Our Best Stuff on the Texas Senate Race

Trump Bypasses Nancy Mace, Endorses Pam Evette in South Carolina's Governor’s Race

Mace: ‘No regrets’ on Epstein files vote after Trump endorses rival in SC gov race

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) said on Saturday that she has “no regrets” about her decision to push for the release of files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, even after President Trump endorsed her challenger in the upcoming GOP primary for South Carolina governor. “I voted to release the Epstein files. NO REGRETS,” Mace…

Appeals Court Revives Texas Immigration Law Allowing Arrests on Suspicion

Civil rights groups warn the immigration law could lead to racial profiling and family separations.

Talarico leads Paxton by 3 points in Texas Senate race post-runoff poll

The Democratic candidate in the Texas Senate race has a slight edge over his Republican opponent in a new poll released Friday.   Forty-seven percent of likely general election voters in the state backed state Rep. James Talarico (D) in the poll from Texas Public Opinion Research, compared with 44 percent for Texas Attorney General Ken…

Texas GOP Primary Upends Senate Race

Attorney General Ken Paxton benefited from a late endorsement from President Donald Trump and enthusiasm from Republicans’ MAGA voters to a historic blowout victory in the Senate primary runoff over incumbent John Cornyn. Bloomberg News Texas Bureau Chief Julie Fine and The New York Times Texas Bureau Chief David Goodman joined Christina Ruffini and David Gura on Bloomberg This Weekend to discuss how hard will the Republican establishment rally behind him after backing Cornyn in a bitter campaign that burned through more than $100 million? Many GOP leaders had argued that Paxton would be a weaker nominee because of his past legal and personal woes. But Senator Ted Cruz and Governor Greg Abbott quickly came out with statements supporting him. His opponent in November will be James Talarico, who’s been building his war chest since winning the Democratic primary outright in March. (Source: Bloomberg)

What it means to be a man is a theme in Texas Senate race as Paxton attacks Talarico

Soon after winning the Texas Republican Senate primary runoff, Ken Paxton attacked Democratic nominee, state Rep. James Talarico as "too low-T for Texas," putting manhood front and center in the race.

GOP's anti-"woke" playbook faces ultimate test in Texas

The Texas Senate race has become a national laboratory for anti-"woke" politics, testing whether voters still recoil from the language of 2020 amid the economic pain of 2026.Why it matters: Republicans came away from 2024 convinced they had won more than an election — they had broken through on culture, turning Democrats' progressive language and identity politics into symbols of elite detachment.The durability of that culture-war coup is now an open question, as the GOP tries to redeploy the same playbook in a far more hostile midterm environment.Zoom in: Texas has produced a Senate race in which both parties see the other nominee as the perfect caricature of everything voters hate about the opposition.For Republicans: Texas state Rep. James Talarico offers the dream target — a young, viral progressive whose old comments can be stripped of context and turned into a one-man museum of "woke" Democratic excess.Republicans have seized on Talarico's 2021 floor speech declaring that "God is nonbinary," along with past comments on racism, whiteness and trans children, to cast him as a radical disguised as a Texas preacher.The attacks already are veering into sexuality- and masculinity-coded territory: Talarico's opponent, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, has mocked him as "Low-T," while White House adviser Stephen Miller falsely labeled him as Democrats' "first transgender Senate candidate."Talarico has conceded that he "missed the mark" on some "cringey comments," while insisting his underlying principles — that "racism is immoral and wrong" and that "trans people deserve dignity and equality" — flow from his Christian faith.For Democrats: Paxton is a scandal-scarred Trump ally whose legal and ethical baggage could turn even a red-state Senate race into a referendum on Republican corruption.Paxton was impeached by the GOP-led Texas House in 2023 — then acquitted by the Texas Senate — over allegations that he abused his office to benefit a donor.He spent nearly a decade under indictment on fraud charges before reaching a pretrial deal in 2024, and has been plagued by whistleblower claims, a now-closed federal corruption probe and a very public divorce tied to allegations of adultery.Talarico's campaign wants to make Paxton the face of Republican impunity — arguing that his scandals are not distractions from the race, but the clearest evidence of what the GOP has become.Between the lines: Republicans believe Texas will prove the anti-"woke" playbook still works. Democrats believe prices, Paxton and two years of Trump have changed the terms of the fight.An influx of new residents — plus signs of buyer's remorse among Latinos who backed Trump — has cracked open a once-unthinkable Democratic scenario: Texas as the path to a Senate majority.Flashback: The Trump campaign's most memorable 2024 attack ad turned trans rights into a broad indictment of Democratic priorities, ending with the now-famous tagline: "Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you."Testing by Harris' top super PAC found the ad — which highlighted her 2019 support for taxpayer-funded gender-transition surgeries for prisoners and detained immigrants — moved viewers 2.7 points toward Trump.The big picture: The ad worked because it converted one obscure policy position into a sweeping theory of Democratic "wokeness": a party fluent in elite cultural language, but alien to voters' daily lives.But it didn't work in isolation: The Biden administration's handling of inflation, immigration and affordability were already making Democrats look out of touch before "they/them" gave the GOP the perfect slogan.Today, those forces have flipped: Trump is now 52 points underwater on inflation, turning the economy from a tailwind into the central threat to his party's midterm survival.The bottom line: Texas will be the ultimate test of whether the GOP's anti-"woke" strategy can survive the transition from insurgency to incumbency.

Democrats have fresh hope to win back Senate – could they really pull it off?

North Carolina, Ohio, Maine and Alaska are key targets for a party bullish after a bruising Republican primary in TexasAfter Texas Republicans chose the beleaguered attorney general, Ken Paxton, as their party’s nominee for US Senate on Tuesday, Democrats are feeling bullish that they could pull off a victory in the red-leaning state – and maybe win back the Senate in this year’s midterm elections.Paxton – whose history includes an impeachment, fraud charges and an alleged affair – beat incumbent John Cornyn after receiving Trump’s blessing in the most expensive primary this year. In November he will face James Talarico, a young state lawmaker and pastor, who won the Democratic primary amid a rising national profile. Continue reading...