posting on Truth Social<\/a> that Talarico is “missing in action,\u201d and asking, \u201cWhere is he? What is wrong with him? Bad rumors are coming out.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\u201cHe is sick because he has been forced to eat meat for political reasons and he is throwing up all over the place,\u201d Trump said while in San Antonio on Wednesday. \u201cHe is sick.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paxton\u2019s campaign renewed its calls on Friday for Talarico to produce proof of life, including a video of himself with a newspaper showing today\u2019s date, or to release a doctor\u2019s note.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnother day, another empty podium. Talarico\u2019s own party chair admits this isn\u2019t ideal, and his own supporters are melting down in Slack channels. The Democrats\u2019 golden boy went from rising star to milk carton in under two weeks,\u201d Paxton campaign spokeswoman Madison Cercy said. \u201cIf James Talarico can\u2019t even reassure his own team, how is he going to stand up for 31 million Texans? Show us proof of life, Jimmy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nearly every recent public poll has shown Talarico with a narrow lead or the race within the margin of error. The most recent New York Times\/Siena poll showed Paxton trailing Talarico by six points. A Democrat hasn’t won statewide in Texas in more than three decades, and Democrats have real hope this could be the year they do so.<\/p>\n
While the state tends to lean more Republican, the GOP is facing heavy headwinds over issues such as the war in Iran and the cost of living in what is expected to be a potentially tougher midterm environment for the party.<\/p>\n
When Talarico isn’t on the campaign trail, he isn’t connecting with voters in person.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe would rather be out there mixing with people and fundraising so that he can run through the tape in this race, but he’s not,\u201d Jillson said. \u201cI think it’s important for people to know that this isn’t a one-man show. There are a lot of people still working on that campaign, and as soon as he gets back, he’s going to try to go full throttle. Hopefully he won’t get sick again because it certainly doesn’t help that much.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is a critical point in the campaign, with 10 days until early voting starts and 25 days until Election Day, when campaigns begin their final pitch to voters.<\/p>\n
Will any of this matter? At this point, Jillson said both candidates are well known, and many voters have already formed opinions.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don’t think being off the campaign trail for several days at this point in the race is going to prove to be in any way decisive, because Republicans began spending large amounts of campaign money against Talarico a couple of weeks ago, and I have not seen the polls move much,\u201d Jillson said. \u201cI think voters know what they’re intending to do and it will take something more than the candidate disappearing for several days or a week to change their minds.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now that Talarico has returned to the campaign trail this weekend, as his campaign has said he planned to do, Jillson said he believes it won\u2019t be something voters are thinking about or talking about a week from now, unless he has a relapse or he can’t get back out on the campaign trail.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that most voters understand the cold. They understand the flu,\u201d Jillson said. \u201cNow, if this were a mysterious disease or if this were a cancer diagnosis or something, then people would ask themselves, ‘Will he be able to serve? Will he have the energy to do it?’ I don’t think that’s really in play here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jillson said Paxton\u2019s heavy focus on Talarico being off the trail is expected.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that’s what campaigns do and what they should do because if they can instill doubt about Talarico’s health, stamina, availability, that can redound in their favor,\u201d Jillson said. \u201cIt’s up to the Talarico campaign to also be speaking to these issues, and to be sure that people understand that this is just the flu is the way they ought to be pitching it, and that he’ll be back on the campaign trail on Saturday.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Talarico recovered from the flu, his campaign has kept running ads, calling on AG Paxton to debate like President Trump said he should, and capitalizing on the steady flow of leaked audio of Ken Paxton.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe campaign is thinking about what they have to do to bridge this period when the candidate is unavailable,\u201d Jillson said. \u201cMaybe you increase your advertising, maybe you increase your online advertising, and you have the rest of your campaign working on the issues. Maybe you put more resources into targeting your voters so when Election Day comes, you can be sure they get out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Talarico has accepted multiple debate invitations from CNN and local TV stations, and last month he challenged Paxton to a debate moderated by FOX News anchor Brett Baier. FOX News said<\/a> it would host the debate if both candidates agreed. To date, Paxton has not accepted any debate invitations.<\/p>\n\u201cUsually the incumbent doesn’t want to debate if they’re ahead in the race in particular. But it’s also true that Paxton knows he’s not good at it,\u201d Jillson said. \u201cHe knows that his sort of presentation, his demeanor, all that stuff that President Trump has been making fun of him about is real and that debating is not a strength of his and so he would prefer not to do it if he can get away with it. If he continues to trail in the polls, he may have no choice but to say, ‘Alright, let’s debate.’\u201d<\/p>\n
Paxton\u2019s campaign has not yet said whether the attorney general intends to debate Talarico after Trump\u2019s comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prior to his appearance at ACL, Talarico had not held an in-person public event in Texas since he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":["post-462475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462475","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=462475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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