Texas Democratic Senate candidate and Texas state Rep. James Talarico speaks during the Texas Democratic Convention at the Hilliard Center in Corpus Christi on Friday, June 26, 2026.
Katina Zentz/San Antonio Express-News
With state conventions for both Texas Republicans and Democrats now behind us, the dividing lines for the November election are becoming increasingly clear.
If your top issue is driving Islam out of Texas, then you should vote Republican.
If you care about something else, say affordability, maybe consider Texas Democrats.
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At least that’s how the politicians themselves are framing the stakes.
For example, at the Republican convention, U.S. Rep. Chip Roy said fighting Sharia — Islamic religious law — was the “number one issue we face, and it’s not even close.”
Rep. Brent Money, founding member of the Texas House “Sharia Free Texas” caucus, speculated that stopping Sharia is a “bigger issue” than Republicans’ usual go-to concern about lowering property taxes.
Bo French, the Republican candidate for railroad commissioner who was condemned by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick for his antisemitism, doesn’t even limit himself to worry about Muslims in Texas. Last week he was going after kindergarten girls for wearing head coverings at a Minnesota school. As a reminder, the railroad commissioner regulates oil and gas, not what kids are allowed to wear to schools, let alone those in the state of Minnesota.
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The Republican Party of Texas also listed “Stopping Sharia” as a top policy priority for next year, despite the fact that Rep. Alan Schoolcraft, who co-leads the anti-Sharia caucus in the state Legislature, couldn’t identify any instance of Sharia law actually being implemented within our borders, as Robert Downen reported in Texas Monthly.
And as Current Revolt’s Tony Ortiz described on Quorum Report Radio last week, the “anti-Islamification” panel at the Republican convention was the only event that seemed to grab attendees’ interest.
“The anti-Sharia, anti-Muslim whatever you want to call it, panel was packed. It was a struggle getting in there. It was standing room only at one point.”
Consider this a hard break with the onetime top Republican of Texas, George W. Bush. After the Sept. 11 terror attacks, Bush made sure that all Americans knew their Islamic neighbors followed a “vibrant faith” that inspired lives of “honesty, and justice, and compassion.”
This isn’t the party of George Bush or John Cornyn anymore — and that’s bad news for Texas, because those onetime Republican leaders helped Texas become a dynamo of growth, but it’s good news for their political opponents. Democrats now have a real opportunity to appeal to disaffected Texas voters who no longer have a home in the Grand Old Party.
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Rather than seizing that opportunity, they invited Sen. Bernie Sanders to headline their convention in Corpus Christi this weekend.
To quote another exiled Texas Republican: Oops.
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks to a crowd at the Texas Democratic Convention at the Hilliard Center in Corpus Christi, Texas, on June 27, 2026.
John Oliva/Caller-Times/USA TODAY Network via Reuters Co
Now, I’ve been to Sanders’ speeches. I understand his outsider appeal. And there’s a smart, intraparty tactic in using the Vermont senator to shore up the left flank of the Texas Democratic Party. As Republicans have long known, better to have the elephant inside the tent pissing out (or next to the press table) rather than outside the tent pissing in. But the self-proclaimed democratic socialist doesn’t know the first thing about winning in a red state like Texas — and no, defeating Hillary Clinton in a Democratic primary doesn’t count.
You can imagine a convention where instead the Democrats hosted someone like, say, Sen. Jon Ossoff, the young senator from Georgia whose focus on ethics matches well with state Rep. James Talarico’s messaging in his own Senate campaign. Or they could have asked the other Democratic senator from Georgia, Raphael Warnock, a Black preacher who could similarly match Talarico’s pastoral rhetoric and help Democrats appeal to voters disappointed that U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett isn’t leading their ticket.
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To their credit, they did have a speech from Hawk Dunlap, who ran in the Republican primary for railroad commissioner. But why not go for the bigger fish and land former Republican senator Jeff Flake of Arizona, who is supporting Talarico for Senate?
Texas Democrats need that kind of crossover support if they want to win in a state like Texas. After all, there are plenty of politically homeless voters up for grabs.
Consider the Republican-voting Muslims whose party actively tries to kick them out. The Cornyn supporters who can’t bring themselves to support Paxton and just want a respectable adult in charge. The Hispanic Texans who swung to Donald Trump because of his promise to lower prices only to watch him drive up the cost of groceries and fuel with a one-two punch of tariffs and a senseless war with Iran. There’s also the traditional pro-education Republicans like Evelyn Brooks, Abbott’s own appointee to the State Board of Education, who opposes private school vouchers and questions the injection of partisan culture wars into public school curricula. And the old-school Ronald Reagan Republicans put off by the MAGA obsession with blood and soil, and who believe we are a people united not by ethnicity, but by shared convictions.
That last one is actually an Ossoff quote, by the way.
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Of course, it’s an uphill battle for Texas Democrats. Texas is still a red state. Most voters have a multi-decade track record of supporting Republicans, and it isn’t hard to wave away the anti-Muslim craziness by pointing to decades to robust economic growth. That’s why the campaign rhetoric from Abbott and Paxton is less about what Republicans want to do and more about defining state Rep. James Talarico, the Democratic candidate for Senate, as an out-of-touch progressive.
But while Talarico runs ads about affordability, Texas Republicans are still going on about Sharia law. And Texas voters will get to decide which one they care about more in November.