Politics
Paxton is trying to cut into Talarico’s lead with Latino voters. It’ll be tough.
MCALLEN, Texas — Just miles from the U.S.-Mexico border, Ken Paxton is trying to inherit President Donald Trump’s historic gains with Hispanic voters.
The Texas GOP Senate nominee, speaking to hundreds of supporters last week at his first campaign rally in this region that’s almost entirely Latino, revealed how Republicans believe that’s possible: by touting Trump’s closure of the border and hitting Democrats over the head with the culture war — while ignoring the drag his mass deportations have had on the region.
The GOP faithful, clad in signature MAGA red and a few scattered Trump 2028 hats, gathered at a beer hall outdoors in 100-degree heat to greet the Republican Senate nominee and other candidates. Attendees ate up the Republicans’ constant jabs at Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico. Eric Flores, the challenger to Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, called Talarico a “gay vegan” and “low T.” Paxton belittled Talarico, a seminarian student and critic of Christian nationalism, for referring to himself as a “Christian who hates Christianity.”
It’s an approach key to Paxton’s strategy, as Republican Senate nominee, to slice into Talarico’s widening polling lead with Hispanic voters, who could prove decisive for who wins the competitive Senate seat and a litany of other races that will determine which party takes power in Washington come November.
“Once this community knows what [Talarico’s] views are on transitioning boys into girls, and girls into boys, and boys and girls sports, they’re not going to support it,” Paxton told reporters after the rally, in response to a question of how he intends to keep Hispanic voters in the fold after they swung toward Trump in 2024.
This has worked before for the Texas GOP. Sen. Ted Cruz blitzed the airways in the 2024 Senate race with attack ads against former Rep. Colin Allred about transgender youth participation in sports. Republicans branded Wendy Davis “abortion Barbie” following her successful protest against an anti-abortion law in the state legislature.
But outside the carefully choreographed event is a community getting pummelled by the president’s increasingly unpopular immigration agenda — a reality that’s given Democrats a strong opening with Latinos as they attempt to end a decades-long losing streak in statewide races. Interviews with local lawmakers, business leaders and voters on both sides of the aisle reveal that Democratic candidates like Talarico and gubernatorial nominee Gina Hinojosa have so far been successful at appealing to Hispanic voters feeling the economic strain under Trump.
Talarico, who appeared in McAllen for an event 16 hours after Paxton’s, kept his pitch focused on the cost of living, handing out hot plates of food and calling for a reversal in health care cuts under the GOP budget bill enacted last year.
“He’s pretty steady and focused on the issues that matter to families,” said Democratic state Sen. Juan Hinojosa, whose district spans Corpus Christi to McAllen.
“Democrats get sidetracked on all these cultural issues, and they need to stay focused on what I call the bread butter issues, issues that impact families directly, the kitchen table issues,” he said. “Democrats need to stay away from biting the hook that’s being put out by Paxton.”
A community being squeezed
The Rio Grande Valley is buckling under the weight of Trump’s policies, and the economic strain is visible in McAllen.
Deportations have dried up workforces in critical industries like construction that drive the local economy, leaving cement slabs half-poured. A traffic chokehold at the border has slowed business in retail and restaurants as Mexicans have been deterred from hopping over to the U.S. for the day.
The entire border is being squeezed. Laredo, located more than 150 miles from McAllen, is one of the nation’s top trade hubs, and its leaders are warning that Trump’s tariffs and his threat to eliminate the USMCA trade agreement stands to devastate international commerce that flows through the city.
“When the U.S. doesn’t provide economic opportunity for the people at the border, it will create this situation,” said Laredo Mayor Victor D. Treviño, a Democrat, in an interview.
The Paxton campaign dismissed concerns of Democrats’ gains with Latinos, especially in the Rio Grande Valley — and once again emphasized the culture war, which Republicans say resonates with socially conservative Latinos.
“Look, Hispanic families aren’t voting for a woke vegan who says God is nonbinary and wants to Latinx our children,” said Alex Alarcon, director of Hispanic outreach for the Paxton campaign, in a statement. “We’re proud of our culture and our faith, and Ken Paxton has spent his career fighting for us: a secure border to protect our families, a cost of living we can actually afford, and the freedom to live by our values.”
Still, the tide seems to be turning toward Democrats.
A dozen residents along the border said in interviews that they are satisfied illegal border crossings have dropped to record lows, a realization of one of Trump’s top campaign promises and one of the reasons he won over Hispanic voters in the region. But they also believe the crackdown has gone too far. More than 60 percent of Hispanics said Trump’s mass deportations campaign — including his widespread deployment of ICE agents across the U.S. — has been too aggressive, according to a July Blue Light News Poll.
In McAllen last week, the community was still aghast over a nun who was recently arrested by ICE while walking to church. She was later released after GOP Rep. Monica De La Cruz and Democrat Rep. Henry Cuellar intervened, but interviews with residents revealed they still live in fear: Even U.S. citizens are checking their pockets for ID before venturing out, and they try to steer clear of the border if possible.
Across Texas, one in five Hispanic business owners said they’ve had an employee deported in the past year and 70 percent have been impacted by Trump’s tariffs, according to a June survey commissioned by the U.S. Hispanic Business Council and shared first with Blue Light News. Talarico holds a seven-point lead over Paxton among those surveyed — even though a plurality of them self-identified as Republican.
A national Republican close to the race, granted anonymity to speak freely, countered that Paxton stands to benefit from some of the most competitive House races taking place in South Texas — where Republican Tano Tijerina and Flores are trying to oust Reps. Henry Cuellar and Gonzalez, respectively, and Rep. Monica De La Cruz is fending off a challenge from Tejano music star Bobby Pulido. GOP campaigns have stood up multiple field centers in those districts drawn to favor Republicans under a new Congressional map, a ground game that is expected to boost Paxton at the top of the ticket, the person said.
They added that internal message testing shows some of the attacks on Talarico, specifically those regarding his past comments on gender, “is unlike anything we’ve ever seen with Hispanic men, just in terms of the amount that it moves them.”
Daniel Garza, president of the LIBRE Initiative, a grassroots conservative group based in South Texas, said Trump’s closure of the border has affirmed Hispanic’s support for him, and Democrats aren’t offering viable pro-growth economic plans.
“Democrats have failed to give Latino voters something to vote for, and that they’ve only focused solely on something you know for us to vote against. And that’s not good enough,” he said. “[Latinos] want less tax burden, less regulatory burden, more energy production.”
Talarico’s pitch to Hispanics
Talarico was also in McAllen, just one day after Paxon’s rally, to host a fundraising benefit — the final stop on a 750-mile bus tour hitting small towns along the border to deliver a message about lowering costs and creating jobs. In an attempt to cast himself as a tough-on-immigration Democrat, Talarico unveiled a border security plan that includes hiring more Border Patrol agents, a major employer in South Texas, and adding immigration judges to reduce the asylum backlog.
It’s part of his attempt to widen his current edge over Paxton with Hispanics, with a New York Times poll in June showing Talarico is winning the demographic by a 61 percent to 29 percent margin — a significant shift after Trump won 55 percent of Hispanic voters in Texas in 2024.
“You could drive a truck through the margin of error on the Times’ subsample,” Alarcon, Paxton’s Hispanic outreach director, said. “The fact is nobody is winning Hispanic voters by default this cycle. We’ll be in Spanish-language media from the Valley to Dallas, talking about groceries, gas, health care and a secure border.”
Still, Talarico’s lead has given Democratic party leaders hope amid their national tug-of-war with Republicans over Hispanic voters: If Talarico can hold onto Texas’ large Latino population by these margins through November, that would prove gradual gains over the past decade for Republicans were a temporary blip ahead of the 2028 presidential race.
Under the midday sweltering sun in McAllen, Talarico handed out hot plates of food to a line of people who had donated to a local woman struggling to pay for cancer treatment. The Democratic Senate nominee, while speaking to reporters later, dismissed Paxton’s attempts to appeal to Hispanic voters by making personal attacks against him.
Republicans are attempting to divide people, Talarico said, “so we don’t notice that they’re picking our pockets, that they’re closing our public schools, that they’re gutting our health care, that they’re raising taxes on working people while they cut taxes for billionaires. It’s the oldest strategy in the world.”
Talarico’s campaign is leaning hard into its outreach to the Hispanic community, including efforts like running a Spanish-language ad during the World Cup talking about his background as a teacher, plans to defend Medicaid and social security, and push to raise taxes on billionaires. He also ran an ad during the Mexico vs. Panama soccer match and launched a Spanish-language social media channel.
Local Democratic party officials have begun targeted organizing efforts to turn out Hispanic voters throughout the Rio Grande Valley. But the challenge, they say, is convincing Hispanics running away from Republicans to instead run toward Democrats and not stay home in November.
Democrats are heartened by an uptick in primary turnout in the region, which in March saw more than double the number of primary voters than in 2024. Trump carried all four counties in the RGV that year, the first time in history a Republican has won them at the presidential level, but Democrats won at every level down ballot.
“We’re hoping to carry that momentum,” said Hidalgo County Democratic chair Richard Gonzales, referring to the high primary turnout. “Republicans beat us because they made it seem like they could solve the problems. They got in and then they just created more problems.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders says he can’t be everywhere at once — even though some of his allies want him to be.
Democratic socialist Francesca Hong lost by less than 4,000 votes in Wisconsin’s gubernatorial primary, an outcome several high-profile progressives are blaming on Sanders and other top national progressive leaders for staying out of the race. Some said his endorsement alone could have helped bring in badly needed resources for Hong. Others said the Vermont senator has a responsibility to play widely across the battle map.
Sanders, in an interview, touted a series of progressive wins Tuesday night and brushed off the criticism.
“My response is that we have limited resources and capabilities, and there are a lot of really great candidates who have run for office who we have not endorsed,” Sanders told Blue Light News on Wednesday.
“We can’t endorse every single candidate,” he added. “So, you know, we have to pick and choose and I think that Hong ran a very, very great, and very strong, grassroots campaign, got a lot of people involved and I applaud her for that.”
Hong ultimately lost to Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, a major victory for establishment Democrats who worried she wouldn’t be able to win a general election in a top battleground. It was a notable blow for the far left that overshadowed progressive Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan’s win in the Minnesota Senate race the same night.
Sanders and other progressive leaders “have a responsibility, whether they like it or they don’t,” to help steer candidates in the movement, said Cenk Uygur, a progressive activist who co-founded the Young Turks and Justice Democrats. “If they endorse people, it makes a difference. If they don’t endorse people these days, sometimes it makes a bigger difference. Because there’s a certain expectation, and when they don’t deliver on that expectation, it gives people pause. So it feels like, to some degree, they’re shirking their responsibility.”
Uygur also criticized Sanders for saying on a podcast ahead of the primary that he was “not that familiar” with the Wisconsin race.
“I love Bernie, but that’s not true. Sorry, brother, but you have a giant team. Of course somebody on your team knows who’s running for governor in Wisconsin.” Uygur told Blue Light News on Thursday.
One Democratic operative working on progressive campaigns, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the electoral dynamics, also rejected Sanders’ argument, noting the senator won Wisconsin’s presidential primary in 2016.
“He knows Wisconsin very well,” the operative said, adding: “What resources? You’re not cutting checks. [Sanders] endorsing somebody raises the money.”
Sanders in the interview noted primary wins from Flanagan, Rebecca Cooke in Wisconsin’s 3rd District and Matt Little in the crowded race for Rep. Angie Craig’s Minnesota seat — all Democrats he endorsed.
“Needless to say, I’m feeling really very good,” Sanders said. “The American people are catching on that we have an economy that is rigged, the very rich are getting richer while working families are struggling.”
But the Wisconsin governor primary result Tuesday exposed a critical vulnerability for a movement that has largely relied on Sanders and a handful of other headline-grabbing stars, such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), to help seal the deal in contentious races as progressives look to prove they can play in competitive seats. The underdog wing of the party, some progressives argue, can’t be selective about where it’s playing if they want to take on a vast and well-funded establishment.
The bulk of the blame is being laid at Sanders’ feet in part because the movement he turbocharged in 2016 has struggled to land on a clear successor. Some progressives argue there’s an overreliance on Sanders and leaders such as Ocasio-Cortez.
Our Revolution, a group born from Sanders’ 2016 campaign but that the senator no longer associates with, blasted the broader progressive ecosystem for not doing more for Hong in a post early Wednesday morning, as the returns in Wisconsin showed Crowley was poised to defeat Hong. Several groups that have backed insurgent progressives in other races declined to join Our Revolution in getting involved in the governor’s race.“We cannot build progressive power while gatekeeping our own movement through the eyes of the establishment,” the group posted.
Sanders pushed back: “Our Revolution is an organization I’ve not had any interaction with, any participation with … for I think nine years,” he said in response. “They do what they want and they say what they want. They have nothing to do with me.”
Our Revolution declined comment on Sanders’ remarks and on its post.
Nina Turner, a former Our Revolution leader and Sanders 2020 co-chair who had backed Hong, said support from “more well-known, more popular, actively elected progressive types … probably would have” made a difference in Hong’s race. She declined to call anyone out specifically for not getting involved.
“The progressive movement is going to have to reckon with how we continue to win around certain personalities,” Turner said. “I don’t think the movement should put all our hopes and dreams on certain personalities to come out or to not come out, because it is their choice and they have a right to their choice, even if I don’t agree with it.”
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) was one of the few national progressive figures who had endorsed Hong. He has employed a far more aggressive endorsement strategy than Sanders this primary season and said he sees an advantage to backing candidates early, despite the potential headwinds facing long-shot contenders, as long as they align with him on policy.
But he wasn’t willing to play the blame game in the aftermath of Wisconsin’s primary, saying in a text message that: “We have so many candidates running and I believe progressive leaders have been doing an extraordinary job lifting them up.”
A spokesperson for Ocasio-Cortez, who has also faced criticism for not backing for Hong, declined to comment.
Not everyone on the left believes Sanders and other progressive stars could have swung a race in which several other factors were working against Hong. The candidate did very little traditional advertising. She faced a barrage of negative press over controversial past social media comments that put her on defense over everything from public safety to Thanksgiving. Several candidates likely siphoned away votes from both Hong and Crowley — including two who dropped out after voting began: Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez and former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes.
Dillon Sheehan, the chapter secretary for the Madison Area Democratic Socialists of America, which endorsed Hong, said “it’s entirely possible” big-name progressives like Sanders could have “put her over the edge.”
But “we need candidates who can win without Bernie’s endorsement, he’s not going to be able to endorse forever,” Sheehan said. “I think what this shows is that even without his endorsement, without Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s endorsement, [Hong] did fantastic.”
David Crowley has a strategy to win over the voters who backed democratic socialist Francesca Hong on Tuesday: make the governor’s race an existential fight against “MAGA extremism.”
Wisconsin Democrats have spent the past day scrambling to unite the far left and centrist factions of the party after a bitter primary battle defined by questions of electability and how far left of an ideology to pursue. The same is happening in Michigan, where the party has just three months to mend broken fences and get progressive Abdul El-Sayed elected in another competitive state this November.
Crowley told Blue Light News he plans to use GOP Rep. Tom Tiffany and President Donald Trump as the foils that bring everyone together.
“We’re not all going to agree on everything. But I think we agree that the ultimate goal is making sure that we don’t have a MAGA extremist and congressman Tom Tiffany sitting in the governor’s office,” Crowley said in an interview Thursday, adding that the state “has a grand opportunity in putting some level of check on Trump’s agenda” amid the “affordability crisis.”
Democrats view holding onto the governor’s mansion in Wisconsin — a top battleground state that Trump won by just shy of 30,000 votes in 2024 — as critical for acting as a bulwark against Trump. They’re hoping to secure a governing trifecta in the state for the first time since 2010.
Crowley, the Milwaukee County executive who was hand-picked by current Gov. Tony Evers, said he plans to not only fold in the left flank, but also reach out to independents and previous GOP voters who “feel rejected by this current Republican party.” Evers himself ousted GOP then-Gov. Scott Walker in 2018 thanks to a coalition that cut across Democratic strongholds, independents and some Republican-leaning voters.
Crowley also said he’s already talked to “some Republicans who are more interested in defeating Tom Tiffany.”
Trump’s approval rating has been continually slipping, and Crowley’s advisers believe focusing on the cost of living under the Trump administration amid an unpopular Iran war is a sweet spot to hit a broad cross-section of voters.
But even as he committed to reaching out to voters who had backed Hong, Crowley told Blue Light News he would not campaign with some of her top surrogates on the trail — and demurred when asked whether he’d bring on any Hong allies to staff his general election campaign, saying everyone is “welcome” at the table.
When asked whether he would campaign with controversial, leftist social media influencer Hasan Piker, Crowley responded: “No.”
“I don’t know Hasan, but I always want to be focused on Wisconsin voters,” he added.
Hong has committed to hitting the trail with Crowley ahead of November, but many of his allies see her as too much of a political liability to be directly involved. They’re worried her brand of democratic socialism — and past controversial social media posts about defunding the police and canceling Thanksgiving — could affect Crowley’s wider appeal.Crowley also isn’t budging on a key campaign policy issue that divided the primary: He will not embrace the moratorium on data center development that Hong ran on.
“No moratorium,” Crowley said in the interview, adding he and Hong do agree on adding “guardrails” on data center development and operation via a package of legislation.
“I let folks know exactly where I stood on data centers,” he said. “That’s why we were able to not only consolidate many of those undecided voters, but get many rural communities to support us as well, because we have a common-sense approach to make sure that we’re protecting our environment, protecting our water, and protecting ourselves … when it comes down to these data centers.”
Former Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, who dropped out of the race last month amid sexual assault allegations, was announced as a speaker for a Labor Day event in Ellsworth, Maine, next month.
The event was organized by the groups Hancock County Activists and Acadia Action Peacemakers, according to information shared with the Hancock County Democratic Party. Both have been behind “No Kings” protests and other organized events in the area since the start of last year. Neither responded immediately to inquiries about the event on Thursday.
Platner, who is from nearby Sullivan, Maine, dropped out of the Senate race following a July Blue Light News report that a woman he dated accused him of sexually assaulting her in 2021. Platner denied the allegation.
Marcia Myers, the chair of the Hancock County Democratic Party, said the event set to feature Platner was not a sanctioned party event but that the party often shares information about activist-led events in the area. The county party’s Facebook and Instagram posts mentioning Platner’s event were deleted, though the event was still listed on the party’s website.
Platner did not immediately respond to an inquiry about the event on Thursday.
Platner was replaced in the Senate race by former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson, as Democrats are seeking to take on GOP Sen. Susan Collins in an election of high importance to both parties nationally.
Outside groups supporting Collins have sought to tie Jackson to Platner, noting Jackson, who previously ran for governor, endorsed Platner’s campaign and appeared at rallies for him. Jackson called for Platner to drop out of the race after the sexual assault allegation.
Jalen Beckford contributed to this story.
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