By Chris Stirewalt | Friday, May 29
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By Chris Stirewalt
Friday, May 29
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© LM Otero, Associated Press
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A cringeworthy opening for Texas Senate general
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James Talarico seems to know what he needs to do in order to keep the Senate race in Texas competitive in the long, hot summer. The question is whether Ken Paxton does.
The same woke sensibilities that made Talarico, an Austin lawmaker, a darling to the progressives in the state Democratic Party are now a serious drag on his pitch to persuadable Texans who are bound to be suspicious about the masked man in those videos talking about a nonbinary God and a meatless statehouse campaign.
No sooner had the Texas Republicans finished the final lap of their demolition derby of a primary in Tuesday’s runoff, Talarico was out of the gate to lament his “cringey” past comments.
“There are some statements that I've made that I certainly regret,” he told CBS News. “There are statements that I've made where I've missed the mark, I'll be the first to admit that.” He specifically referenced the “God is nonbinary” bit as being “intentionally provocative,” which is a nicer way to say that he was pandering to the audience he was speaking to at the moment. That is a common sin in politics, but acknowledging such past transgressions is an uncommon virtue, so good for him.
Of course, those explanations may not matter much to the undecided voters who will get to see the COVID-vintage clips of Talarico in all of his cringe glory in an endless loop between now and Election Day. The 37-year-old former teacher and divinity student will have a long way to go to make the case that he’s not the cartoonish version of an early 2020s progressive that Republican ad makers are going to show him to be.
But at least Talarico seems to know where his problem is: convincing some of the nearly 1 million voters who backed Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) in the primary, particularly the 408,657 who showed up in the first round and didn’t come back to boost him this week.
Talarico finds himself in a tie race not because of anything he’s done, but because the independent voters in Texas are fed up enough with President Trump and MAGA to prefer a change in party, even if it is a little-known state representative. As Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) proved in 2020, fed-up voters are willing to take some chances if you can just keep yourself plausible. But Texas is not Georgia. The Republican ticket ran almost 6 points better in Texas than it did in Georgia in 2024 and, famously, the GOP actually managed to lose Georgia in 2020. To win in Texas, Talarico will need to do more than ride a national wave among independents. He will actually need to persuade some Republicans.
That makes the work of rebutting the claim that he is a radical leftist particularly urgent. He needs as many of those Cornyn voters to stick with him long enough to shift the focus on Paxton’s many ethical odiums. Basically, Talarico has to convince a couple of hundred thousand Texas Republicans that he is not so weird as to forbid them from lodging a protest vote against Paxton — or even just stay home and starve the GOP of votes.
Paxton, though, has the opposite problem. He is substantially behind where Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) found himself against then-Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D) in 2018. To put it simply, Cruz never trailed in a single poll against his Democratic challenger. Paxton hasn’t led in one since late last year.
It is understandable perhaps that Paxton is very much focused on shoring up Republicans just now, having just had astonishing sums of money dumped on his head by Cornyn and his allies with the most blistering kind of personal attacks.
Paxton’s opening act has been to try to protect his right flank by mocking Talarico as unmanly — “Low T” as the ads say — while Paxton’s backers in Washington mock Talarico as “transgender.” There are probably some Cornyn voters who can be held back from breaking if Paxton can effectively depict Talarico as unmanly. But one supposes that the much more important work will be to try to rehabilitate Paxton’s own image with voters inside and outside of the GOP.
Even if it were not for the criminal investigation, impeachment and seamy personal details that have been part of Paxton’s story for years, there are a significant number of suburban, college-educated Republicans in Texas who wouldn’t like his politics and policies even if he was known to all to be a man of sterling character. He’s going to need to shore those folks up, and fast, because he’s going to need every one he can get.
The anti-MAGA backlash that’s been burning through independent voters seems to be running particularly high with Hispanic independents: the same kinds of voters who Republicans touted in their 2024 win and on whom the party predicated its 2026 Texas gerrymander. It’s taking place nationally and in Texas races already.
Telling those voters that Talarico is a girly man is even worse pandering than Talarico beaming about a nonbinary God. Selling machismo when gas is near $5, beef prices are through the roof and Immigration and Customs Enforcement remains radioactive seems like the wrong way to start a conversation in which Paxton finds himself starting on the wrong side.
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Change from last week: ↑ 1 point (-24.6 points)
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Change from one month ago: ↑ 1.8 points (-25.4 points)
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[Average includes: Emerson College 39 percent approve - 59 percent disapprove; American Research Group 31 percent approve - 64 percent disapprove; WSJ 41 percent approve - 57 percent disapprove; Quinnipiac University 34 percent approve - 58 percent disapprove; AP/NORC 37 percent approve - 62 percent disapprove]
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Democratic average: 46.8 percent
Republican average: 38.8 percent
Advantage: D +8 points
Change from one week ago: ↑ .6 points (D + 7.4 points)
Change from one month ago: ↑ 1.8 points (D + 6.2 points)
[Average includes: Emerson 50 percent Democratic - 41 percent Republican; WSJ 48 percent Democratic - 40 percent Republican; Quinnipiac University 50 percent Democratic - 39 percent Republican; Echelon Insights 51 percent Democratic - 43 percent Republican; Ipsos 35 percent Democratic - 31 percent Republican]
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Harper's Magazine: “For a satirist or a cynic, Esperantists are easy fodder. Many of its enthusiasts are undeniably eccentric: longhairs, train enthusiasts, nudists, and Brazilian spiritists (who believe that Esperanto is the language of the vastly more peaceable spirit world, and that it was sent to earth from God, via Zamenhof, to bring about universal harmony). But Esperanto was once a legitimate force in global politics. Before facing heavy persecution during World War II, it gained serious traction in international labor, anticolonial, and anarchist movements. And most of today’s Esperanto adherents are neither naïve nor even particularly batty. They include European social democrats and elder anarchists, Chinese Communists, Central African youth pacifists, and Ukrainian-independence advocates. There are Esperantist gay-rights advocates, Bible translators, lawyers, and Go players.”
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TUESDAY RECKONING IN GOLDEN STATE
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Becerra, Hilton out front: The Hill: “More California voters are leaning toward backing Democrat Xavier Becerra, the former Health and Human Services secretary, in the state’s gubernatorial race, according to a new survey. The Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) released polling Wednesday, which showed the former Biden administration official leading the pack of bipartisan candidates with 23 percent support. Republican Steve Hilton, a GOP political consultant and former Fox News commentator, was close behind with 20 percent. The other Democratic candidates all polled further below, with billionaire Tom Steyer at 15 percent and former Rep. Katie Porter (Calif.) at 12 percent.”
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Steyer’s geyser of cash spurts higher as he slides in polls: PBS: “Win or lose, billionaire Democrat Tom Steyer will leave a mark in the history books in his bid to become California's next governor — he's running the most expensive political advertising campaign in the country this year. Steyer — a former hedge fund manager turned liberal activist — has spent or booked more than $195 million in ads for broadcast TV, cable and radio with the tally still growing, according to data compiled by advertising tracker AdImpact. His torrent of ads has opened the one-time presidential candidate to criticism that he is trying to buy the governor's chair, and his ad total represents more than 20 times the amount spent by his nearest rival, fellow Democrat Xavier Becerra, as the two duel for a spot in the November election. Nationally, his spending is unparalleled — no one is even close.”
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Reality star Spencer Pratt in striking distance in final LA mayor poll: CNBC: “Days before Tuesday’s primary, the former MTV reality star is threatening to force incumbent Mayor Karen Bass into a November runoff. Pratt, best known for ‘The Hills,’ is polling at 22% among likely voters in a new UC Berkeley-Los Angeles Times poll, just behind Bass at 26% and City Councilmember Nithya Raman at 25%. Pratt and Raman each gained eight percentage points since March, according to the poll. Los Angeles mayoral elections are nonpartisan. If no candidate wins more than 50% in Tuesday’s primary, the top two finishers advance to a November runoff. In a crowded field, that means Pratt does not need to win outright to upend the race — he only needs to finish ahead of Raman.”
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Newsom looks to preempt Trump on election fraud claims: CBS News: “Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation Wednesday aimed at tightening California's election security rules ahead of the June 2 statewide primary. Senate Bill 73 takes effect immediately. It limits when law enforcement can access ballots, voter lists, rosters or certified voting technology. The bill comes after Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco seized more than 650,000 ballots from last fall's Proposition 50 Special Election. The investigation was later halted amid legal challenges from California Attorney General Rob Bonta. … The bill prohibits peace officers from interfering with election administration, except in urgent public health or safety situations. It also requires a court order before law enforcement can take possession of key election materials. Removing packages containing voted ballots from the custody of elections officials would also be a crime. The law allows civil penalties of up to $50,000 for ballot custody violations.”
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Tweaks MAGA on $1.8 billion fund: The Hill: “California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Wednesday said he will impose a 100 percent tax on state residents who receive money from the Trump administration’s new $1.8 billion ‘anti-weaponization’ fund meant to compensate those who feel they were wrongfully prosecuted by the government. ‘One thing that I think we’re going to try to do … is tax 100 percent. Anyone from California that receives any of those funds, we want to tax 100 percent of those proceeds. And that’s an action the state of California can take,’ Newsom said. “It’s an action we look forward to taking.’ He did not specify when California would start imposing the tax on the fund, which his press office described as a ‘Jan. 6th slush fund.’”
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Iowa Democrats sharpen attacks ahead of Tuesday Senate primary for slot in newly competitive general to replace Joni Ernst — WOI-TV
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South Carolina Republicans again refuse Trump’s demand for gerrymander — Politico
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Alabama heads back to the Supreme Court to defend a voting map blocked for racial discrimination — SCOTUSblog
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Federal judge sets the stage for Trump’s mail-in ballot restrictions — The Hill
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Dems see GOP donors in secret campaign cash dumps in blue-team primaries — Punchbowl News
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Corporations are people too: Delaware judge allows trusts, LLCs and ‘artificial entities’ to vote in some elections — Bloomberg Law
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“I think it shows strength.” — “Charlie,” a supporter of Riverside County, Calif., Sheriff Chad Bianco, talking to The Wall Street Journal about how the Republican gubernatorial contender is helped by his “salt-and-pepper cop mustache.”
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My colleague, Meera Sehgal, and I will look for your emails and then share the most interesting ones and my responses here. Clickety clack!
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HE WAS GRASPING AT STRAWS
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WPEC: “A traffic citation issued to a woman who said she was accused of holding a phone in a hand she does not have has been dismissed. Court records show the citation was dismissed at the request of the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office deputy who issued it. A court hearing had been scheduled for Tuesday, but was canceled after the case was dropped. The citation, issued Feb. 11 along North Dixie Highway in Lake Worth Beach, accused the driver of violating Florida’s wireless communications while driving law. The case drew widespread attention after the woman posted video of the traffic stop on TikTok, where she questioned the deputy’s claim that he saw a device in her ‘right hand.’ She said she does not have a right hand.”
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Chris Stirewalt is political editor for The Hill and NewsNation, the host of "The Hill Sunday" on NewsNation and The CW, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of books on politics and the media.
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