr. Paxton said in a recent interview with a Fox News reporter. “They were under investigation by my office. I don’t know what they are going to do. All I can tell you is that we were doing the right thing. We are going to continue to do the right thing. I don’t control what the Biden White House does.” Since the 2020 election, Mr. Paxton has made himself among the nation’s foremost Trump defenders, filing an audacious lawsuit with the Supreme Court seeking to delay certification of the results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.