Among Republican voters, Texas AG Ken Paxton looked like a MAGA fighter taking on the establishment’s Sen. John Cornyn. But against a broader electorate, his abysmal reputation may not hold up.
Key takeaways from Texas primary election
Texas Senator John Cornyn lost the Republican primary race for Senate to Trump-endorsed state Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Based on latest polls, the U.S. Senate race between Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Democratic seminarian state Rep. James Talarico is shaping up to be a revealing look at voter priorities ahead of the November midterm elections.
Paxton won his primary against Sen. John Cornyn in a blowout in May.
But in the general election, Paxton appears to have met his match: The RealClearPolitics average has Talarico slightly ahead of the attorney general. A recent Texas Southern University poll put the Democratic state lawmaker up by 47%-45%. In others, he’s tied or marginally behind.
Either way, Talarico is enjoying a larger lead than Democrat Beto O’Rourke was when Republican Sen. Ted Cruz beat him in 2018.
This does not bode well for Paxton or Texas Republicans.
If a squishy Democrat is ahead in a Texas Senate race, there are a few possible explanations: Texans are becoming more liberal, Talarico is a novelty or the Republican candidate is God-awful.
I don’t think Talarico would best represent Texans in Washington, but I understand his appeal right now, especially given President Donald Trump’s low approval rating. Why voters are drawn to the Democrat could be a more important lesson for Republicans than the fact that he’s ahead at all.
Paxton’s character issues give Talarico an edge in polls
The latest Texas Pulse/Texas A&M Bush School Poll, which has Talarico up by 4 percentage points, shows why. Voters favored Paxton on the border, but Trump and Gov. Greg Abbott secured it over a year ago, and it has held. This makes it a less compelling issue than it once was.
In the poll of likely Texas Voters, they favored Talarico on affordability, the war in Iran, keeping Texans safe and managing the state’s water supply.
Notice anything? Three of those are local issues, affordability chief among them. As in most of the country, Texans’ incomes are lagging as the cost of living rises. I feel the pinch, too.
Both campaigns just launched competing economic plans. As much as I can’t stand Paxton as a candidate, I’d prefer his approach: new tax deductions for expenses like health care, housing and the child tax credit.
Character issues with Paxton seem just as pressing as policy, pushing voters away from him as much as toward Talarico.
In the same poll, voters saw Talarico as more in touch with Texas values, more authentic and more honest. They called Paxton – impeached on charges that include bribery and abuse of public trust, indicted on felony securities fraud, and facing a divorce in which his wife alleges infidelity – “tough” but “corrupt,” by 53-55%.
“Talarico increased his lead with women to 13 points from nine points in June, and he also narrowed Paxton’s lead among men from 10 points in June to now six points,” wrote ReconMR senior research analyst Lindsey Hendren.
Talarico leads by a wide margin in Austin; Paxton holds a large lead in rural Texas.
Don’t count on Talarico turning Texas blue
Talarico’s edge highlights one of the most common questions posed every election cycle in Texas: Can this be the year Texas finally turns blue? I don’t see it happening, based on 2024 numbers alone.
That year, Cruz beat Democratic Rep. Colin Allred by 8.5 points, and Trump won 56.2% of the Texas vote. Republicans also expanded their Texas House majority by flipping two Democratic seats, and South Texas counties continued their remarkable shift right.
But a presidential election isn’t a midterm – and midterms tend to favor the party out of power.
A New York Times headline captures how different the two candidates are this cycle: “In Texas’ Most Eligible Senate Race, It’s Bachelor vs. Divorcé-to-Be.” Clever, but it doesn’t quite capture what makes each man appealing, or not, to voters.
Naturally, Paxton isn’t buying Talarico’s lead.
“I do not believe a poll that tells me that, ‘We don’t care what he believes. We don’t care that he voted for a state income tax. We don’t care that he wanted to trans children. We don’t care that he’s against the oil and gas industry. We don’t care that he voted against every border security bill,’ ” Paxton told Fox News Digital. “I don’t believe a poll that says Texans don’t care about those issues. I’ve done enough polling; I’ve been in this long enough that that’s just not true.”
The state attorney general is right, but he’s got a sizable task ahead of him, because so far, the polls say otherwise. He faces more obstacles than most Republicans in Texas: He must expose Talarico’s flawed, progressive record and out-of-step positions, while also proving he isn’t the amoral, dishonest figure voters believe him to be.
The former should be easy, given how conservative Texas is outside its blue cities. The latter has been, and will remain, an uphill battle.
Among Republican voters, Paxton looks like a MAGA fighter squared off against the establishment’s Cornyn.
But against a broader electorate, his abysmal reputation might not hold up against Talarico’s modest charm and seemingly moderate stance on affordability and safety. (A ruse, clearly, but an effective one.)
Still, this is Texas, one of the reddest states in the Union, where residents open-carry firearms, the Bible is mandated reading in public schools, and Elon Musk just announced a massive Terafab chip factory with Gov. Abbott’s blessing. Conservative voters outnumber liberals by a wide margin.
The latest polls show this race will force Republicans to answer a question they rarely face outside of elections in which Trump was on the ballot: How many Texans are willing to vote for a “corrupt” candidate like Paxton just to keep a Democrat out of Washington?
Or, more pointedly: How many Republicans might cross over for a Democrat who seems attuned to local concerns, rather than stick with a nominee who seems so unscrupulous?
Nicole Russell is an opinion columnist with USA TODAY. She lives in Texas with her four kids. Sign up for her newsletter, The Right Track, and get it delivered to your inbox.