{"id":377977,"date":"2026-07-18T15:24:42","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T15:24:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/377977\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T15:24:42","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T15:24:42","slug":"ken-paxton-says-hell-debate-james-talarico-in-texas-senate-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/377977\/","title":{"rendered":"Ken Paxton says he’ll debate James Talarico in Texas Senate race"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 Attorney General Ken Paxton<\/a>\u2019s campaign said he would debate state Rep. James Talarico<\/a> in Texas\u2019 U.S. Senate race after Talarico challenged him to do so Thursday morning.<\/p>\n

Talarico, the Democratic nominee, said he had accepted invitations from three Texas media groups for televised debates and urged Paxton, who has not participated in debates in recent elections, to do the same.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll be on that debate stage because I answer to the people of Texas,\u201d Talarico said in a statement. \u201cKen Paxton answers to his billionaire mega-donors. We\u2019ll see if they let him show up.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Paxton campaign confirmed it had received the same debate invitations as Talarico. While the Republican did not commit to a specific host, his campaign said the attorney general plans to debate.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course we are going to debate James Talarico and we look forward to engaging with potential debate hosts,\u201d Paxton senior adviser Nick Maddux said in a statement. \u201cTalarico is a serial liar who has spent his entire campaign shamelessly deceiving Texas voters about his radical record with[out] answering the hard questions.\u201d<\/p>\n

So far, Talarico has accepted invitations from Nexstar Media Group and KXAN News, NBC News\/NBC Universal\/Hearst Texas and WFAA\/Tegna.<\/p>\n

The two are running in a highly competitive U.S. Senate race that has drawn immense interest and brought record fundraising to the Lone Star State, where a Democrat has not won a statewide race in over three decades. Polls show a tight contest between the two, with most surveys<\/a> since the runoff finding the candidates locked in a statistical tie. <\/p>\n

Paxton has historically campaigned \u2014 and won \u2014 without participating in debates.<\/p>\n

The attorney general beat Sen. John Cornyn<\/a> and U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt<\/a> for the Republican nomination earlier this year in a contest that featured no debates between the candidates. In 2022, Paxton declined to participate<\/a> in a primary debate with his Republican challengers for attorney general. He went on to win the primary and the general election. Paxton did not accept<\/a> his Democratic opponent\u2019s invitation to debate en route to a narrow victory in 2018, and similarly rejected<\/a> a general election debate in 2014 during his first run for attorney general.<\/p>\n

Talarico criticized Paxton for his history of not debating, saying that he \u201cwon\u2019t answer the public\u2019s questions because he\u2019s not a public servant \u2014 he\u2019s a puppet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both campaigns previewed the lines of attack they would bring to a debate stage, mirroring the ones they\u2019ve pursued while on the campaign trail this summer. <\/p>\n

Talarico\u2019s campaign said he plans to press Paxton on his accumulation of wealth while in office, his impeachment trial and the plea deal<\/a> the attorney general\u2019s office offered in a recent child sex abuse case.<\/p>\n

The Paxton campaign, meanwhile, wants to go after Talarico\u2019s record on transgender athletes and state income tax, and comments he\u2019s made on Christianity and the oil and gas industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cJames Talarico isn\u2019t just out of touch,\u201d Maddux said. \u201cHe\u2019s a dangerous radical whose record and agenda is so toxic and extreme that he has to hide it behind carefully scripted lies. We look forward to voters getting to learn about the real James Talarico.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 Attorney General Ken Paxton\u2019s campaign said he would debate state Rep. James Talarico in Texas\u2019 U.S.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377978,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[133660,2133,2135,3309,1967,2424,27,29,28,2134,6474],"class_list":["post-377977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-debates","tag-democrats","tag-james-talarico","tag-john-cornyn","tag-ken-paxton","tag-republicans","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-u-s-senate","tag-wesley-hunt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377977","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=377977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}