{"id":300295,"date":"2026-05-19T21:27:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T21:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/300295\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T21:27:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T21:27:09","slug":"democrats-are-bullish-on-texas-after-trumps-move-for-paxton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/300295\/","title":{"rendered":"Democrats Are Bullish on Texas After Trump\u2019s Move for Paxton"},"content":{"rendered":"

Democratic leaders say they\u2019re one step closer to winning in Texas, now that President Donald Trump has endorsed<\/a> scandal-plagued Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for Senate.<\/p>\n

The question now is whether they\u2019re close enough that it\u2019s worth investing in a state where Democrats have consistently been disappointed in recent years.<\/p>\n

If Paxton beats Sen. John Cornyn in next week\u2019s Republican primary runoff<\/a>, Democrats say they see a viable path to win a state that hasn\u2019t elected a Democrat statewide in more than three decades. State Rep. James Talarico, the Democratic nominee and a rising star inside the party, has already raised a record-breaking $27 million for his race.<\/p>\n

For the first time, the flagship political action committee aligned with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer signaled its willingness to jump in.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe remain bullish about Texas, and there is every likelihood we\u2019ll make a mark there,\u201d Senate Majority PAC spokesperson Lauren French said in a statement shared with NOTUS.<\/p>\n

Democrats\u2019 dream of turning Texas blue is still a longshot. Contesting Texas would require vast financial resources, and Democrats are currently losing<\/a> the national fundraising race to Republicans. The GOP nomination isn\u2019t settled yet, either: Cornyn came in first in the March primary, outperforming Republicans\u2019 expectations, and could still prevail in the May 26 runoff despite Trump\u2019s snub.<\/p>\n

Even so, Democrats greeted Trump\u2019s intervention in the runoff with jubilation. Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a former Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee chair, told NOTUS that Paxton, a darling of the MAGA movement, will \u201cturn off a lot of independent voters, and Talarico has made it clear he wants to represent everyone in Texas, not just MAGA.\u201d<\/p>\n

Talarico, who won the March Democratic primary outright, said in a statement, \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter who wins this runoff. We already know who we\u2019re running against: the billionaire mega-donors and their corrupt political system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Officials at the DSCC, Senate Democrats\u2019 campaign arm, expressed confidence that they could make a real push to flip the seat.<\/p>\n

\u201cRepublicans are watching $100 million circle down the drain before their eyes as Donald Trump rejects their year of begging him to bail out John Cornyn,\u201d spokesperson Maeve Coyle said in a statement after the endorsement. \u201cWhile the Texas GOP has been embroiled in a \u2018bitter,\u2019 \u2018costly intraparty war\u2019 that has fractured their base and left them drained of resources, Democratic enthusiasm has surged to its highest level in decades.\u201d<\/p>\n

Texas has slipped away from Senate Democrats in other recent elections, despite great hype and expectations. Democrat Beto O\u2019Rourke lost to Sen. Ted Cruz by around 200,000 votes in 2018. Cornyn and Cruz comfortably beat their Democratic opponents in 2020 and 2024.<\/p>\n

Nationwide, Democrats are already trying to flip at least four GOP-held Senate seats this year, and adding a fifth target would threaten to stretch the party\u2019s resources. Party insiders, however, are encouraged by Talarico\u2019s fundraising prowess.<\/p>\n

Talarico has raised $27 million in the first quarter of 2026, including $10 million after his primary victory over Rep. Jasmine Crockett.<\/p>\n

One Democratic donor told NOTUS that Talarcio \u201chad a lane before, but it grew today.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are still plenty of skeptics.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got some donors who went all in on James early, and are still all in. Others who, every time someone mentions Texas, they roll their eyes. It\u2019s a mixed bag among the donor class,\u201d said a Democratic donor adviser. \u201cFor the DSCC and SMP, I don\u2019t think they\u2019re looking to put in more money in Texas versus other states where you have a better chance.\u201d<\/p>\n

That resource calculation \u2014 does investing in Texas siphon off cash for other battleground states? \u2014 cuts to the core of Democrats\u2019 challenge. Some Democratic operatives grumble that focusing on Texas could mean neglecting states that have more recently elected Democrats statewide.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnyone who is going to leapfrog Texas Senate over Alaska or Maine or Iowa needs to ask themselves, \u2018Hey, what\u2019s the proper resource allocation here? What\u2019s the best ROI?\u2019\u201d said a Democratic bundler. \u201cYou can easily burn nine figures in Texas and lose by five or six points. We have limited resources this cycle, more limited than you\u2019d expect, so we have to think very wisely about how we\u2019re spending those resources.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schumer did not include Texas as one of his top pickup opportunities earlier this year. Instead, the longtime Democratic leader said the party was focused primarily on races for Republican seats in Maine, North Carolina, Ohio and Alaska.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Democratic leaders say they\u2019re one step closer to winning in Texas, now that President Donald Trump has endorsed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300296,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-300295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300295","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=300295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300295\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}