With 3½ months to go before the Nov. 3 election, U.S. Senate candidates Ken Paxton and James Talarico have at least one thing they agree on.
They both want to go one-on-one in a debate. But politics being politics and election years being election years, Talarico and Paxton don’t necessarily agree on how a debate might be structured or how many there ought to be.
Talarico, the Democratic state representative from Austin, kicked off the conversation around breakfast time Thursday with a news release challenging the Republican state attorney general to take part in debates thus far proposed by three media outlets with national reach. Talarico’s taunting quote suggested he expected Paxton to ignore the challenge.
“Ken Paxton’s billionaire handlers won’t let him answer questions in public,” Talarico said. “It’s why he hasn’t set foot on a debate stage in over a decade. Ken Paxton won’t answer the public’s questions because he’s not a public servant – he’s a puppet.”
But by lunchtime, Paxton’s representative said, in effect, bring it.
“Of course we are going to debate James Talarico and we look forward to engaging with potential debate hosts,” said Paxton adviser Nick Maddux, who didn’t expressly embrace any of the media outlets with offers on the table but did not pass up the opportunity to get in a dig or two at the Democrat. “Talarico is a serial liar who has spent his entire campaign shamelessly deceiving Texas voters about his radical record.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton poses for a photo with Veronica Martinez of Laredo during the Texas GOP convention in the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston Friday, June 12, 2026. (Melissa Phillip/Houston Chronicle)
Texas Democratic U.S. Senate hopeful James Talarico greets supporters at his election night watch party in South Austin Wednesday, March 4, 2026. (Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman)
READ MORE: A dead heat in Texas gives both Paxton and Talarico reason to sweat
Let’s set aside for now the mechanics of where, when and how any debate might unfold. Instead, let’s focus on why candidates debate and how much those encounters actually matter when rivals go mano a mano on live television or a video stream. We’ll start with some recent history in Texas that suggests debates are not the game changers some candidates might hope for.
In fact, the political truism that debates are good for underdogs but dangerous for favorites has been turned upside down.
In the 2018 U.S. Senate race, Democrat Beto O’Rourke and Republican Ted Cruz debated twice, and both debates carried all the trappings of a national political event. It was understandable: Cruz, seeking a second Senate term, was fresh off his unsuccessful run for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination. And O’Rourke, a three-term congressman from El Paso, was being compared, in looks and style, to members of the iconic Kennedy family.
On top of that, O’Rourke was the first Texas Democrat in at least four election cycles who didn’t give off the vibe that he was simply taking one for the team by running under the banner of a party that had not won statewide since 1994.
That race was a chart-topper in fundraising, and both debates earned saturation coverage. Cruz was seen as the narrow winner in round one after staying on offense. O’Rourke appeared to have gotten the message and came out swinging in the rematch. Most observers said the Democrat had won or at least held his own. It’s hard to say with certainty whether there was a cause-and-effect relationship, but by Election Day, O’Rourke had cut Cruz’s 7- to 9-percentage-point lead in pre-debate polling to just 2.6 percentage points.
When Cruz joined Democrat Colin Allred on the debate stage in 2024, seeking his third Senate term, polls showed him with just a 4-point lead – only marginally better than his margin in the race against O’Rourke. On the stage, Allred held his own against Cruz, who honed his argument-making skills as a member of the Princeton University debate team. So impressed were the Democrat’s supporters that Allred raked in $1 million in campaign donations in the 24 hours after the debate.
So what happened on Election Day? Cruz didn’t win by 2.6 percentage points, as he had against O’Rourke. He didn’t win by the 4 points forecast by pre-debate polling. Instead, his winning margin was a comfortable 8.5 percentage points.
Meanwhile, in the governor’s race, it’s an open question whether three-term Republican Greg Abbott will face off against Democrat Gina Hinojosa. The Democratic lawmaker from Austin has been needling Abbott for weeks to accept her challenge, just as Abbott did when facing his three previous opponents. As has been the case in the races involving Cruz and his Democratic opponents, Abbott went into his debates as the favorite to win in November, and nothing onstage knocked him off course.
As of Friday, Abbott’s campaign had not responded to a question about his debate plans.
This article originally published at Paxton and Talarico agree to debate. Texas history offers a reality check.