Texas has long been a tease for Democrats. While it used to reliably elect Democrats to major offices, in the mid-1990s, it swung sharply to the right and since then has consistently elected Republicans to statewide positions. Democrats have felt that they had a chance to regain ground in previous election cycles but after some glimmers of hope, Republicans were able to beat back the challenges.
This year seems to provide one of the best chances to get a US senate seat with James Talarico competing against Ken Paxton. Paxton is widely viewed as a weak candidate, who is scandal-plagued on many fronts both major and minor, public and personal, in addition to having a lackluster personality. While being a state official on a $153,000 salary, he has managed to acquire 15 properties and has refused to give an accounting. Since he is the Texas attorney general, no charges were filed against him. Republicans would have had a much better chance if they had renominated incumbent senator John Cornyn but Trump, out of a sense of pique because Cornyn was not totally servile to him, threw his weight behind Paxton and got him the nomination.
One sign of how much Republicans are worried about the Talarico challenge is that they threatened ABC and its affiliate stations if they broadcast the interview that Jimmy Kimmel had scheduled with Talarico for Wednesday. The interview still went ahead but Kimmel put it on their YouTube channel and you can see it below. Talarico comes across as a good candidate, espousing solidly progressive stances. And because of the controversy that the ban created, the Streisand Effect kicked in and now nearly six million people watched the interview.
In his monologue leading up to the interview, Kimmel laid into Trump and his lackey at the FCC Brendan Carr while also ridiculing Trump’s lies about how the arena in Texas was packed for his speech when there were clearly large numbers of empty seats.
Trump spent the previous night posting on Truth Social, disputing all evidence that the Dallas arena was less than crowded. “He is so embarrassingly desperate to convince us that the place was packed. He even tried to convince the people in the place that it was packed,” Kimmel laughed before a montage of Trump saying “the place is packed” or “nobody has left,” among numerous other comments about his audience size, including “please, if you don’t mind, don’t anybody go to the bathroom,” lest the media take a picture of an empty seat. “Easy for you to say, you’re the only one wearing a diaper,” Kimmel retorted.
The host then played a clip of the half-empty arena itself, at the moment Trump asserted that it was still jam-packed. “Could there be a better metaphor for this presidency than him bragging about the size of his crowd to a bunch of empty seats? I don’t think so!
“That arena was as empty as a Waymo,” he added. “But his must be high-ness has so many trembling flunkies around him willing to corroborate his constant bullshit, why would he even bother to tell the truth?”
You can see the full monologue.
But there is also a race for Texas governor and Democrat Gina Hinojosa is giving incumbent Greg Abbott, who has held the position since 2015, a strong challenge.
A new poll shows the Texas governor’s race has swung to a dead heat — erasing the lead Gov. Greg Abbott had held over his Democratic challenger for months.
The N+ Univision Sept. 9 poll showed the Republican incumbent and Democrat Gina Hinojosa tied at 47%, with 5% undecided, and was released the day Republicans convened in Texas for their first midterm convention.
The poll also showed that Democrat state Rep. James Talarico has a narrow edge over Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, 48% to 43%, with 7% undecided in the Texas Senate race.
…Overall, the N+ Univision poll showed that since the 2024 election, Texas voters have shifted 8 points more toward Democrats, with 25% saying they have become more supportive of Democrats and 17% saying they have become more supportive of Republicans.
Among Hispanic voters, the shift is even larger, at 11 points. The single most-cited reason for changing views was President Donald Trump’s actions as president, named by 25% of voters in the poll and 24% of Hispanic voters.
Hinojosa is still very much an underdog.
“While it used to reliably elect Democrats to major offices, in the mid-1990s, it swung sharply to the right and since then has consistently elected Republicans to statewide positions.”
I think this is a misunderstanding of Texans’ intent. Texas has never stopped being a Confederate state. Wikipedia has an interesting page titled “United States presidential elections in Texas” that pretty conclusively shows that Texas nearly always voted Democrat until Nixon and Reagan made them understand that most of the White Supremacists had migrated to the Republicans.
From that Wiki page: “In its first century, Texas was a Democratic bastion in the mold of the “Solid South”, only voting for another party once–– in 1928, when anti-Catholic sentiment against Democratic nominee Al Smith drove Texas’ largely-Protestant electorate to back Republican Herbert Hoover. A gradual trend towards increasing social liberalism in the Democratic Party, however, has turned the state into generally a Republican stronghold. Since 1980, Texas has voted for the Republican nominee in every presidential election.”
This ignores the two Eisenhower elections, but I think that is a special case. Both the Dems and the GOP asked him to be their candidate. In 1972, Texas leaned very slightly toward Humphrey, as LBJ’s successor, 41% to 40%, but it also gave 19% to George Wallace, and then Texans reelected Nixon with 66%. In 1976, Texas gave the Southern Democrat, Jimmy Carter the nod over Gerald Ford, badly wounded due to pardoning Nixon, but even then it was a pretty tepid nod: 51% to 48%.
Every time since, it has been Republican all the way. No ‘swinging’ detected.
Sorry, the Humphrey election was in 1968.
There is also a chance the Paxton/Talarico race will be an outlier because Paxton is such a bad candidate. Corrupt in multiple ways and should be in court over several issues but the Republicans nominated him anyway. Paxton being a tight contest may not say much about the state trending left, rather it may indicate there is a limit to how corrupt a politician Texans will tolerate.