It\u2019s been more than thirty years since a Democrat won state-wide in Texas.<\/p>\n
But some think a voter backlash against President Trump\u2019s policies could end that drought and that Democratic nominee for Senate James Talarico could defeat either of his two Republican challengers, John Cornyn or Ken Paxton, in the general election.<\/p>\n
Or are his chances just a blue mirage?<\/p>\n
Guests<\/p>\n
Joshua Blank, research director for the nonpartisan Texas Politics Project. He has been polling Texans for nearly two decades.<\/p>\n
\u00c1lvaro Corral, assistant professor at the University of Texas \u2013 Rio Grande Valley.<\/p>\n
Jessica Taylor, the Senate and Governors Editor for The Cook Political Report.<\/p>\n
Also Featured<\/p>\n
J.E \u201cEddie\u201d Guerra, the Sheriff of Hidalgo County, TX.<\/p>\n
The version of our broadcast available at the top of this page and via podcast apps is a condensed version of the full show. You can listen to the full, unedited broadcast here:<\/p>\n
Transcript<\/p>\n
Part I\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
ANTHONY BROOKS: Texas has been a Republican stronghold for a generation. The last time a Democrat won a statewide race there was 1994. The last time Texas elected a U.S. Senator was 1988. President Trump gained even more ground for Republicans in 2024, turning several counties red for the first time in decades, but now James Talarico, a\u00a036-year-old seminarian and former schoolteacher is giving Democrats fresh hope that they can flip a U.S. Senate seat blue in the Lone Star state.<\/p>\n
One thing is clear today, we’re about to take back Texas. <\/p>\n
BROOKS: Talarico emerged from the Democratic primary earlier this month and earned the endorsement of his main opponent, Representative Jasmine Crockett. Talarico leans heavily into his faith, and he’s made headlines for his push to win over Trump voters and members of the religious right. Here he is after winning the Democratic primary earlier this month.<\/p>\n
TALARICO: My faith teaches me to love my neighbor as myself, not just my neighbor who looks like me.<\/p>\n
Not just my neighbor who prays like me, not just my neighbor who votes like me. I am called to love all of my neighbors the way I love myself.<\/p>\n
BROOKS: Talarico will face either incumbent Senator John Cornyn or State Attorney General Ken Paxton, who are locked in a bitter fight as they head toward a runoff election in May.<\/p>\n
Here’s Cornyn addressing his supporters.<\/p>\n
JOHN CORNYN: I refuse to allow a flawed, self-centered and shameless candidate like Ken Paxton risk everything we’ve worked so hard to build over these many years. <\/p>\n
BROOKS: Cornyn has been serving since 2002. Paxton meanwhile is a hard right survivor of years of scandal, who says it’s time for a change.<\/p>\n
PAXTON: The people of Texas made your voices heard. After all the personal attacks, which there were many, and after all the lies, you listened to what John Cornyn was selling and you weren’t buying it.<\/p>\n
BROOKS: This hour, the U.S. Senate race in Texas. Could a sharp divide in the GOP, Trump’s unpopular economic and immigration policies and a deepening war in Iran spell opportunity for Democrats, or is this just the latest Lone Star pipe dream? Joining us now from On Point Station KUT in Austin is Joshua Blank. He’s research director for the Texas Politics Project. Joshua, welcome to On Point. Great to have you.<\/p>\n
JOSHUA BLANK: Thanks for having me.<\/p>\n
BROOKS: Yeah, this is a really interesting race to follow, and I’m interested to talk to you about it.<\/p>\n
So Talarico, Presbyterian seminarian, really leans into his faith. What do we learn about who Talarico is and what kind of campaigner he is? Tell us, begin the story for us about James Talarico.<\/p>\n
BLANK: Yeah, Talarico’s really been on something of a rocket ship, of a rise, in an unusual way in this, that he’s come straight from the State House.<\/p>\n
He’s a state representative north of Austin. And over his three terms in the State House, he’s really managed to earn a lot of media from a position that it’s pretty hard to do that. Not a lot of people are paying attention to state representatives or certainly not paying attention even to senators who don’t represent their own states.<\/p>\n
But he’s really managed through a lot of savvy use of social media appearances, which I’m sure we’ll talk about at some point, to really generate a lot of attention for himself. At a time in which it’s incredibly challenging and the faith aspect of it certainly adds a twist to it, and it adds a certain other degree of interest that I think brings more people into, at least, curiosity about him.<\/p>\n
But he certainly has really, I think, leverage some of his strengths to where, to get where he is right now.<\/p>\n
BROOKS: Now one of the arguments that he’s made, so this guy’s a schoolteacher, we mentioned he’s a seminarian. He makes the argument that he’s been elected in a district previously, which previously voted for President Trump by a fairly wide margin.<\/p>\n
So how does he make his case to Trump supporters, which is a key part of his appeal, right?<\/p>\n
BLANK: I don’t know if his, the key part to his appeal is necessarily Trump supporters. I think all the polling that we’ve done here, and I think even national polling would confirm this, is that the president remains very strong with his base and I think his base is very strong in Texas.<\/p>\n
But the issue is that the Republican party has had a partisan advantage in the electorate for decades now. But that advantage has been shrinking. I think we can look at elections in the last number of years. We can look at a lot of polling, and we see that the advantage that they entered of the elections with 10, 15 years ago is not nearly the same today.<\/p>\n
And so for Talarico\u00a0in an election cycle in which he knows Democrats are turning out. The question really is, where does the independent electorate go? Where does the electorate that is voting on performance go? And that electorate tends to be a little bit conservative in Texas and in some ways, Talarico’s appeal to his faith is a way to make him a safer choice.<\/p>\n
For voters who might normally cast ballot for Republicans, but don’t consider themselves hardcore Republicans.<\/p>\n
BROOKS: Interesting. Yeah, that’s what I was getting after, getting at with that last question was this idea that he really is someone by leaning into his faith and talking openly about that, that he’s able to appeal to those more moderate voters who might be on the fence or considering shifting back toward the Democrats. Does that sound about right?<\/p>\n
BLANK: Yeah. And there’s another piece to this too, which is regardless of whether the nominee that emerged from the primary was Crockett or Talarico, or anybody else, the Republican playbook in Texas is to paint that candidate as the most extreme version of any Democrat who has ever walked the face of the Earth, which includes and maybe in some ways is supported by their godlessness.<\/p>\n
And so for Talarico to so openly wear his faith on his sleeve in a lot of ways really blunts some of the inherent criticisms that Republicans generally lobbed at whoever is at the top of the Democratic ticket, essentially, that they’re out of step out of\u00a0the mainstream in Texas, and you can’t really say that about him, at least on this front.<\/p>\n
BROOKS: So let’s talk about who Talarico, of course, is running against. The incumbent as John Cornyn first elected the U.S. Senate in 2002. He’s locked in a bitter race with the Attorney General Ken Paxton. So tell us a little bit about this contest, first of all, starting with Cornyn, and talk a little bit about his strengths and what he’s facing.<\/p>\n
BLANK: Sure. Cornyn has been a fixture of Texas politics now for really a large part of most people’s lives here. But the challenge has for Cornyn and has been, is that his leadership has essentially created a target in rising in the ranks of the Republican Party in the U.S. Senate, largely because of his ability to fundraise, but also his ability to marshal legislation through it.<\/p>\n
In particular, we can come back to this or not, but some gun legislation after a mass shooting here in Texas, there’s always been a bit of a reticence in the most conservative corners of the Republican electorate with John Cornyn.<\/p>\n
And when we look at our polling, what we find is that there’s regularly between a quarter and a third of Republican voters who not only withhold approval of John Cornyn, but actually actively disapprove of the job he’s doing. And it’s hard not to point to, in some ways, his success, his leadership, the fact that he’s had to make compromises, the fact that he’s been around for so long. And in some ways, the parties evolved multiple times since John Cornyn been in office. And I wouldn’t say that John Cornyn has necessarily evolved exactly with the party.<\/p>\n
BROOKS: Now he’s locked in a pretty bitter contest with Ken Paxton. They both emerged from the primary. There’s going to be a runoff election in May. Do I have that right?<\/p>\n
BLANK: May 26th. Yes. May 26th.<\/p>\n
BROOKS: Now, Ken Paxton, interesting character. He’s been clouded by scandal pretty much for the better part of the last decade.<\/p>\n
That includes being impeached by the Texas House of Representatives. A majority Republican of course concluded that Paxton had taken bribes from a real estate developer, improperly fired aides, who reported his contact, his conduct, and obstructed justice. Now following the impeachment vote, he was immediately suspended from office.<\/p>\n
He denied any wrongdoing, called his accusers corrupt politicians. He won acquittal in a state Senate trial, and I guess adding to the scandal, we have to mention his wife also filed for divorce on what she called biblical grounds, an apparent reference to infidelity. So just a ton of baggage there. But through it all, Paxton pushes back. He’s still there. He’s a credible candidate. What explains his resilience? Who’s backing Ken Paxton?<\/p>\n
BLANK: Yeah. I think there’s two ways. There’s two answers to that question. The first is just to go back a beat and to say that it’s those same voters that John Cornyn has weaknesses with, the most conservative voters in the Republican primary electorate in particular.<\/p>\n
Who Ken Paxton has been courting throughout his political career, and so whether Ken Paxton was a state representative or a state senator, and now the Attorney General, almost all of his actions have been aimed at satisfying the desires and the demands of the most conservative corners of the Republican electorate.<\/p>\n
And in a state where the Republican primary tends to be the determinative election, that’s a pretty safe bet. And that’s also why we knew that ultimately Paxton was likely a very likely challenger to Cornyn in this election, because, you know, where Cornyn was weak, Paxton was strong. Now at the same time, Paxton has maintained overwhelming support from major financial funders in the state who also have their hands in a lot of the state’s politics, which made essentially any sort of accusations against him largely go away in that sort of core group of Republican primary voters.<\/p>\n
What makes this particular primary interesting right now is that John Cornyn is really making the case against Ken Paxon with looks like about a hundred, if not hundreds of millions of dollars, that really no one has ever made within the Republican primary electorate, which is what you just laid out, which is that he’s had a lot of ethical issues.<\/p>\n
And while he may say, oh, the voters know about this and they’ve elected me again and again. The reality is that case has not been made with the kind of force that Cornyn has made it.<\/p>\n
BROOKS: Right. Cornyn calls Paxton Crooked Ken, a wife cheater, and a fraud, in a recent ad, he’s also been saying that Paxton’s talking about a blatant record of corruption, this is pretty, pretty strong stuff. What’s your take about what this does to the Republican field, depending upon who emerges ahead?<\/p>\n
BLANK: This has been the concern I think all along for Republicans. Is that we started by talking about the Democrats and one thing that we knew was that with Trump in the White House, it was likely that we’d see a lot of Democrats interested in the Senate seat. When Ken Paxton expressed an interest in challenging Cornyn, a lot of Democrats were even more interested in running for the Senate seat because of all of this baggage and because of the expectation knowing about the acrimony between Cornyn and Paxton, the Cornyn wasn’t going to hold back, and he certainly hasn’t.<\/p>\n
Yeah, and this is why parties don’t want bloody primaries, is they don’t want a candidate to emerge who’s been bludgeoned by someone within their own party, because in some ways, that kind of rhetoric carries more weight. Than when you hear it from the other party.<\/p>\n
Part II<\/p>\n
BROOKS: We’re talking about the U.S. Senate race in Texas, and how it represents a big opportunity for Democrats. So here’s the Democrat, James Talarico getting a standing ovation in a campaign rally earlier this year when he defended minority groups including trans people, Muslims, and undocumented immigrants.<\/p>\n
TALARICO: Trans people are 1% of the population. Muslims are 1% of the population. Undocumented people are 1% of the population. We are focused on the wrong 1%.<\/p>\n
Trans people aren’t taking away our health care. Muslims aren’t defunding our schools. Immigrants aren’t cutting taxes for themselves and their rich friends. It’s the billionaires and their puppet politicians.<\/p>\n
BROOKS: That’s James Talarico, candidate for U.S. Senate in Texas, a Democrat. I’m joined by Joshua Blank, research director for the Texas Politics Project.<\/p>\n
Now one of the regions that’s going to get a lot of attention in this important Senate race that could determine control of the U.S. Senate is South Texas, along the U.S.-Mexico border. J.E \u201cEddie\u201d Guerra is Sheriff of Hidalgo County in the Rio Grande Valley. During the Biden administration, illegal immigration was a big concern in this part of the state, Guerra says a couple of years ago, there were hundreds of migrant crossings every day.<\/p>\n
GUERRA: It impacted our community. It impacted the resources that we had down here, both in federal partners and the NGOs that were assisting these migrants, our medical community, our food bank.<\/p>\n
It was very difficult for us to work.<\/p>\n
BROOKS: Now Sheriff Guerra is a Democrat and his county had been reliably blue since the Nixon administration, but gradually he became frustrated with his own party.<\/p>\n
GUERRA: Our county judge, at my request, we sent the letters to the Washington elected officials to come down here to see for themselves what their policies were doing to the border regions.<\/p>\n
And they never once responded. They never once came down here. They just fell on deaf ears.<\/p>\n
BROOKS: In the 2024 presidential election, Hidalgo County flipped red for the first time Since 1972, immigration wasn’t the only reason, but in just eight years, the county shifted to the right by 43 points.<\/p>\n
Since Trump took over, Sheriff Guerra has seen immediate changes at the border.<\/p>\n
Migrant encounters have fallen to their lowest level in more than 50 years.<\/p>\n
GUERRA: They shut it down. And so now what we’re seeing is just a trickle. A trickle coming across that border.<\/p>\n
BROOKS: Sheriff Guerra says he welcomed the changes at the border, but he’s concerned about the aggressive approach of immigration officers elsewhere.<\/p>\n
GUERRA: They started going after just people that were here locally in my community, that had been here for years, that had questionable immigration status. They had not committed any crime. They were in food services. They were in agriculture. In the hotel businesses and they were raiding these construction companies, going into our restaurants.<\/p>\n
That to me was not what the emphasis that we were told about.<\/p>\n
BROOKS: All right. There is sheriff from an important region, and Joshua, let me bring you back in. Can you talk a little bit about your perception of how this immigration issue has played? We saw a lot of those counties, as we mentioned, move toward the right, now there’s evidence that they’re snapping back toward Democrats again.<\/p>\n
What are you seeing broadly speaking in Texas?<\/p>\n
BLANK: Yeah, I mean there’s a couple different strands to pick up there. I think first is it’s easy for people not in Texas or not in a bordering state, to dismiss the claims of the impacts of mass migration, mass undocumented migration at the border, of the impact that it has on these communities.<\/p>\n
It’s easy for people to dismiss it until, there’s 100 dusty travelers on Main Street and then it’s a real thing. And I think that these communities experience this in real ways that were, I think, difficult for people outside of there to really imagine. The second point I would make is that a lot of the ways that flip in South Texas was not just Trump, it was actually years in the making.<\/p>\n
One of the things that you can go back to the 2018 election, which was the Democrat’s best performance here in the last few decades when Trump was last in office during the last midterm. And one of the concerns that the Republican party had was that they were going to essentially be two unappealing to Hispanic voters in a state where the plurality of the population is Hispanic.<\/p>\n
And so that effort in South Texas has been ongoing really for a number of years, to identify candidates, recruit candidates to build the party there. And it’s been largely effective. Now lastly, when we do look at the polling, the immigration piece of this is a double-edged sword.<\/p>\n
And Texas, when we ask people, Texas voters, what the most important problem facing the state is, for years and years, the number one issue facing the state of Texas, not the country, was immigration and border security. And that was driven largely by Republican voters. 60% or more would say it was immigration and border security.<\/p>\n
And the share who say that now has dropped, precipitously down to, I think about a quarter or even less. And that may be a reflection of Trump’s effectiveness at the border. But what it’s also done is it’s taken away a key campaign issue for Republicans here who can no longer talk about immigration and border security as the primary driver.<\/p>\n
And then lastly, when we look at essentially the Hispanic electorate in Texas, we did see on the eve of that election. Basically, a split where they were almost even in most polling that we saw between Trump and Harris, but what we also know is they said the number one issue is the economy.<\/p>\n
That’s what they were worried about. That’s what they indicated their vote was about. And as the economy has not improved, and if anything maybe has worsened and maybe has worsened in some of those regions, you’re seeing those voters snap back to the patterns that we would say are more traditional in Texas.<\/p>\n
BROOKS: Interesting. I want to bring another voice into the conversation. \u00c1lvaro Corral, he’s assistant professor of Political Science at the University of Texas \u2014 Rio Grande Valley, and he joins us from McAllen, Texas. And \u00c1lvaro, welcome to On Point. It’s great to have you.<\/p>\n
CORRAL: Hi Anthony. Good to be with you.<\/p>\n
BROOKS: So I’d love to talk to you about where, what we can understand about the Latino vote in Texas. One in three registered voters in Texas is a Latino. So talk first about the importance of that vote. And I’m assuming that one of the points you’re going to make is that they don’t vote as one block, but if you can, give us a sense of where this vote is.<\/p>\n
CORRAL: Yeah, I think that the Latino vote generally across the state of Texas has been a tale of multiple stories. I think that your conversation just now with Josh about the state of South Texas and how it has shifted goes to show just that, how the Latino vote is not just a, not a monolith at the national level.<\/p>\n
But that’s also true even in the state of Texas where we can think about my region of South Texas, which as you was just discussing has been trending, I guess we’d say somewhat in the purple direction, potentially even red, the last couple of election cycles. And so that’s brought in a new conversation about how Latino voters of South Texas, for example, are somewhat different from urban Mexican American and Latino voters in, say, Houston or Dallas or Austin, which tend to be a little bit more liberal.<\/p>\n
It is one of these challenges, I think, that has been for the Democratic Party, which is how do you campaign to Latino voters, even just within the state of Texas in a way that is appealing and has a direct and explicit message, but also trying to appease these different dimensions to this complex vote.<\/p>\n
BROOKS: We heard earlier in the hour from the sheriff there in South Texas talking about applauding the work that was done along the border by the Trump administration, reducing those illegal border crossings, but being concerned about the way these policies are playing out in some communities along there.<\/p>\n
Is that something, can you talk a little bit about that and how that might be affecting how Latino voters are looking at this Senate election?<\/p>\n
CORRAL: Absolutely, right. I think that the issue has been one of mixed emotions. On the one hand as Sheriff Guerra was saying, I think that many of the Latino voters in South Texas have received this sort of new immigration at the border numbers, somewhat welcome, but at the same time have been taken aback by the severity of immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n
Locally. And I think the key point here, Anthony, has been its effect on the local economy. And that’s been crescendoing for the last couple of months now. I think the biggest story coming out of South Texas has been just how vocal this group called the South Texas Builders Alliance Association, I’m sorry, has been, there’s a person, Mario Guerrero, who has been quite vocal about this and making somewhat viral videos, at least here locally, about the negative impact it’s been having on, especially the construction industry, where, of course builders are so active, at least for me, anecdotally as well.<\/p>\n
I think I’ve also seen as many other voters here in South Texas have seen online videos of these immigration raids. Principally, I would say at construction and work sites where essentially ICE agents show up. And you know what I think is one of the details that sticks with me is that many of these workers simply continue to go about their business as best they can.<\/p>\n
So there are ICE and border patrol agents literally circling the work site on the roof on a ladder, trying to convince these people to come down and be taken. But workers just literally continue to do their work, and I think that as a visual has been received somewhat negatively.<\/p>\n
And of course, it’s gone on to have a negative impact on the very important construction industry that’s key to growth in the Rio Grande.<\/p>\n
BROOKS: So is that a feeling that the sort of anti-immigrant effort or the effort to get control of the border, there’s been a bit of an overreach perhaps?<\/p>\n
Is that what you’re seeing down there?<\/p>\n
CORRAL: Absolutely. I think that there’s been some open forums held by this group and they’re very literally quite taking to\u00a0online social media and being very explicit of the fact that they are, in fact, many of them Trump supporters and Trump voters, but who are essentially making explicit requests of President Trump to ease back on some of these immigration enforcement operations.<\/p>\n
Because again, there are statistics out there about just the undocumented share of the Texas construction industry. That’s somewhere around a quarter, which may very well be even higher in regions like the Rio Grande Valley. And so I think even local leaders have begun to grow increasingly concerned and in the past, right, I think that speaking to the sort of broader economic malaise.<\/p>\n
On the one hand we can talk about how Biden and then Vice President Harris’s struggle here in terms of the campaigns in 2024 was the issue of the economy. And then now I think we’re starting to see that be an issue for Republicans moving forward, where we’re seeing this kind of connection between the issue of immigration and especially here in South Texas, the economy, because these two things are just intimately related.<\/p>\n
BROOKS: So let me ask you both, and I’ll start with you Joshua to get you back in this conversation. I’m just wondering, have you seen, maybe especially considering the part of Texas where \u00c1lvaro\u00a0is, in the Rio Grande Valley. A response from Democrats after they lost ground to Republicans in 2024.<\/p>\n
Has the party learned its lesson? Do you get that sense that that’s explaining some of why this is snapping back a little bit toward them?<\/p>\n
BLANK: No. I don’t think the party has clearly learned. I think just as much as I was previewing the fact that the Republicans have spent a lot of time in South Texas over the last five or six election cycles to build up the roster.<\/p>\n
… Now, whether or not that’s the modal Hispanic in the state is a very, sophisticated question. And I think, the answer is probably not. But at the same time, it’s very hard to identify consistent Democratic efforts on the other side.<\/p>\n
And so I think Democrats are largely relying on the performance issue here, which is that Hispanics are going to respond more to performance than partisanship. And that if they can capture that sentiment in the context of economic malaise as \u00c1lvaro\u00a0put it, and in particular over enforcement of immigration which is a really interesting and nuanced topic here. I think that’s what they’re trying to ride here. Because it’s certainly not any sort of identifiable consistent effort.<\/p>\n
BBROOKS: Yeah. Interesting. \u00c1lvaro, do you agree with that? Is that the way you see it?<\/p>\n
CORRAL: Totally. And just as Josh was saying I’ve been hearing a local candidate that’s now running for \u200aTexas Congressional District 15, which is currently held by Republican Monica De La Cruz and the Democrat is local Tejano music star Bobby Pulido. And I’ve heard him say on the campaign trail, Latino voters aren’t loyal to a party, but are loyal to their pocketbook. And I think that’s exactly, I think what we’re seeing.<\/p>\n
BROOKS: Tell me more about Bobby Pulido. I wanted to ask you about that because this seems like a pretty big deal, that someone like him, a major Tejano music star is thrown his hat in the ring and is running. What’s the significance of that? Say more about him.<\/p>\n
CORRAL: Yeah, it’s actually quite difficult to understate just how big of a regional important celebrity Bobby Pulido\u00a0has been for decades since my childhood, probably second only to Selena Quintanilla.<\/p>\n
And of course they were contemporaries musically. And to a certain extent you might say that Bobby Pulido\u00a0has somewhat taken a bit of a page of the Trump playbook, which is to capitalize on a celebrity status, name recognition, which is of course the number one issue congressional candidates face, especially in primaries.<\/p>\n
And so he may very well have a higher name recognition than the current incumbent. And so I think by removing that off the table, that sort of put him in a very decent position. He can position himself above the partisan fray because he comes to this from outside of politics, which seems to be very in vogue, of course, across our nation’s politics at the moment.<\/p>\n
And then I would say that I think that he’s been quite appealing and to go back to our original conversation about the Senate race, as just an observer down here, it was very obvious that Bobby Pulido from almost day one, you would say, very quickly and very strongly, came out and endorsed and unified his campaign with James Talarico.<\/p>\n
And I think that was very illustrative, I think of the strategy. And I think it’s been a mutually beneficial relationship for both candidates so far.<\/p>\n
BROOKS: I want to ask you a general question. I’ll ask you both this. just general question about James Talarico and the Democrat’s hope, and whether it’s mirage or not.<\/p>\n
I was struck by a quote from your governor Greg Abbott who said, if I had a dollar for every time someone talked about turning Texas blue, I could buy Fox News. There is no chance they’re going to win the election. Obviously, that’s a partisan, heavily partisan perspective. I am struck by the fact that there was huge hope in 2018 around Beto O’Rourke. he ended up losing to Ted Cruz, of course. Joshua, let me come back to you, respond to that statement by Greg Abbott and this idea that, this is a Democratic mirage in Texas. Fair, unfair. What’s your view?<\/p>\n
BLANK: I don’t need, I don’t think I need to judge the fairness of the governor’s comments, but I do think the reality is the state’s becoming more competitive.<\/p>\n
And it’s not this case that we’re going to wake up one day and Texas is going to be blue, but I think it’s clear that Texas is pretty purple. Greg Abbott beat Wendy Davis back in 2014 by, over 20 points. As I was saying before, normally it was the norm for Republicans to win statewide races here by 9, 10, 12, 15 points regularly.<\/p>\n
And now when we kind of look at these races, I’m just looking at the last three Senate contents and the Republican nominee in the end got, 50, just under 51% in 2018. Just a little over 53% in 2020. Even less, but even closer to 53% in 2024. These are not, overwhelming, not hitting home run elections.<\/p>\n
These are candidates who are inching by, and the environment can really shift that.<\/p>\n
Part III<\/p>\n
BROOKS: Let’s get to Jessica Taylor.<\/p>\n
She’s the senate and governor’s editor at the Cook Political Report. She’s been following this and other key midterm races closely, and she joins us now from Washington, D.C. Jessica, good to have you. Welcome to On Point.<\/p>\n
JESSICA TAYLOR: Thank you for having me.<\/p>\n
BROOKS: I know you’ve been listening along. Start Anywhere you want.<\/p>\n
I’d love to get your take on the importance of this race. What are you thinking about as you listen to the conversation about what’s happening in Texas?<\/p>\n
TAYLOR: I think from a national perspective, Republicans, national Republicans that are really backing Cornyn feel like Ken Paxton is toxic in a general election, and so they have spent millions and millions of dollars to try to rescue him.<\/p>\n
Now, he of course, finished first very narrowly in the primary. But what has struck me is that we expected President Trump to endorse Cornyn and it certainly sounded like he was going to, especially after Cornyn outperformed expectations in the runoff. But Ken Paxton, very smartly in many ways said that he would drop out if the Save Act passed, which is of course his voter ID legislation.<\/p>\n
And Trump now, it seems like he’ll either stay neutral or could perhaps even endorse Paxton, which would, I think send national Republicans here into quite a depression really. So I think it comes down, yeah.<\/p>\n
BROOKS: Sorry, I didn’t mean to jump in there, but just this is a question I wanted to get to.<\/p>\n
It would put Republican into a National Depression because there’s a sense that Paxton would be a much weaker candidate than Cornyn?<\/p>\n
TAYLOR: Right. He has not been a strong fundraiser, but also, it’s just the baggage that you all have gone through. His divorce on biblical grounds, the allegations against him of bribery and for different things that resulted in his impeachment in the House. Now he was of course, acquitted in the Senate, and I’ve heard some arguments from people though that you know that if this is a turnout election, which midterms are, that Paxton has more of the base and that they are likely to turn out. That’s the argument that Paxton uses and that there’s not as much enthusiasm for John Cornyn.<\/p>\n
But I think that what strikes me is the fact that the same ads that the Cornyn campaign and that National Republicans have been running against Paxton are the same that Democrats are going to use against him. You could take any ad and really just slap on this is approved by James Talarico or by the Democratic Senator Editorial Campaign Committee.<\/p>\n
So they’re already airing all of the dirty laundry that they may well have to defend Paxton on later if he is their nominee.<\/p>\n
BROOKS: Joshua what’s your view on that? Who would be the weaker candidate, the stronger among those two Republicans?<\/p>\n
BLANK: Yeah, I think there’s this sort of interesting thing that’s gone on here where as we’ve so focused on the Republican primary electorate, you forget the fact that John Cornyn has never lost an election.<\/p>\n
And in fact, when John Cornyn and Donald Trump were on the ballot at the same time, John Cornyn outperformed Donald Trump. And what’s interesting is that while there are a number of Republicans who do express dismay at John Cornyn. It’s also the case that most of those Republicans have cast a ballot for John Cornyn, and in fact, many times. And so I think you take all that and the fundraising here is also I think, a key thing that we just gotta mention for one second. There’s a reason that Cornyn is in the Senate leadership and it’s because of his ability to fundraise not just for himself, but for others.<\/p>\n
Ken Paxton has only been a statewide official in Texas where the campaign finance laws are relatively non-existent. And one was just mentioned here, his fundraising has been a little lackluster. It’s not as though Ken Paxton wouldn’t be well-funded in a senate race.<\/p>\n
The issue is that he would need to rely on other people’s donor networks and in a state as big as Texas to have other politicians come in and fund a Texas race is not something that the Republican party was planning to do this election cycle in which they’re going to feel a little bit on the back foot.<\/p>\n
BROOKS: I’m glad you mentioned the money. Because I wanted to bring that up. It seems this is an astounding fact. The 2026 Texas Senate primary set a record for being the most expensive Senate primary in American history. That’s a report from the media tracking firm Ad Impact. What does that tell you, Jessica?<\/p>\n
This is just huge amounts of money being poured into this race.<\/p>\n
TAYLOR: And a lot of that came from pro Cornyn forces that really had to spin to bolster him. And again, he did finish first, but for such a long time incumbent, it really was somewhat underwhelming in that regard.<\/p>\n
The fact that he was under 50 and was forced into a runoff. So did he beat expectations? Yes. As Josh was mentioning, he’s never lost a race before, and so I think that’s why national Republicans would not have to, the key here is that the money that they would have to spend on Texas, if Paxton is the nominee, takes away from other races.<\/p>\n
When we look at the national midterm environment that they want to go on offense and Republicans want to try to flip seats in Michigan and Georgia and perhaps New Hampshire, but they’re also playing defense in places like Maine and North Carolina and Ohio and Alaska and what really is shaping up to be a very difficult midterm cycle, when we look at President Trump’s dropping approval ratings, when we look at the enthusiasm gap, what struck me on the Texas primary night was just simply the fact that there was more Democratic votes in the primary than Republicans.<\/p>\n
I think that when I look at this from a national picture, I guess I still remain slightly skeptical of Texas, because to me, this is Lucy and the football, that every couple of years that it seems like this is within reach. Going back to 2018 was when they came the closest, of course with Beta O’Rourke, but even that came up short.<\/p>\n
Again, I think that there is still, I still have a little bit of skepticism about Texas, even though I do think that Talarico is a very strong nominee and will certainly be well funded from his own ability to fundraise and to tap into national donor networks.<\/p>\n
BROOKS: I’m glad you mentioned 2018 and this idea of Lucy and the football.<\/p>\n
Joshua, I wondered if you could compare those times. 2018, it was a midterm election. It was after Trump had been in power for two years. There was a bit of a blue wave. Democrats regained the House, but of course, Beto O’Rourke lost to Ted Cruz. Can you compare the situation on the ground 2018 versus 2026 in terms of what that might tell us is going to happen?<\/p>\n
BLANK: Yeah. I think that this is the comparison election that we’re all looking at in some ways. And the reason we’re looking at it is because it is relatively comparable. Trump isn’t in the White House. It’s a midterm election. But really importantly when we look at the public opinion data, when we look at presidential job approval now, compared to where it was in 2018, it’s worse. Really notably, when we look at evaluations of the economy.<\/p>\n
Texas economy, national economy, people’s own personal economic situations, significantly worse today than in 2018. And the challenge for Republicans here is that if there are any voters who aren’t overwhelmingly Republican, who are unhappy with their performance of the economy or foreign policy or anything else, there’s really nowhere else to look. It’s Republicans up and down the ballot, and so I think 2018 is key. There’s one other key comparison to 2018 that I think is really important here, which is, Texas is a huge state and it’s incredibly hard to campaign here. It’s incredibly expensive. We have more media markets than anywhere in the country; besides California, I think, and expensive media markets.<\/p>\n
And we’ve been talking about this, what’s really important for Democrats is that they have candidates filed all up and down the ballot, which really, the last time that happened was 2018. And that’s important because James Talarico can only be in one place at one time.<\/p>\n
And Texas is so big that you need candidates throughout the state who are working, basically, to mobilize voters, to identify potential Democrats to put out the message. And it’s not the case that all those Democrats are going to win. The reality is in the Republican leaning, I’m sorry, in the rural counties in the state, Republicans regularly win by, 75-25.<\/p>\n
But if those candidates can knock that down to 70-30. Or 65-35, that’s the sort of thing that would lead to a very competitive election at the top of the ticket. But it’s also a necessary thing. So when we look at all these things, we have GOP control. We have Donald Trump in the White House, who’s going to mobilize Democrats, whoever the Democratic nominee is.<\/p>\n
Very negative evaluations of the economy, and again, Democratic candidates running up and down the ballot. There’s really no reason not to expect this to be a pretty competitive race here, even if it might not get Democrats across the finish line. But all the fundamentals are set to give them the opportunity if it’s possible.<\/p>\n
BROOKS: Jessica, given all of that, the Cook Political report does a highly respected rating of where races stand. Where does the Cook Political Report put this race right now? Who’s favored?<\/p>\n
TAYLOR: We currently have this rated likely Republican. However, if it were Paxton to be the nominee, we’ve been waiting on changing the rating to wait for the runoff in late May there, we would change our rating to lean Republican at least. I think that Paxton would still have a slight edge, but this would be a more competitive race if it is Paxton who is the nominee.<\/p>\n
BROOKS: But respond to what Joshua, everything Joshua was saying there. Compared to 2018, Beto O’Rourke lost by what, less than 3%.<\/p>\n
And things seem so much worse for the incumbent party right now. It seems just looking at it, added through this lens. That would really help the Democrat.<\/p>\n
TAYLOR: Again, I think it just largely, this is because we still don’t know who the nominee is going to be.\u00a0 I think the Cornyn is such a stronger nominee. He has outrun Trump before. He has the ability to get crossover votes. Quite bluntly, John Cornyn is not Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz was a very polarizing figure within Texas and within, especially with Democrats and independents. And I think that at least with Independents, Cornyn has the ability to have more of a crossover appeal.<\/p>\n
Although someone like Talarico also has that same crossover appeal that Beto O’Rourke did. I think it depends on the national environment, but we’ve been again, waiting because this race is not fully set yet.<\/p>\n
BROOKS: Got it. Joshua, I wanted to ask you about what happened last January 31st, and this gets to the point which you mentioned earlier that Texas has been tending more purple as time has gone by.<\/p>\n
And I’m talking here about this special election to fill a state senate seat in north Texas, right? The Democrat Taylor Rehmet won. Can you talk a little bit about that and the significance of that race?<\/p>\n
BLANK: Yeah. There was a special election for the state senate in a district that’s largely encompassed by Fort Worth.<\/p>\n
And I mentioned that because Fort Worth is one of the more competitive counties in the state. It’s right next to Dallas, Fort Worth, as we say. And in general, that county swings a little bit with the overall election cycle, this district in particular was drawn to be overwhelmingly Republican.<\/p>\n
I think it was, I think Trump won the district by, I want to say plus 17. And then we had the special election. It was Republicans leading up to the special election, ringing alarm bells all over the state. The lieutenant governor, whoever oversees the state Senate, was pouring money into this race.<\/p>\n
Donald Trump was recording robocalls to try to get out Republican voters and ultimately Taylor Rehmet won that seat by I think more than 12 points, I think when you added it up with the percentages and everything. It’s like a 32-point swing, which I’ve got someone here from the Cook Report.<\/p>\n
I will say, you never want to, never want to over interpret a special election. And I don’t think that this is the evidence, but this is, it’s a symptom, right? Of these fundamental things that we were talking about. There’s overwhelming GOP control, there’s a lot of negative attitudes about the economy and in a district in which really there’s no Republicans had no business losing.<\/p>\n
Not only did it swing, but it swung overwhelmingly. And so while I don’t think that’s indicative of what we should expect to see in Texas or in any other particular race, it’s interesting that in a bellwether county, in a district overwhelmingly drawn to favor Republicans, that they couldn’t put their candidate across the finish line.<\/p>\n
And I think the question that raises for me and I think should raise for other people looking at this from other perspectives is, what other races might be in play this cycle that we didn’t think could be in play because I think if anything, this is a little bit of a canary in the coal mine.<\/p>\n
I don’t think of it as being, necessarily, again, indicative of what’s going to happen. But when you see a swing that big, you got to pause and ask yourself, what’s going on here?<\/p>\n
BROOKS: Jessica, did that grab the attention of you folks at the Cook Political report, that 32-point swing there in North Texas?<\/p>\n
TAYLOR: It absolutely did. Again, special elections are inherently special and they are a lower turnout, so we can’t extrapolate we don’t want to over extrapolate. However, I agree with him that this could be a potential canary in the coal mine. When we look at other things and remember, I know we’re talking about the Senate race, but Texas was set off these redistricting wars and I have certainly heard from even Republican sources that they worried that perhaps they’ve overplayed their hand and that picking up five seats is no longer in the realm of possibility. That some of these seats that were drawn in the House to overwhelmingly, not overwhelmingly, but at least elect Republicans are going to be much closer than expected. Again, I think it helps having a strong statewide candidate like James Talarico.<\/p>\n
But that doesn’t mean that some of these other districts across the state are going to be very competitive at the House level as well.<\/p>\n
BROOKS: Joshua, running out of time. Final comment from you. What are you watching for in this very important race that seems to be capturing the attention of political watchers all across the country?<\/p>\n
BLANK: Yeah, I think I’m watching, honestly, like everybody else, I’m probably watching Donald Trump on two vectors. One, does he get in before the runoff happens and endorse somebody, which probably indicates that person was already likely to win or not. And the other thing is, once the nominee is chosen, do they distance themselves from the president?<\/p>\n
If his numbers continue to deteriorate, it’s going to be hard for Republicans to continue getting as close to the President as they can in an election in which he may be the problem.<\/p>\n
The first draft of this transcript was created by Descript, an AI transcription tool. An On Point producer then thoroughly reviewed, corrected, and reformatted the transcript before publication. The use of this AI tool creates the capacity to provide these transcripts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been more than thirty years since a Democrat won state-wide in Texas. But some think a voter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":229932,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":{"0":"post-229931","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-texas","9":"tag-texas-headlines","10":"tag-texas-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}