It has been 33 years since a Democrat represented Texas in the U.S. Senate. In 1993, Sen. Robert C. Krueger — who was appointed as interim Senator after his predecessor resigned — was routed by Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison in a 34 percentage point loss. Nor is the Senate an outlier: Texans have chosen a Republican governor and presidential candidate for each race since 1994. Besides Democratic Congressman Beto O’Rourke’s narrow loss for a Senate seat in 2018, a Democratic Senate victory in the state has remained a distant prospect.
Despite all of this, poll after poll is showing promise for James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for Senate on the ballot this November. Six out of the last seven major polls had Talarico ahead by at least two percentage points. Talarico, a former middle school teacher and current state representative, has Democrats hopeful for a blue wave in a solidly red state. Meanwhile, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Republican senatorial candidate who unseated incumbent Sen. John Cornyn by a large margin in a primary runoff in May, has seen his campaign plagued by scandal.
The competitiveness of this election in Texas may signal the weakness of the Republican Party in Texas and throughout the country this midterm cycle — perhaps an expected fate with President Trump’s approval rating hovering in the high 30s. More importantly, though, it reflects that the desires of the American electorate are changing on both the right and the left. As a training ground for both parties leading up to the 2028 presidential election and potentially the most expensive Senate race in U.S. history, Texas’s Senate race is uncertain in outcome but certain in impact.
Talarico fought his way through a competitive primary to secure the Democratic nomination for Senate. His opponent, Rep. Jasmine Crockett, led in the polls for the majority of the race and enjoyed wide name recognition as an outspoken critic of President Trump. The primary was tense and rife with personal attacks, with Talarico accused of anti-Black statements, which he denied, and Crockett portrayed as an unelectable candidate due to her fiery and unfiltered rhetoric, such as calling Governor Greg Abbott, who uses a wheelchair, “Governor Hot Wheels.” After the primary, Crockett referred to the contest as a “racist race” and has not endorsed Talarico for the general election.
The Republican primary was just as rife with partisan infighting. Sen. John Cornyn, who has been in office since 2002 and an elected official for more than four decades, struggled in his fifth Senate election cycle. He narrowly led Paxton in the March primary, but fell short of the 50% needed to avoid a runoff. It is rare for a sitting senator to lose in a primary election, especially in the case of one as historically successful as Cornyn. However, Paxton is not new to elected office, having served in both chambers of the Texas Legislature beginning in 2002 before becoming Attorney General in 2015. After staying out of the race for more than a year, President Trump endorsed Paxton in May, citing his greater loyalty and status as a “MAGA warrior.” Whether throughTrump’s endorsement or a message that resonated more with Texas Republicans, Paxton overcame a significant deficit in fundraising to rout Cornyn by 27 points in the runoff.
Despite Paxton’s strong performance in the primary, some Republicans are hesitant to rally around him due to a scandal-ridden past. In 2015, he was indicted for felony securities fraud charges, a case that ended in a plea deal in 2024 under which he paid roughly $270,000 in restitution. In 2020, several of Paxton’s aides accused him of obstruction of justice, harassment, bribery, and abuse of office, which led to his impeachment in the Texas House; the Texas Senate acquitted him on all articles. His wife, State Senator Angela Paxton, filed for divorce last year “on biblical grounds,” citing adultery. She is nonetheless still publicly encouraging voters to support her former spouse.
President Trump and many other prominent Republicans have doubled down on their support of Paxton. In a Truth Social post on Oct. 15th, Trump called Cornyn “WEAK and INEFFECTIVE” and blamed him for a potential Paxton loss, criticizing the lack of support from Cornyn and other Republicans nationwide. Paxton has struggled to fundraise, which is leaving many GOP members frustrated by the need to divert funds from other competitive races to support Paxton in a state that Donald Trump won in 2024 by almost 14 percentage points.
In addition to his personal history, Paxton’s alignment with MAGA policies during a time when President Trump is the most unpopular he has ever been could be adding to instability. Seen as further right than Cornyn in the primary, Paxton has embraced a MAGA orthodoxy that appeals less to most independent or undecided voters. This growing unpopularity of the MAGA agenda is reflected in the fact that many other Republican candidates for Senate in states like Kansas, Iowa, and Ohio — three states Trump won in 2024 by more than 10 points — are also facing tight races with their Democratic opponents this cycle. The combination of a messy personal life, lack of unity within the Republican Party, and an allegiance to a sputtering MAGA movement has made Paxton a more vulnerable candidate in what has for decades been considered a safe Republican seat.
The closeness of this race should not, however, be solely attributed to the complications of Paxton’s campaign. James Talarico is part of a new cohort of Democrats who have decided that the party’s path back to winning over working-class voters hinges on an economics-forward platform that prioritizes economic issues over cultural ones.
This model was first tested in Nov. 2025, when gubernatorial candidates Abigail Spanberger in Virginia and Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey, as well as mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani in New York City, all campaigned with affordability as their main focus, and all won comfortably. Exit polls from ABC News showed that the majority of voters in these races were highly concerned about the cost of living when evaluating candidates. These three politicians are ideologically diverse — Spanberger and Sherrill are moderates while Mamdani is a democratic socialist — but what unites them is their emphasis on addressing the problem rather than the particulars of the solution.
This pattern has extended into this year. In Maine, Graham Platner won the Democratic nomination for Senate with more than 70%of the vote, while running on Medicare for All and a federal billionaires’ tax with labor union backing. Though he has since dropped out of the race, Democrats replaced him with Troy Jackson, who has run on an explicitly working-class message like Platner. In Iowa, Democratic gubernatorial nominee Rob Sand has framed his campaign as a coalition of “the well-fed versus the fed-up.” In Nebraska, independent Dan Osborn is bringing a working-class, populist campaign to a close race in a state Trump won by 20 points in 2024.
Talarico’s economic policies, dubbed the “New American Dream,” focus on critiques of the billionaire class, anti-corruption, and the rising cost of living — just like many of these other candidates. His platform includes raising the minimum wage, instituting universal childcare and family leave, providing down payment assistance to first-time homebuyers, and expanding the child tax credit, amongst other policies. Talarico’s focus on corruption and affordability fuses material grievance with anti-establishment anger. In some ways similar to Donald Trump’s promise in 2016 to “drain the swamp,” an anti-establishment platform is appealing to new cohorts of voters.
Talarico also centers his Christian faith in his campaign, which has broad appeal in a state where about two-thirds of the population identify as Christian. His faith and his economic message reinforce each other: Telling voters it is time to “start flipping tables,” he invokes Jesus overturning the tables of merchants profiting off the Temple, a story that maps neatly onto his attacks on billionaire influence. At the same time, Talarico is a vocal opponent of Christian nationalism, a stance that has led Paxton to accuse him of not being a real Christian.
Talarico’s strategy has led to his portrayal as a “radical leftist” by the GOP. In a Fox News poll of likely voters, 53% stated they were worried Talarico is too liberal. At the same time, Talarico’s statements on protecting the oil and gas industry, opposition to abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and avoidance of campaigning with Bernie Sanders have drawn some criticism from progressives. Either way, the efficacy of a working-class, economically focused campaign to appeal across party lines is still unproven in Texas.
Texans will soon decide whether a 33-year streak comes to an end. No matter the outcome of this race, it has become clear that the status quo is no longer desirable to many discontented Americans. Leading up to the 2028 election cycle, both parties are scrambling to find the most viable candidate for the White House, and this race will offer many lessons on that front. For Democrats, it could bring hope to turn some traditionally red states more purple with a focus on economics rather than culture. For Republicans, it could signal an end to over a decade of party dominance by Donald Trump. And for voters everywhere, Texas is sending a message that no seat is truly safe in a rapidly changing political climate with the cost of living on the ballot.
Staff Director
