I’ve been involved in my share of odd U.S. Senate races ever since my first in 1992, when I worked on the reelection campaign of New York Sen. Alfonse D’Amato, who won a difficult reelection by a 1.25 percent margin. But this year’s Texas Senate race is certain to be among the strangest on record.
With Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton trouncing incumbent Sen. John Cornyn for the GOP nomination in Tuesday’s run-off contest, the stage is set for November’s general election, when Paxton will face Democrat James Talarico, a four-term statehouse representative from Austin.
At this point in the race, the tea leaves are difficult to read. As attorney general, Paxton has won three statewide elections, the narrowest margin of victory being 3.5 percent eight years ago. He won by 10 points in his last outing in 2022, and by a whopping 21 percent in his first run for AG. He has a nearly universal name ID in Texas and a substantial voter base.
That’s not to say he’s without vulnerabilities. Paxton had to fight off a 20-count impeachment effort in 2023, and a Republican-led House voted overwhelmingly to impeach him before he was acquitted in the state Senate. Last year, Paxton’s wife filed for divorce on “biblical grounds,” alleging adultery in the proceedings. While impeachment and accusations of adultery are nothing new in campaign politics and not necessarily fatal, nobody wants to carry that kind of baggage.
Paxton’s opponent has a different kind of baggage. Within hours of Talarico winning the March 3 Democrat Senate primary, a raft of videos surfaced showing him making public comments: about how God is non-binary; how there are six biological sexes; how Jesus Christ helps him deal with his whiteness and masculinity; and how the Bible supports his pro-abortion views. With videos like these, Republican campaign ads write themselves, and Texans have already seen one such spot.
Talarico leans heavily on his interpretation of Christianity, and reminiscences of his grandfather as a Baptist minister have been a fixture in his stump speeches. Talarico also used to be a seminarian, suspending his theological studies to run for the Senate after disparaging Christian Nationalism, whatever that is, as “the worship of power.”
Transgender ideology is certain to be an issue in this election. When asked by a podcaster what he loves aside from family or friends, Talarico replied, “I love — I’m just saying this because it’s on my mind — the trans children.” Contrast Talarico’s love of trans children with Paxton securing a $10 million settlement from Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston for illegally conducting surgical, hormonal and chemical procedures on minors in pursuit of affirming gender delusions. The settlement also forces Texas Children’s to create the nation’s first de-transition clinic. Paxton called the mid-May settlement “a monumental day in the fight to stop the radical transgender movement.”
There are plenty of cultural cross-currents in this election cycle because two-thirds of Texas voters identify as Christians. They could turn against Paxton because of his presumed infidelity and questions about his conduct in office. They could also turn against Talarico because he doesn’t recognize God the Father and, in the estimation of many evangelicals, twists scripture to support his leftist agenda.
Voter enthusiasm among their respective bases is also difficult to reckon. Talarico, by virtue of being a Democrat, is the anti-Trump who can mobilize his party’s No Kings/Code Pink constituency. But it’s uncertain whether Talarico’s unapologetic profession of faith, unorthodox as it may be, will be off-putting to the more left-leaning voters in his base who are not prone to opening their mostly peaceful protests with prayer and calls to love thy neighbor.
Paxton has the endorsement of President Trump, who is likely to visit Texas and campaign for him, effectively putting Trump on the ballot and presumably driving more MAGA Republicans to the polls. But Paxton faces challenges within the GOP base. Presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton enjoyed political success following impeachment, and other politicians have survived questions of infidelity. But critics could portray Paxton’s difficulties as more akin to the Democrat Party than the Republican establishment. Paxton also needs to mend fences with the hundreds of thousands of Republicans who voted for Cornyn, who see in him a moderating figure in the Senate.
Democrats believe Talarico is the answer to their dreams of turning Texas blue and poaching a Senate seat, while Republicans are convinced that Paxton is more Texas than his opponent could ever be. But the nature of politics is uncertainty, particularly in an election as weird as this one. At this early stage of the campaign, the race is essentially a jump ball and in the words of the great philosopher Yogi Berra, "It ain't over till it's over.”