A Democrat has not won a Texas Senate race in decades. In these midterms, some feel that could change.
Amid a fractious election cycle midway through President Donald Trump’s second administration, early in-person voting is already underway in the contest between Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, and Texas state Rep. James Talarico, a Democrat.
The Lone Star State has long been seen as a conservative bulwark—but Paxton, who defeated Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) in the GOP primary runoff, is far from guaranteed a victory against the Democrat from Austin. Conversations on the ground revealed support for, and opposition to, both candidates.
Most polling shows the Democrat with a slight lead. VoteHub, a political media organization that tracks early voting across the country, estimates that early votes and mail votes so far tilt toward Talarico. The group sees him narrowly on track to victory, an outcome that would make him the first Democrat to win a Senate race in Texas since 1988.
Not everyone is so sure.
“It’s a toss-up,” Daron R. Shaw, a pollster and political scientist at the University of Texas at Austin, told The Epoch Times.
Shaw’s judgment aligns with assessments from the Cook Political Report, the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, and other analysts who have monitored the race as it has tightened over the past several months.
High energy prices, the Iran war, and other concerns have dampened enthusiasm for Republicans and Trump, jeopardizing the GOP’s control of the Senate.
Republicans and their allies have sought to highlight Talarico’s statements on hot-button cultural issues along with his alleged violation of residency rules during his 2022 campaign for the statehouse.
Democrats have zeroed in on Paxton’s record, including a 2023 impeachment in the Texas House for alleged abuse of his office to help a donor. The Texas Senate ultimately acquitted him.
David Schultz, a political scientist and legal scholar at Hamline University, said Paxton is “not a very good candidate.”
He also made a conditional prediction to The Epoch Times: “If the Democrats win the Texas Senate race, it’s a bellwether that Democrats will have a phenomenal night.”
In counties across Texas—including Harris County, home to Houston—the first day of early voting broke midterm election records, reflecting an increase in voter participation over 2022.
Early voting ends Oct. 30. Election Day is Nov. 3.
With the Senate on the line, the matchup has become the costliest non-presidential race ever tracked, drawing $544.5 million in ad spending so far, according to the political advertising intelligence firm AdImpact.
The bulk of that money, $386.3 million, has favored Paxton’s candidacy. That aligns with broader trends in election cycles in which Republicans have often enjoyed a financial advantage.
The Texas attorney general’s big benefactors include technologist Elon Musk, whose America PAC has backed Paxton and other midterm candidates. LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman—like Musk, a member of Silicon Valley’s tight-knit group of PayPal founders known colloquially as the “PayPal Mafia”—has donated millions to Lone Star Rising, a super PAC supporting Talarico.
Trump has repeatedly traveled to Texas to campaign for Paxton. The GOP’s unprecedented midterm convention also took place in the state.
Former President Barack Obama joined Talarico at an event earlier this year. The state representative has also netted some high-profile defectors from the ranks of Texas Republicans, including former President George W. Bush’s brother, Neil Bush, and former Cornyn staffer Jacob Smith, who joined the Talarico campaign in August.
Paxton’s conservative bona fides on the Second Amendment, immigration, and other issues earned him early support from such Make America Great Again (MAGA) stalwarts as Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) and Turning Point USA’s political arm, Turning Point Action.
Alongside his impeachment and other issues, including a federal bribery investigation that did not lead to criminal charges, that record may cost Paxton support from non-MAGA Republicans and boost enthusiasm for Talarico in the state.
In Schultz’s view, Paxton’s candidacy has “opened up room for the Democrat to be a moderate running in Texas.”
Shaw, who works on polling for Fox News and other organizations, said he wonders whether surveys on the race capture the reality of the Texas electorate.
“Are we sure we have the right Republicans?” he asked, questioning whether pollsters are getting enough responses from MAGA Republicans to make accurate predictions.
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—Nathan Worcester
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