On this weekend before the upcoming midterm election, polls show a statistical tie between Senate candidates Ken Paxton and James Talarico. Each candidate still has a chance of winning on 11/3 because of the flaws of his opponent. Paxton’s character flaws give Talarico a real chance to be the first Democrat elected to the U. S. Senate from Texas since 1988, while Talarico’s beliefs on transgenderism and religion nonetheless limit his appeal to Texas voters otherwise repelled by Paxton, and thus give Paxton a better chance of winning the election than might otherwise be the case. Whoever wins the Senate election Tuesday will have significant baggage not desirable for public servants.
Voters in general elections normally prefer candidates known (or at least thought to be) fundamentally honest over those they believe to be corrupt. And they normally support candidates considered ideologically moderate over those they consider extremists. But voters in primaries and especially runoffs are much more ideologically driven. They may consider a candidate’s beliefs to be more important than his personal character. Or they may vote to nominate someone whose views they like yet who may seem to be too extreme for general election voters. So what can happen when one party’s voters nominate a candidate whose views they like despite questions about his character, while the other party’s voters nominate a candidate whose views they like but whom others consider too extreme?
Public opinion polls have been showing James Talarico a few points ahead of Ken Paxton, albeit frequently within the margin of error. Hence, one can rationally conclude that the race is too close to call, and that either candidate has a strong chance of winning the Senate election on Tuesday.
But this shouldn’t be the case. Had John Cornyn been renominated for senator last spring, the election would have been considered all but over by now, with Cornyn preparing for a new term in the Senate and Talarico resigning himself to the obscurity from which he emerged, and never to be heard from again. (Does anyone know whom Cornyn vanquished in 2002, 2008, 2014, or 2020? Does anyone care?) Yet Cornyn was able to secure only 38% of the Republican vote in the May Republican runoff. The voters preferred Paxton, with his record of uncompromising hard-edged conservatism and support for President Trump, to Cornyn, who showed occasional ideological lapses, such as his support for mild gun control laws after the Uvalde mass murders and his expressed willingness to work with Democrats on that issue. Also, Cornyn had once suggested, before Trump’s return to the White House in 2024, that Trump should retire from active politics. Indeed, so repelled were GOP runoff voters by Cornyn’s apostasy that they were willing to overlook what might otherwise have been seen as weaknesses in Paxton so great as to disqualify him from public support for elective office.
Paxton’s chief weakness as a candidate is his personal character. He is an adulterer who has been credibly charged with (although not convicted of) serious financial crimes, as well as numerous instances of misconduct as Attorney General. The Texas House of Representatives voted 121 to 23 to impeach him after he sought $3.3 million dollars from the legislature to settle a lawsuit brought by whistleblowers whom he had fired after they reported alleged acts of corruption to the FBI (all 60 House Democrats supported his impeachment, as did 61 of the 84 Republicans present and voting). However, while all 12 of the Democrats in the State Senate voted to convict and remove him from office, all but 2 of the Senate Republicans voted to acquit him, thereby allowing him to remain Attorney General.
Yet Paxton’s candidacy remains viable partly because of the strength of the Texas GOP among voters. The single greatest factor that determines whom a voter will support is party. In ruby-red Texas, this automatically gives Paxton a significant source of strength.
And then there are the flaws, some imaginary but some real, in Talarico.
Once Talarico won the Democratic primary, Paxton and his supporters ridiculed Talarico as a single and childless man who shared a joint checking account with his mother (or “mommy,” as some Fox News hosts have called Mrs. Talarico). They also accused him of being a vegan after it was revealed that at a 2022 campaign event some Talarico supporters had brought vegetable dishes for refreshments. To counteract GOP attacks on his character, Talarico has revealed that he has a girlfriend and also eats barbecue. (Btw, I personally think that being single and looking after one’s mother isn’t as bad as being married and cheating on one’s wife, but in fairness to Paxton and his anti-vegan supporters I’ll admit I don’t like vegetables either).
Attacks on Talarico’s (lack of) marital status and his willingness to show up at a picnic to which someone brought veggies have gained little traction. Gaining more traction have been attacks on Talarico’s views on transgenderism. As public reaction to Kamala Harris’s expressed support for government-funded sex-change operations for immigrants and convicted criminals showed in 2024, transgenderism is a potent wedge issue in American politics.
Talarico currently says he opposes sex-change operations for children as well as the participation of boys in girls’ sports “if it endangers safety or fairness.” He has said he voted in the state legislature against a bill to ban sex change operations for children because it included a ban on other forms of therapy for children suffering from various ailments not necessarily connected with transgender issues or a desire to “transition” from one sex to another. Yet Talarico’s efforts to express an arguably moderate approach to transgender-related issues have not diminished the criticisms leveled by Paxton and the GOP, who maintain he is simply trying to walk back previously expressed views and is thus both a radical and a hypocrite. Transgenderism seems to be an issue on which Talarico can’t win.
And Talarico has been vulnerable on religion as well. Frequently mocked is his assertion that God is “nonbinary.” This view simply means that God is pure and insubstantial spirit who, having no corporeal body, and hence can neither be male nor female. This view is actually widely accepted by the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches as well as by mainstream Protestant denominations. Yet it is apparently offensive to more conservative Christian denominations which dominate Protestantism and the GOP in Texas and refer to God in masculine terms: “Our Father.”
So each candidate is aided by the flaws of the other. Paxton remains viable not only because of the strength of the GOP but also because of the beliefs of Talarico, at least as interpreted by the GOP. And Talarico is showing uncharacteristic strength (for a Democrat) because of Paxton’s perceived corruption. If Paxton’s character was not so questionable, he would be the hands-down favorite to win next Tuesday, and if Talarico held more mainstream views, at least on transgenderism, saying unequivocally that he opposed any sort of means of helping minors “transition” as well as any sort of male participation in female sports, he would have a much better chance of becoming the first Democrat to win a statewide election in Texas since 1994, and the first Democrat to be elected to the U. S. Senate from Texas since 1988.
So this Tuesday we’ll elect a senator with too much baggage—either personal baggage or ideological baggage. But is there a way to reduce the chances of either sort of candidate being nominated for public office in the future? Possibly—if party and governmental officials are allowed to play greater roles in selecting their parties’ respective candidates for office, acting as gatekeepers to prevent or at least discourage the nomination of candidates considered to be too corrupt or too ideologically extreme. We’ll look at some ways in future columns.
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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