Rapier108 said:
One thing to note about the Democrat primary. They had higher than normal black turnout because of Crockett running. If it had been Talafreko and some other white dude, their turnout would have been much lower.
Understood and I should have noted that. I do agree with the implication. Talarico will likely struggle to get high black turnout, but I would not count it out. His campaign will have a lot of money to spend to get the black gotv cranking.
The enthusiasm point remains. 1.2 million people voted for Talarico in the Democratic primary. Paxton had 878k in a highly contested primary vote and then dropped to 586k in the runoff. That is less than Talarico and his challenger.
This will be a fight unless Talarico melts under pressure in some way. Paxton is unlikable among traditional republicans. He will need them in heavy doses. What other demographic is Paxton strong with? Paxton is not going to get a high percentage of independents and I don't see him killing it with the Latinos. If Trump steps foot in this state for an event this fall I would not be surprised and it will be telling. Paxton will need Texas Boomers in spades and the young vote to act in their typical fashion in a mid term as no shows. They overperformed in the Democratic primary vs their norm. Latino voters also overperformed vs their norm and broke 75-25 to the Dem primary.
This has the markings of the 2018 Senate race where Cruz, an incumbent, wins by just 200k votes and 50.9%. I will give Paxton the benefit of incumbency by virtue of him winning a statewide office multiple times, so he's as close to an "incumbent" candidate for the Senate seat as you can get without being an incumbent of that seat. Talarico has never won a statewide seat in a general election. So Paxton has the benefit of a veteran statewide election operation in a GOP run state. But Paxton has never had a serious general election challenger. He was on that 2018 ballot as the incumbent AG. That race was a 3% margin of victory after winning by 10% in 2014. This is going to be more difficult environment as a Republican than in 2018 and for Paxton it will have an added level of difficulty.
Paxton is tied at the hip with Trump. Will that help in this cycle outside of primary season? Time will tell. Trumps approval ratings right now are slightly worse than in 2018. He's also lost enthusiasm among young males with his Middle East Policies, policies that Paxton is very much supportive of. It's going to be an interesting tight rope. Lots of clarity will come by mid-September. Talarico has terrible policy positions for Texas and in general, but Texas has 3.5 million more registered voters in 2026 vs 2018 and the democrats just doubled their primary turnout from the last two mid term primaries. The GOP better hope that the black vote for Crockett stays home this fall. If they turnout they will not be voting for Paxton.