Already. He’s having trouble already. Ken Paxton is not having a good time in this one, and gee, why is that? Baggage. A lot of baggage. Trump has his own baggage and doesn’t care about anyone else’s baggage. He endorsed Paxton. Now it’s coming back to haunt him. Did Paxton really think it wouldn’t come up? With appreciation for Raw Story:
Texas Republicans got an ominous new sign on Friday that they have a competitive U.S. Senate election. According to the newest poll from the Texas Public Opinion Research, Democratic state lawmaker and Presbyterian minister James Talarico is leading Republican state Attorney General Ken Paxton 47 to 43 — notably, being one of the first polls to show Talarico relatively close to the 50 percent threshold, meaning Republicans would have to win a very large majority of undecided voters to overcome this lead if it is true.
Yes. 47% is nothing to sneeze at. That’s closer to 50 than we expected. It’s going to be a hard lift, but if this continues, our chances may improve. Texas is deep red. DEEP red. A lot can happen in 6 months. We can’t get too excited yet. Paxton is going through a very public divorce. And other things in his background are rather unsavory. The attack ads and social media attacks (see: Mike Lee and “child sacrifice” bullshizzle), but Talarico is coming through strong.
One of the other trouble signs for Republicans in the poll is that a significant percentage of Republican voters who backed incumbent GOP Sen. John Cornyn, who recently lost in a blowout runoff election after Trump endorsed Paxton, now plan to vote for Talarico. Moreover, this appears to be driven by Paxton’s long history of personal scandals, including a previous criminal indictment, impeachment, and accusations of an extramarital affair.
Yes, hell has frozen over because Republicans are going to vote for Talarico. Will that be enough to get us to 51%? Who knows? But to have that … buffer, so to speak, would be great to have in November. But we have 6 long months to get through first. 6 months for them to reconsider. Just because we detest Paxton doesn’t mean they won’t change their minds. If enough are angry about Cornyn’s loss, maybe. Just … maybe.
This comes just two days after another poll suggested Talarico has a lead among Latino voters in Texas — a plurality of the state population — by 27 points. “If the actual result of the Texas Senate race among Latinos ends up anywhere close to this, Paxton is cooked,” election forecast analyst G. Elliott Morris said of those results. Republicans are fearful that even if they can hold the Texas seat, it will require hundreds of millions of dollars in political spending, draining resources from other battleground states.
Oh yes, it will certainly drain the money. Just because Paxton defeated Cornyn handily doesn’t mean he can win the Senate seat. Again, with Paxton’s baggage, that’s going to require extra help. We will happily watch Republicans spending so much money on Paxton, just to give him a good chance of winning. The rules have changed in deep red Texas.
See you soon!
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