With the race between Republican Ken Paxton and Democrat James Talarico for John Cornyn’s Senate seat underway, it is clear to see the main strategies of each candidate: Paxton is focusing on Talarico’s views on the rights of transgender individuals, while Talarico is charging Paxton with personal and official corruption. The polls currently show Paxton and Talarico in a neck-and-neck race. The outcome will depend on which is stronger—public acceptance of Talarico’s nuanced views on intersex children, or public forgiveness of Paxton’s record. In a predominantly Republican state, Paxton probably has the advantage.
To date, the main strategy of Paxton and the GOP is to attack Talarico’s views on human sexuality by emphasizing his personal lifestyle and his record as a state representative on the rights of the transgendered.
To the open-minded, Talarico may seem to be someone with no personal skeletons in his closet. At 37, Talarico is single and childless. However, even though he apparently has a girlfriend, the GOP is trying to indicate that there’s something strange about him, which makes him less of a real man, especially because Talarico does, in fact, share a bank account with his mother (or “mommy,” as Paxton’s supporters and Fox News hosts like to say). Paxton and his supporters have called him “Talafreako” and “Low T.” One of President Trump’s top assistants, Stephen Miller, has even called him “transgendered.” One must wonder if Talarico might have been less vulnerable to attacks on his personal life if he had had multiple marriages, affairs, and divorces, while telling his mother to bug off.
More troublesome for Talarico is his record as a state representative. He once said that “The one thing I want us all to be aware of is that modern science obviously recognizes that there are many more than two biological sexes: In fact, there are six.” Moreover, in 2023, Talarico did indeed vote against 2023 SB 14, which banned gender-affirming care for minors. Paxton has thus called Talarico “6-gender Jimmy” and has charged he supports sex change operations for minors.
Talarico has responded that he really does believe in only 2 sexes, male and female, and actually opposes sex change operations for minors. He simply wanted to acknowledge the reality that in a tiny percentage of cases (estimates range between 0.018 and 1.17%), children will be born with certain chromosomal anomalies—xxy or xyy, for example—which make them difficult to classify as male or female, and that his opposition to SB 14 was because he wanted to support the right of these “intersexual” children to receive proper medical care appropriate to their conditions. Whether his explanation, however medically sound it may be, will gain traction or be lost amid Paxton’s charges of “flip-flopping” remains to be seen.
Talarico’s main strategy to date has been to attack Paxton as personally and professionally corrupt, reminding voters that Paxton is an adulterer who has faced federal charges of security fraud and has been impeached for corruption in office. But while Talarico has plenty of evidence to back up his charges, he may not be as successful as he hopes in making those charges stick.
The Christian right in Texas and elsewhere has frequently defended President Trump against charges of personal and official corruption by saying that God uses imperfect men to achieve His perfect will, with King David a prime example. After all, King David went so far as to arrange for the death of Uriah so he could have Bathsheba. No doubt the same defense of Trump will be made of Paxton as well. More secular Republicans have tended to put achievement of MAGA policy goals ahead of ethical concerns. Besides, the federal case against Paxton was settled, leaving Paxton with no criminal record, and he was acquitted of all charges for which he was impeached.
So who will prevail? It’s too early to say. Had Republican voters renominated Cornyn, the race would already be over by now, and Cornyn would be preparing to round out his fourth term in the Senate and begin his fifth. It’s telling that the polls are showing so far a dead heat between Paxton and Talarico. The fact that they’re statistically tied—the latest polling reports Paxton with 43% of the vote to Talarico’s 42%—reflects abnormal strength for Talarico and abnormal weakness for Paxton, at least at this stage of the campaign.
Nonetheless, the single most important factor determining who votes for whom is party identification. Although Paxton’s ethical challenges have been well known since he first ran for attorney general in 2014, he has nonetheless won three consecutive statewide races so far as a Republican. On the other hand, no Democrat has won a statewide contest since 1994, or a U.S. Senate seat since 1988. So in a race in a strongly Republican state between a Democrat who must defend a nuanced and counterintuitive stand on a controversial issue, and a Republican whose party puts the achievement of policy goals over adherence to high ethical standards, Paxton has the better chance of prevailing.
Malcolm L. Cross has lived in Stephenville since 1987 and taught politics and government at Tarleton for 36 years, retiring in 2023. His political and civic activities include service on the Stephenville City Council (2000-2014) and on the Erath County Republican Executive Committee (1990-2024). He was Mayor pro-tem of Stephenville from 2008 to 2014. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Stephenville Economic Development Authority since 2018, and as chair of the Erath County Appraisal District’s Appraisal Review Board since 2015. He is also a member of the Stephenville Rotary Club, the Board of Vestry of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, and the Executive Committee of the Boy Scouts’ Pecan Valley District. Views expressed in this column are his and do not reflect those of The Flash as a whole.
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