This article appears in the October 2026 issue of The American Prospect magazine. If you’d like to receive our next issue in your mailbox, please subscribe here.
LOCKHART, TEXAS – “Beto broke my heart,” Jen tells me. “I told myself, ‘I’m not going to engage.’” She shakes her head. “But then … he”—she nods to the stage—“spoke the language of God.”
Jen is a Sunday school teacher from South Austin who has driven two hours with a friend from church to see another Sunday school teacher: James Talarico, the Texas Democratic Senate candidate whose campaign raises bittersweet memories of 2018, when Beto O’Rourke lost to Ted Cruz by about the population of two well-attended SEC football games.
The close miss has made some progressives rather cynical about Talarico’s chances. Though his fundraising efforts ($72 million and counting) have set records, O’Rourke set records first. Talarico has big rallies, but O’Rourke had even bigger ones. O’Rourke was also beloved by the national media. O’Rourke also saw high enthusiasm among Democratic voters. Both men had clownishly unlikable goons for opponents: Cruz for O’Rourke, current Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for Talarico.
And O’Rourke lost.
Jen, analysts, armchair pundits, and other supporters have seized upon Talarico’s earnest and skillful deployment of his Christian faith as a point of difference between now and then. Talarico is on leave from seminary, but regularly ministers to audiences, podcast hosts, and his fellow state legislators, offering lessons about how displaying the Ten Commandments (as schools may in Texas) is un-Christian and deporting immigrants violates the edict to love thy neighbor. The popular theory is that this time, Talarico’s wholesome youth pastor routine will peel off some of the churchgoers who have so decisively fueled the MAGA movement. It is difficult to find a story in the national press that does not mention this.
In his stump speech, Talarico talks about “servant leadership,” Christian jargon that might sound nonsensical to a non-churchgoer but is the kind of thing Jen probably talks about regularly in Sunday school. He tells the story of an Amazon worker who died on a warehouse floor and how, reportedly, managers instructed his colleagues to turn their backs and keep working: “That was a human being, a child of God. That was our sibling sacrificed on the altar of corporate greed.”
“This man speaks Bible,” Jen says. “He speaks the other side’s language.”
Maybe it’s time to become a believer.
I have my doubts about the durability of this theory. So far, polling does not show Talarico making much of a dent among white evangelicals in Texas, who supported Ted Cruz with 79 percent of the vote and support Paxton with 78 percent.
But Talarico is polling consistently, if only marginally, ahead, and O’Rourke did not. Maybe it’s time to become a believer.
“WE ARE PEOPLE-POWERED AND WE ARE PUPPY-POWERED!” exclaims the Talarico campaign staffer to a crowd of 100 or so who have gathered, with their dogs, in the courtyard of a North Austin brewpub. She leads us in a chant: “This is what community looks like!” The response is a little less than full-throated, likely because the temperature has also reached three figures. What’s more, Talarico has not arrived.
The audience keeps cool under overhead tarps, creating breezes with Texas-shaped fans emblazoned with Talarico’s logo and a handy QR code. They are drinking cold beer from pint glasses or cold water from Texas flag–printed water bowls, depending on whether they have thumbs. There are Talarico-themed coloring pages and free crayons. Dogs and people alike wear Talarico T-shirts, or have Talarico buttons pinned to their breasts and their collars. Inside the taproom, an Austin Humane Society volunteer presides over a litter of Anatolian shepherd mixes who are available for both permanent adoption and temporary, immediate snuggling. (There is a line for the latter.) Volunteers with clipboards politely buttonhole anyone standing still for more than 30 seconds: “Are you registered to vote? Do you need to check if you’re registered to vote?”
Before Talarico speaks, the emcee oversees canine races in three categories: puppy, small dog, and medium dog. The competitions devolve into adorable chaos; owners not paying attention to the category, pups gleefully bouncing around the track with no mind to the finish line. When the winners (as near they can be divined) and their people get their chance at the mic, the emcee asks the humans why they’ve come: “James makes me proud to be a native Texan,” says one. “I’ve never felt more hopeful about the future of Texas,” says another.
This article was featured in the Daily Prospect newsletter. Sign up for it here.
Talarico finally comes onto the stage, dressed in a heat-index-defying outfit of dark jeans, white Oxford, and dark blazer. He states the obvious—“This is probably the cutest campaign event I have ever attended”—and the applause is more rapturous as attendees crowd the stage.
Still, he gets to the point: He has a record of protecting dogs in Texas and his opponent, Ken Paxton, has a record of protecting animal abusers. Talarico has receipts for these claims: He helped pass legislation requiring boarding kennels to notify pet parents if they do not have a fire suppression system or if their dogs will be left alone at any point. (This law was inspired by a horrific fire over in Georgetown, a tragedy dog owners still talk about in trembling voices.) Meanwhile, the campaign refreshed old news about Paxton stonewalling an investigation into abusive practices at a university lab and how, as a state representative, he voted against a measure that forced those convicted of animal abuse to pay for the care of their victims.
“Ken Paxton is anti-puppy,” Talarico says. “Ken Paxton will never defend the little guy, even when the little guy in question is literally a puppy.” He deftly knots together the afternoon’s focus with the campaign’s most central themes, affordability and corruption: “I’ve already told some of the dogs that are here that the best way to get on Ken Paxton’s good side is to become a billionaire.”
(To be exactingly fair to Paxton, in July he instigated an investigation of a Texas puppy mill for deceptive marketing and substandard care. As a dog lover myself, I am hoping for an escalation in claims about which candidate is truly better on dogs.)
After that, staff herd Talarico to an area where they’ve set up a Texas flag backdrop, and he spends a good 45 minutes taking pictures with the attendees, as well as their dogs.
THERE ARE NO DOGS at Paxton’s campaign stop. Eventually there is a line for photos, sans the Instagram-ready backdrop.
Paxton is at The Angry Elephant, a MAGA-themed suburban bar and grill outside San Antonio. Their logo is an elephant with bulging biceps, and you can buy a shirt that says “Only You Can Prevent Communism” or one with a picture of President Trump’s raised fist after his attempted assassination. Their menu includes items like “The Antifa Dog” (“Will set your mouth on fire”) and “The Ron DeSantis Cheeseburger” (“Take off the mask … and grab a napkin”).
Though they regularly host events for local conservative politicians, they are not prepared for the crowd here to see Ken Paxton on a hot August afternoon. The line stretches across the strip mall and the venue is packed cheek to cheek, even as the intro speakers are wrapping up. Paxton staffers have a hard time wrangling attendees to sign in with names and phone numbers as they press inside. There is no merch table or register-to-vote station, but people are ordering cocktails from two women in thin tank tops behind the bar. Everyone else is in MAGA casual rather than anything Paxton-branded: red, white, blue, lots of Trump, and a T-shirt cameo from Ruthless, the bizarro-world answer to Pod Save America.
Paxton ambles onstage and, after cycling through thank-yous to local officials, begins his speech asking the audience to close their eyes. Given Paxton’s soft, sibilant speaking style, I prepare mentally for some campaign ASMR, but lulling us to sleep is the last thing he has in mind. “I want you to envision what you imagine a Texas senator being like,” he says. “Now, I want you to throw in that he’s a vegan and he hates Texas cattle and Texas barbecue.” The audience chuckles. They know where this is going. “Now imagine that your next senator, his job, he’s a DEI counselor … he advises school districts on woke policies.” Some chuckles, again.
These lines of attack against Talarico are familiar to anyone who’s been paying even half-hearted attention to the race. I peek and am fascinated to see that Paxton has closed his own eyes. “OK, the next one is … imagine your next Texas senator hates the oil and gas industry and tried to pass a law that would have basically created Biden administration policies here and harmed jobs.”
These are not especially vivid cues or even strictly visual ones (how do you picture someone hating the oil and gas industry?), but you can sense a little surge of expectation, the sense that red meat is about to be thrown. Paxton commands us to open our eyes and says, “That’s the definition of a bad dream.”
The punch line falls loosely into the friendly crowd, and there’s a half-beat before they laugh. He repeats it: “Let’s not live that dream. That’s a bad dream.”
This event is supposed to be a rollout for Paxton’s affordability policies, but it unfolds with more resentment and defensiveness than enthusiasm. Paxton says he’s on his “17th month” traveling the state since he announced his run for Senate, and “despite the fact that Houston Chronicle says I’m not working very hard, I feel like I’m working pretty darn hard.” He rushes along. “So, what have I heard? I know that people are hurting. Texans are hurting. Americans are hurting.”
After an obligatory reference to Joe Biden being the cause for today’s economic woes two years into the Trump administration, Paxton plows quickly through four policies to “protect Texas’s promise.” Except for doubling child “Trump accounts,” they are tax deductions: $50,000 for the purchase of your home, another $50,000 if you buy a second one (Paxton has an expansive definition of “hurting”), $25,000 in health care expenses, and $5,000 for “healthy living” expenses. He starts listing what those expenses might be (gym membership, sports equipment) and then calls out to one of the local officials who opened for him: “And, Donna, even doctor-prescribed GLP-1s … not that anyone here would be taking them.”
Midway through his speech, he is interrupted by protesters yelling, “Paxton protects pedophiles.” They are ejected into the parking lot and carry on with a handful of audience members more interested in tangling with the opposition than listening to Paxton, who has moved on to relitigate Talarico’s culture-war offenses. (He’s not a real Christian, wants boys in girls’ sports, thinks there are six sexes, etc.)
“Pedophile protector” is an accusation with a specific origin beyond Paxton’s warm relationship with Jeffrey Epstein associate Donald Trump. This year, Paxton arranged a plea deal for a Waco attorney named Adam Hoffman who sexually abused one of his son’s friends over three years. Paxton’s office knocked the charges down from a Class A felony to a misdemeanor, and the penalty from life imprisonment without parole to 30 days, with no requirement to register as a sex offender. The original offer would only have required one actual day in jail, with credit for time served, but the judge, outraged (to quote directly: “Seriously?”), demanded more. During the primary, incumbent Sen. John Cornyn released a statement on the episode, calling it “one of the most outrageous examples of leniency towards a violent criminal in modern Texas history.” Talarico has urged that Paxton’s office release the “Hoffman Files,” which he has officially rejected. In September, Talarico released a campaign spot about the deal, the rare attack ad that really earns the grainy black-and-white aesthetic and ominous tones.
Paxton closes his visit to The Angry Elephant with a photo line. I talk with the people waiting about why they’re there: “I don’t want Texas to turn purple.” “We gotta win.” “I agree with all the values.” Only one gentleman refuses to engage when I ask why he’s there. “You figure it out,” he says, and turns his back to me.
IT’S ONLY SLIGHTLY UNFAIR TO COMPARE these two events directly. For one thing, “Puppies for Talarico” is not an especially typical stop. It was in Central Texas, where Talarico has no need to gin up votes; he spends more of his time in swing districts, especially Latino strongholds up and down the Rio Grande. It was not especially large. There were no new policy announcements or much policy at all. Conversely, Talarico’s multi-stop “New American Dream” tour took him to expanded venues with big-screen backdrops and featured a speech with 11 separate legislative proposals to address affordability, from canceling medical debt to passing universal child care and paid family leave. (The speech mentioned Paxton twice.)
But “Puppies for Talarico” was indicative of the kind of race Talarico is running, fueled by $72 million in donations and acres of media attention. It’s the kind of event you can hold when you have extra bandwidth and extra volunteers, when your logistics team isn’t scrambling. It’s imaginative and well organized, and those candidate pix with people’s pups are social media gold. And it meshed perfectly with Talarico’s preferred narrative for the campaign: A fresh-faced, community-minded reformer versus a cruel criminal whose behavior breaks not just political norms, but social ones.
Whether the Angry Elephant event is representative of Paxton’s candidacy is a bit harder to say, because there aren’t many Paxton events. You can’t find much on the bare-bones campaign website. I read about the Angry Elephant thing in the news. Paxton’s press contact has a Gmail address. The website does have a place to sign up for news or to become a “Paxton Patriot.” I reluctantly added my name in late July (for science!) and I have received one email since. Far be it from me to complain about not getting enough solicitations from a political campaign, but if this was his outreach, no wonder that by the end of the summer, he had raised $16 million, less than a quarter of Talarico’s haul.
This weak showing was, however, less about Paxton’s failure to send all-caps text messages or emails with alarming subject lines and more of a testament to how thoroughly he alienated most of Texas’s Republican ruling class. Large donors held back from his campaign, many reportedly resentful about the ugly primary fight with Cornyn that Paxton insisted on starting. According to Axios, almost 100 donors gave at least $50,000 to Cornyn’s campaign or a supporting political action committee. As of July, how many of that group had given to Ken Paxton? Zero.
By contrast, Talarico inspired such an outpouring of cash that hundreds of small donors giving $15 or $20 at a time managed to hit the $3,500 contribution limit for the general election, and the campaign had to refund them.
Conservatives with deep pockets have held grudges about the stunt lawsuits that Paxton files so he can issue a new press release. (By my count, the AG office puts out at least five or six announcements a week touting one legal action or another.) A review by The Wall Street Journal found that Paxton attacked over 30 businesses or people who collectively contributed $38.5 million to state and national Republican causes in the past two years. The paper described one target as being “annoyed” by fundraising appeals that came after being named as a defendant. Another lauded Paxton’s fundraising efforts in general, but when asked about plans to donate himself, told the Journal, “absolutely not.”
Cornyn himself has gleefully shed responsibility for Paxton’s fate. He has denigrated his former opponent with a lusty enthusiasm he rarely showed on the campaign trail, telling The Texas Tribune that Paxton is a “poor campaigner” who is “lazy and doesn’t raise money.” Cornyn’s (accurate) analysis of the race: Paxton “is not offering a very compelling case for his election. He’s making this harder than it needs to be.” It didn’t get any easier with the announcement that one of Cornyn’s own staffers signed on to the Talarico campaign.
It’s hard to convey to outsiders who are familiar with Texas’s famously punchable junior senator, Ted Cruz, exactly how awful Paxton is, how he could be any worse than the cringey goober who lectured about personal responsibility while escaping to Cancun during the Big Freeze. Think of it this way: Cruz is disliked. Paxton is distrusted.
He is objectively one of the most corrupt politicians in Texas, a state in which a lobbyist once handed out literal blank checks to lawmakers on the Senate floor without running into legal trouble. (A local prosecutor explained to The New York Times: “In Texas, it’s almost impossible to bribe a public official as long as you report it.”)
Paxton was indicted on security fraud charges in 2015 (dropped in 2024) and was the subject of a Justice Department corruption probe through 2024. Three years ago, Paxton became the third Texas politician in state history to be impeached. The allegations were brought forward by four whistleblowers from his own office: three deputy attorneys general, and a 48-year veteran of law enforcement and former Texas Ranger. (The former Ranger has now cut a commercial for Talarico.) These formal complaints resulted in charges of bribery, corruption, abuse of office, dereliction of duty, disregard of duty, abuse of public trust, and unfitness for office. The Republican-led House voted 121-23 (all the Democrats and two-thirds of the Republicans) to move 20 articles to the Senate. One count alleged that Paxton had granted an Austin real estate developer favorable treatment in exchange for hiring Paxton’s mistress. Paxton’s wife, Angela Paxton, was among the state senators in the chamber to hear that testimony, having been recused from voting on his conviction but asked to stay present to keep the two-thirds majority needed to convict more surely out of Democrats’ reach.
Republicans voted down party lines to acquit Paxton on all charges, but he was hardly found innocent. Last year, Angela Paxton announced she was divorcing him “on biblical grounds” and it emerged that he was having a new affair with a “Christian influencer and grief counselor.” In July, the couple were spotted canoodling in the boarding area of a red-eye flight to Reykjavik. I would also like to flee Texas for Iceland in the middle of summer, but I am not running a close race against the most well-funded Senate candidate in the country.
THE TALARICO CAMPAIGN HAS CHERRY-PICKED from the deep catalog all of Paxton’s questionable decisions and shady maneuvers. The selection is varied enough that they have left aside his personal life entirely to focus on, among other things, the puppy-hating, his suspiciously large real estate portfolio, the fact that he appears to have voted in a district he didn’t live in, and an incident in which State Capitol security cameras caught him stealing another man’s pen.
During the primary, Cornyn was not as decorous as Talarico, and released two ads about Paxton’s extramarital adventures, one an AI-generated spoof of the B-52s’ “Love Shack” (“Ken’s Love Shack”) and his own grim, grainy spot accusing “crooked Ken” of “wrecking another home” and “sleeping around with a married mother of seven” as well as becoming rich while in office. Who do you want representing you, the ad asked, “the wife cheater and fraud, or the Texas workhorse”?
Paxton smoked Cornyn in the Republican runoff by 28 points. True, he was helped along by an extremely late Trump endorsement that might say more about Trump sensing a win in progress than the power of the endorsement itself. Paxton was ahead in polls—and early voting, when 60 percent of the ballots were cast, was in progress when Trump bestowed his favor. But to the question “Who do Texas Republicans want representing them?” Texans answered: The cheater and fraud. After all, they have voted for the Cheater and Fraud in Chief three times before.
Cornyn’s expensive misadventure—he raised $26 million to Paxton’s $8 million—holds a lesson for Talarico supporters, but it may not be the one that comes immediately to a panicky mind. Paxton’s victory is not a cautionary tale about his ability to withstand an honest recounting of his blemished record despite being massively outspent. Rather, it suggests that pandering to the MAGA base with culture-war shit and slavish devotion to Trump is the only thing that can triumph over his blemished record.
Paxton believes he can draw from this tired playbook again. His campaign, as witnessed at The Angry Elephant, is short on policy that has to do with anyone’s everyday lives and extremely long on locker-room jibes at Talarico’s masculinity, either by implication (he’s either vegan or doesn’t love meat *enough*) or literally (calling him “too low-T for Texas”). There are also the usual darts of xenophobia (he’s soft on immigration!) and transphobia (he wants to trans our kids!) and attempts to paint Talarico’s social justice–inflected Christianity as heretical and strange.
But Texans are facing the consequences of years of Republican rule that has centered on these sideshows to distract from their real work: dismantling the social safety net and enriching themselves and their associates.
Texans appear to be catching on to the grift. You can see this in polling on Texas voter priorities, which are gratingly misaligned with the messages Paxton and his compatriots are running on. In other words, the polls that should give Talarico supporters the most hope don’t have his name on them.
Immigration has been the overwhelming top issue for Republicans in Texas for a decade, with some polls showing it as the biggest concern for upwards of 60 percent of Republican voters. It was the top concern of over 40 percent of independents as recently as February 2024. Today, 23 percent of Republicans consider it the most pressing issue, and 11 percent of independents.
The new top priority, across the board: the economy, inflation, and higher prices. Polls break these categories out in different ways, but the findings are consistent. A UT/Texas Politics Project poll has tracked the number of Texans naming an economic issue as the most important problem facing the state compared to immigration. The graphs are almost perfect inversions: the economy in the single digits since 2016 or so, and then spiking to 33 percent for both Democrats and Republicans this summer, plus 39 percent of independents.
In a Texas Public Opinion Research poll asking voters to name their top two issues, 50 percent responded with affordability and cost of living as either their first (30 percent) or second choice (20 percent). Over 20 percent selected health care access as their first or second choice. Immigration isn’t even on their minds. Asked which candidate “would do more to tackle issues with cost-of-living and improve the financial situation of everyday Texans,” respondents said Talarico over Paxton, 48 percent to 38 percent. It’s difficult to score points off of Talarico’s fictitious barbecue order when voters are having trouble scraping up the cash for a plate of brisket: Beef prices in Texas have gone up by 80 percent since 2019.
I am not sure if Paxton can “migrant caravan” his way out of this.
THE VIBE SHIFT ENCOMPASSES every statewide race; they are all closer than any Democrat running in the last decade would dare to believe. Gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa is a state representative with $6 million in the bank running against Greg Abbott, a three-term incumbent with 99 percent name recognition and who entered the race with over $100 million to spend. Abbott has trounced every Democratic opponent by double digits, including O’Rourke in 2022. Yet polls show Hinojosa with an average deficit of just 3.2 points, with one poll calling it a tie and several at just one or two points.
Democrats are behind on the congressional generic ballot by less than three points, which is telling on its own, but I find the margins in non-marquee state races even more telling. A generic ballot is an abstraction, while picking out the state railroad commissioner is a real job you have to trust someone with. And according to an August Texas Public Opinion Research poll, Democrats are within the margin of error (+/- 3.3) in the races for lieutenant governor (47-41), attorney general (44-41), state comptroller (43-41), agriculture commissioner (44-40), land commissioner (44-40), and railroad commissioner (45-41). The most hopeful snapshot is from the race for lieutenant governor: A Texas A&M poll showed Democrat Vikki Goodwin ahead of incumbent Dan Patrick (also at the end of his third term) 48-46.
True, all these polls could turn out to be significant outliers. (The down-ballot races are not polled very often.) And true, over 50 percent of those surveyed in the favorable Goodwin poll felt they did not know enough about Goodwin to form an opinion. But the fuzziness around the data isn’t bad news—it’s an opportunity. Texas does not offer party-line voting, so those who tell a pollster they’re voting for the Democrat in the race for state comptroller will not be lost to a single pull of the lever. Much of the Texas electorate seems willing to abandon the GOP for the first acceptable Democratic candidate who comes along. And maybe the most encouraging thing that can be said of Talarico is that he is that acceptable candidate.
To look at what’s happening in Texas and conclude that Democrats need only to aim to be more attractive than the con men who’ve rooked the state into near economic collapse might feel deflating, and unfair to the many thousands of people who have been energized by Talarico’s message. It seems to minimize the hard work and clever strategies that Talarico and his campaign have brought to bear.
Talarico has done so much right, beyond leaping over the incredibly low bar set by Paxton. Talarico gins up constant volunteering events and rallies, does voter registration at those events, engages community outreach beyond mere campaigning; he has a vibrant social media presence, door-knocking teams, phone banks, savvy oppo drops.
Talarico’s campaign is disciplined and responsive. A somewhat contentious primary against Rep. Jasmine Crockett left questions about whether he would be able to excite Black voters; Talarico pledged $25 million in outreach. He has assiduously courted Latino voters, a group that swung away from Democrats in 2024 but seems to be coming home. He now leads Paxton among them by 17 points.
Talarico is also running a generally positive campaign, narrowly focusing his attacks on Paxton and not Republicans as a group. His whole presentation is that of a reasonable man: A persistent theme in his events is “unity over division.” One of his most popular T-shirts bears the biblically inflected threat “Time to start flipping tables,” but he is not a firebreather. On television, his faith-based messaging jettisons the table-flipping Jesus of Matthew 21 in favor of the Golden Rule Jesus of Matthew 22: “Love God, love your neighbor.” And Talarico really means all neighbors. “My party talks a lot about turning Texas blue. Republicans talk a lot about keeping Texas red,” he told a gathering of veterans in Killeen. “I think the best color for Texas is purple. I think she would look great in purple.”
Policy-wise, Talarico has gently feathered a bit of, let’s say, maroon into his proposals. He frames his affordability agenda around trust-busting language and targeting billionaires: break up the big health care companies, close tax loopholes. Republicans have made much of a Talarico quote from 2020 calling capitalism “oppressive,” but I suspect they might be doing Talarico’s work for him in that regard. Talarico has also reframed his past positions that showed support for transgender people, telling Fox News he opposes transgender girls playing in girls’ sports “if it endangers safety or fairness.”
All that abundant energy and desire, all that eloquence and charm, all that precise positioning—and as of the end of August, Talarico has led by an average of less than two points.
Lowering the floor of Republican support is the real difference between 2026 and 2018. That is an unsexy story because it suggests this race isn’t about Bible verses or Paxton swindles, puppies or pens, Texas barbecue or extramarital affairs. It suggests that character and charisma don’t matter. But this is just the first year in decades that’s close enough for character and charisma to make a difference.
Talarico’s wild fundraising advantage might yet shrink. Ted Cruz said on a podcast that he thought total spending would wind up around $200 million, a number that assumes things will even out. Something finally pushed the party out of resentment-based inertia and into something more like gritted-teeth resignation in early September. A Senate Leadership Fund–affiliated PAC announced it was kicking in $51 million toward promoting Paxton on the air, and an assortment of other GOP PACs committed another $23 million. President Trump ponied up $10 million from MAGA Inc., a figure impressive only in isolation from the $400 to $500 million total the president claimed to have on hand. One wonders if Trump has second thoughts about backing the marble-mouthed and charmless Paxton, judging by both the relatively tepid assistance and his extremely mid introduction of Paxton at the GOP’s midterm convention. “Some may not like the way he dresses. I don’t … He may not dress right. He may not talk exactly perfectly, and he may not be the best-looking guy I’ve ever seen.” But, Trump promised, “he’s the greatest attorney general in America, and he deserves to be your next senator.”
Later, Trump doubled down on the neg: “I don’t know if he’s gonna ever speak to me again, but you know, I don’t care as long as he wins. I really don’t care.”
Trump need not worry. Paxton is likely untroubled by these insults, if that’s what it takes to turn on the donation spigot. There is a lot of evidence that he’s compromised more than his ego when there was cash on the line.
I think a lot about what a cash injection could and couldn’t do for Paxton. He could broadcast a message that resonates beyond the hardest MAGA core. Or maybe Talarico’s attempts to tilt his remarks on gender closer to an imagined center just draw attention to an issue voters were prepared to ignore. Maybe Paxton will stumble onto an affordability policy that doesn’t sound like it’s for his country club friends. Maybe his new plan attacking data centers that use Chinese electronics will rev up the base. (A graphic about the plan was labeled “Made with AI” on X.) But even if the $200 million Paxton needs materializes, that won’t necessarily buy him a plan, and I don’t believe Paxton has much of a strategy beyond hoisting the tattered remnants of the culture war and expecting the once-reliable coalition to assemble.
Here’s what that money can’t change: the base-level distrust of the GOP seen in those statewide races. The lack of enthusiasm for Paxton beyond anyone but the most addled MAGA devotee. The split between what voters want and what Republicans know how to say can widen, and the floor of support that MAGA has built their movement on can crater. An environment in which Hinojosa is polling even with Abbott on a regular basis should provide even more comfort than another two points on Talarico’s lead.
I have lived through several Texas races where a well-funded and energetic Democrat loses to a lumpy Republican selling tax cuts and human rights abuses: O’Rourke against Cruz and Abbott twice, Colin Allred running against Cruz in 2024, even Wendy Davis for governor back in 2014 and again against Rep. Chip Roy in 2020. Money has yet to make enough of a difference.
LOCKHART IS THE SELF-PROCLAIMED barbecue capital of the world (I am sure there are many others). Kaily Stewart, chair of the Caldwell County Democrats, notes that prior to the rally she had lunch with Talarico at Terry Black’s Barbecue and that she can attest, “James Talarico is not a vegan!”
The crowd cheers.
The meeting hall we’re in is hot and almost damp. Jen and I look around for the water the campaign promised, but they’ve run out. (Every other event I attend after this has cases and cases of water on hand. Lesson learned.)
Jen tells me that though she loved Beto, listening to Talarico has made her aware of his faults: “Beto said things that every Democrat said.” With Talarico, she hears something more aspirational and ineffable, the way he reminds people of the commandment to love your neighbor as you love yourself. “I mean, anyone brave enough to talk about love in this day and age …” She tilts her head meaningfully.
Jen believes that spiritually minded Republicans will cross over to vote for Talarico. Without thinking about it, I say that would be a miracle. She smiles serenely: “I’m praying for one.”
This article appears in Oct 2026 Issue.
