Look, I get it. Democrats have been burned by hopes for a Texas miracle so many times that it feels risky to place stock in this year’s Senate race. But a new poll of the contest from The New York Times finds a dead heat, with Democrat James Talarico and Republican Ken Paxton each earning 47 percent of likely voters. In short: This is a real race. In Texas.
Some have reacted with consternation to this poll, because previous ones had Talarico slightly up. This is, in my view, the wrong reaction. The Times poll is the gold standard—if this survey finds a tie, the race truly is a dead heat, meaning it’s actually winnable for Talarico. This was always going to be close. It will be very hard for Talarico to win. But it’s doable.
Talarico’s candidacy is an object lesson in what happens when liberals speak forcefully on behalf of what they truly believe—and here the Times poll sheds some light. For instance: Majorities of Texas voters say Talarico has “good character” and “the right moral values,” whereas majorities don’t say that of Paxton. And more see Paxton as extreme (49 percent) than see Talarico (43 percent) that way.
What should we make of this? Paxton and the entire GOP-MAGA apparatus are spending enormous sums of money to tar Talarico as unmasculine based on his previous positions on gender and religion. Talarico has walked back some of them. But, critically, he hasn’t done this fearfully and defensively.
Instead, Talarico has characterized the criticism as ludicrously trivial, and has highlighted how absurd it is for Paxton—who has a long trail of corrupt and adulterous conduct—to criticize the manhood of others. His tone toward Paxton has been one of incredulity: This corrupt lowlife is claiming he’s a man’s man and a good Christian? This guy? Seriously?
Meanwhile, Talarico has offered up a vision of masculinity that’s rooted in rectitude and integrity, in showing loyalty to neighbors (including immigrants—i.e., showing loyalty when it’s politically hard), in selflessly serving the community, and in protecting the vulnerable, all of it rooted in his own Christian faith.
Along those lines, here’s another striking Times finding: Talarico is leading by 27 points, 58–31, among independents. That’s probably too rosy, but it’s instructive. The real GOP game plan is to smear Talarico as a vaguely alien (read: homosexual) figure who isn’t one of “us” Texans. Talarico’s response is to be forthright on what he really believes—to say what he means and mean what he says—while tarring Paxton as the person of truly low character. For now, it’s appealing to independents. The poll also finds Talarico winning 9 percent of Trump voters.
It would be wildly premature to conclude from this poll that all this is working sufficiently to win Texas. Talarico will get bludgeoned by hundreds of millions of dollars in attack ads. And the poll shows Paxton holds a huge lead in areas of the state outside the big urban centers. Talarico is badly trailing among working-class whites, and he’s eight points behind among all working-class voters.
Still, there’s cause for optimism here. To win, Talarico needs some Trump voters and a lot of independents. He’s on track to do that, though he’ll have to win more working- class voters and cut into Paxton’s non-metro margins. While the Democratic brand is tarnished here (53 percent say the party is too far left), Talarico is mostly escaping that.
Winning in Texas also requires running up huge totals in the Latino-heavy border counties—and here the poll delivers another surprise. Talarico is trouncing Paxton among Latinos by 61–29, or 32 points. This is a big deal. Trump’s success at winning Texas Latinos fueled all the post-2024 talk of a major realignment. But those gains have evaporated, even in Texas.
What happened? Well, Trump’s mass deportations, for starters. Texas voters approve of Trump on immigration by a bare 50–49: not great for this deep-red border state. But Latinos disapprove by an extraordinary 64–33, with 60 percent disapproving strongly. That’s remarkable—it helps explain how Trump squandered those Latino gains.
Trump is hovering over all of this. The Times poll finds his overall approval underwater at 44–52. He’s faring worse on the economy (43–55), the cost of living (39–60), and the war (41–57). Those numbers are quite bad for Texas. And it gives Talarico an opening in another sense.
As I argued last month, Talarico and a number of other Democrats are developing a new moral language for the era of “late-stage Trumpism.” The broad idea of a new politics is gaining traction: E.J. Dionne and Jennifer Szalai both have good pieces detailing how Democrats are embracing a newly moralized politics. They’re talking about the common good, depicting corruption as a moral scourge, and casting both liberalism and democracy as ways of life rooted in ethical public conduct, in mutual respect among differing citizens.
Yet one central ingredient to this should be an indictment of the moral and spiritual rot that MAGA has inflicted on our common life. This can coexist with good-faith outreach to Republicans and even some Trump voters.
Here’s where late-stage Trumpism comes in. All that’s left is the corruption, the self-enrichment, the naked cruelty, the ethnonationalism, the upward transfer of oligarchic wealth, and the stoking of petty enmities as political blood sport.
I don’t know how directly Talarico can criticize Trump by name—a majority says Talarico will “oppose Trump too much.” But he’s facing a candidate who perfectly exemplifies the very worst of MAGA, and most people just want to get past MAGA’s nonstop degradations already. Talarico needs to speak to that MAGA fatigue without appearing too partisan. It’s a tall order: Winning in Texas will be hard. But even if he comes close, it’ll suggest that a new politics is emerging from all the wreckage.
