James Talarico Opens His Biggest Lead Ever In Texas Senate Poll
A new poll of the Texas US Senate race reveals Democratic candidate James Talarico leading by five points as Republican Ken Paxton is toxic even to his own party.
Because Texas Republicans have spent decades suppressing the vote and making conditions difficult for any Democrat to win statewide, I have been skeptical of James Talarico’s chances of pulling off an upset in the Texas US Senate race. There is a reason why a Democrat has not won a statewide office in Texas since 1994.
It is not because there haven’t been any good Democrats, or that Texas is that conservative. There is also a structural dynamic that involves Republicans in Texas building an election system that favors their voters.
For a Democrat to break through and win statewide, they need more than just all Democrats, Independents, and Latino voters.
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The perfect storm for Democrats in Texas will come when some white and non-college educated voters who have been voting Republican flip.
The weakness in the Texas voter suppression system is that it assumes white voters will stay overwhelmingly Republican, but what happens is that a percentage of those voters decide that they have had enough and vote for a Democrat.
We may be about to find out, and it could be one of the most exciting developments anywhere in the 2026 midterm election.
