NewsThoughts: Texas Sized Texas News (also, my hundredth post!)
Talarico leads Paxton
Texas Democrats have long struggled with the Republican-dominated Texas for decades. To give you an idea of how reliable it is, Ted Cruz has been sent to Congress by Texas voters since 2013. What makes the current US Senate race in Texas interesting is the confluence of factors involved:
- John Cornyn is an establishment Republican: This seat is currently held by John Cornyn, who has held the position since before I graduated from high school. He’s not a mover or shaker within the Republican Party. I’m not sure the man had much of a pulse prior to trying to look spry for MAGA. Cornyn distanced himself from Trump after 2020, only to devote much of his social media presence (at least on Facebook) to praising Trump’s second term. For all the good it did him, as Trump had him shitcanned in 2026 in favor of wildly corrupt Texas Attorney General…
- Ken Paxton has some baggage: Ken Paxton has had plenty of allegations of corruption lobbed his way - including impeachment by his own party in the State House. He’s done some popular work in consumer protection, but he’s also leveraged his office to target enemies and advance partisan agendas. He also probably cheated on his wife. That is all to say, he’s got some baggage. It also doesn’t help that as Trump’s candidate, he gets to take on the stink from the president’s astonishingly bad approval ratings. That being said, Trump is still mildly popular in Texas, so this may not be as bad as it seems compared to national polls.
- James Talarico is a popular candidate: Aside from a charge of corruption that seems to have been mostly parried, Republican attacks have mostly been on social ‘hate’ issues - questioning Talarico's masculinity. Talarico does hail from a more progressive interpretation of Christianity, and leans into faith, which is generally a point in his favor (even if opponents question his beliefs). Talarico has done extremely well with fundraising, raising considerably more money than Paxton until a recent injection of Republican money. As stated, Talarico has a mild lead over Paxton in the polls.
- Education: Talarico’s background as an educator could be huge here. Last year, voters across the state turned out and voted for Democrat-coded members of the school board in an aggressive rebuke of the takeover by ‘liberty’ parent groups a few years ago. I was unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end of one of these groups, when a school I worked at destroyed pallets and pallets' worth of material after an attack at a school board meeting. Texas Republicans are still looking to further gut student access to alternate voices. This could be a losing bet for Republicans as Texans do strongly support public schools, even in traditionally red districts. For small Texas communities, the Friday Night Football Game is a city event. I’ve been to lots of rural football games - people show up. But, again, support in local elections may not translate to national level political support.
Ultimately, there are a lot of factors that make this an interesting race to follow.
100 posts?
This is my hundredth blog post. This has also been by far my most consistent and successful blog. It's been wonderful to just write again. It's been about eleven months, with multiple posts per month, often per week. A good time, and-
Thanks for reading, if you made it this far~