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By JESSE BEDAYN and THOMAS BEAUMONT | Associated Press
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Democrat James Talarico flipped a U.S. Senate seat in Texas on Tuesday, defeating Republican Ken Paxton to pull off the first statewide victory in more than 30 years and sending a jolt through a longtime GOP stronghold that President Donald Trump carried by double digits just two years ago.
The 37-year-old state legislator, former middle school teacher and Presbyterian seminarian will become Texas’ first Democratic senator since 1993, laying bare how voter frustration midway through Trump’s second term imperiled Republicans deep inside typically safe turf. The victory is a rejection of Trump’s pick for the seat and threatens Republicans’ control of the Senate, where Democrats needed to gain four seats to retake the majority.
Talarico will become the Senate’s youngest member and replace longtime Sen. John Cornyn, 74, who lost a bruising GOP primary to the scandal-plagued Paxton, whose nomination bolstered Talarico’s appeal to Republican and independent voters.
The heated campaign in Texas, one of the most expensive of the midterms, became partly a referendum on Paxton’s legal, personal and ethical troubles that have shadowed much of his three terms as the state’s attorney general. That included a federal corruption investigation, which did not result in charges, and impeachment by his own party in the Texas House over accusations of abusing his office to help a political donor. He was later acquitted in the state Senate.
Democrats have spent much of this century on a sputtering quest to win in Texas, and finally achieving victory could offer a roadmap in states where the party has struggled to compete. Talarico found success in a campaign with scant partisanship, TikToks that racked up millions of views and a railing against billionaires he said were corrupting politics at the expense of everyday Americans — a target that included Elon Musk, the world’s richest person and a Texas resident, who spent heavily backing Paxton.
For Republicans, whose governance in Texas has seen the rollback of abortion rights and offered the Trump administration a blueprint for immigration crackdowns, the defeat to a Democrat who once ran as a proud Austin progressive threatens to deepen partisan infighting.
Senate GOP leaders warned early on that Paxton and his baggage would jeopardize the seat in an already difficult midterm landscape for Republicans.
But Trump, trusting his instincts, endorsed his loyal ally in the primary over Cornyn.
The first Democrat to win a Texas Senate race since 1988
Talarico, the grandson of a Baptist preacher, ran a campaign that sidestepped culture-war battles and instead emphasized an economic populist message while skewering Paxton’s history of scandal.
He told crowds that the biggest divide in U.S. “is not left versus right, it’s top versus bottom.” Rarely maligning the Republican Party as a whole, the Democrat, whose path to victory required converting GOP voters, focused on the top issue of a frustrated electorate: the rising cost of living.
Talarico drew a causal line from high prices to corruption — billionaires seeding politics with gobs of money — and used it to attack Paxton’s reliance on megadonors. Meanwhile relentless television ads flashed headlines from a federal corruption investigation into Paxton after his aides reported him to the FBI in 2020, although prosecutors ultimately decided to not bring charges.
It was still an uphill climb. Democratic candidates in past years, most notably Beto O’Rourke’s 2018 campaign against Sen. Ted Cruz, have ignited enthusiasm that was swiftly doused on election night. Texas last sent a Democrat to the Senate when Lloyd Bentsen was reelected in 1988 — the year before Talarico was born.
Paxton’s durability faded in a heated race
Paxton’s defeat shatters a decade of political resilience in the face of legal and personal troubles, including a 2015 indictment on securities fraud charges and a divorce filing last year by his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, on “biblical grounds” over accusations of adultery.
That durability withered in the biggest race of his career. Paxton, who avoided debating Talarico, staked his candidacy on painting his opponent as a liberal extremist while framing the race as a battle for the direction of the nation.
He unleashed a tidal wave of attacks highlighting statements Talarico made as a legislator for his liberal Austin district, including calling God “nonbinary” and saying there were six genders.
Talarico now says he considers those comments “cringey.”
But Paxton struggled to unify Republicans after the primary against Cornyn. Trump campaigned in Texas in a final stretch bid to drive GOP turnout, but facing deep unpopularity across much of the country, his efforts fell short.
It was a very pricey campaign
The race was one of the most expensive in the country, as both sides blanketed the airwaves with more than a half-billion dollars in combined campaign ads, according to AdImpact.
Most of that was aimed at boosting Paxton in the nation’s second-most populous state, home to 31 million residents and for years a conservative counterweight to California’s liberal influence.
Musk contributed a total of $158 million to the Senate Leadership Fund, the same amount that the fund then gave to Texas PAC, the largest contributor to Paxton’s campaign. Musk also gave $10 million to the Paxton-supporting Lone Star Liberty PAC.
Talarico argued that the inflated spending blitz made clear the urgent need for checks on powerful interests, saying often on the campaign trail: “Texas is not for sale.”