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Texas Democrats think this is finally the year they’ll flip the Senate

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5 months ago

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Texas Democrats have wandered in the wilderness for decades. They hope a seminarian-turned-politician will finally lead them out.

Now that Republicans have nominated Attorney General Ken Paxton for U.S. Senate, Democrats see November as their best opportunity this century to flip Texas blue. They have a favorable political environment, aided by nationwide dissatisfaction with the economy and President Donald Trump’s leadership. They see the Texas GOP fractured after a messy Senate primary that took out Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), one of the party’s senior statesmen, and a potentially fatally flawed candidate in Paxton with his significant personal baggage.

They think their nominee, state Rep. James Talarico, is the ideal candidate to break through.

“Democrats have been in the desert for three decades,” said Mark McKinnon, a longtime GOP strategist and adviser to former President George W. Bush. “Talarico could be Moses.”

Cliff Walker, a Texas Democratic strategist and principal at Seeker Strategies, echoed the sentiment: “Folks are pretty damn bullish. I think this is the year.”

The pieces are all aligning, Democratic strategists, lawmakers and activists argue: Talarico is a charismatic candidate who has fundraising prowess and boasts a lead in early head-to-head polling.

Still, it’s a target that has long eluded Democrats in one of America’s most conservative, and costliest, battlegrounds. In election cycle after cycle, they’ve raised their hopes and poured money into trying to flip a statewide seat blue. Try as they might, Texas Democrats haven’t elected one of their own to the Senate since 1988.

Paxton won’t make it easy. The Texas attorney general, who defeated Cornyn by a wide margin in Tuesday’s runoff, emerged from the most expensive Senate primary on record with his eyes trained on November. After securing Trump’s endorsement last week, Paxton announced he’d remove all ads attacking Cornyn from the airwaves and instead focus his gaze on Talarico, who he calls a “leftist lunatic” and “Talafreako.”

“My opponent is the most extreme radical the Democrats have ever nominated,” Paxton said in his victory speech Tuesday. “No matter what he says or how much he raises, the reality is that James Talarico is going to be nothing more than a Texas-based puppet for Chuck Schumer and the national Democrats.”

Texas Democrats have been bullish before. In 2014, former state Sen. Wendy Davis elicited hopes of flipping the governor’s mansion, but her campaign spent $36 million only to lose to then-Attorney General Greg Abbott by a whopping 20 points.

In 2018, national Democrats were hesitant to back former Rep. Beto O’Rourke’s challenge to GOP Sen. Ted Cruz. O’Rourke eventually caught fire in the race’s final months, smashing fundraising records and running neck-and-neck in the polls, before losing by less than three percentage points — and leaving national Democrats wondering what could’ve happened if they jumped in sooner.

In 2020, Cornyn defeated Democratic nominee MJ Hegar by nearly 10 points; in 2024, Cruz toppled former Rep. Colin Allred by eight.

This cycle could be different, Texas Democrats say. Talarico is polling and fundraising ahead of where O’Rourke was at this point in 2018. And Talarico benefits from a Democratic political operation in the state — much of it built by O’Rourke — that was nonexistent when his predecessor ran.

“It’s the best chance Texas Democrats will have to win a statewide race in the entirety of my career,” said Democratic strategist Jeff Rotkoff, who has advised campaigns in Texas for 25 years.

The national headwinds facing Republicans — as voters’ patience for the Iran war and its effect on energy prices has eroded — are blowing especially hard in Texas, said Matt Angle, founder of the Lone Star Project, a Democratic-aligned group.

“At the voter level, what you’ve got is just an overwhelming dissatisfaction with Republicans in a way that you just haven’t seen in Texas in the past,” Angle said.

Some point to Texas’ 9th Senate District as evidence, which Trump won by 17 points in 2024 and a Democrat flipped in January. When the Democratic-aligned Texas Majority PAC surveyed voters there, they found that 90 percent of Republican-leaning voters who backed the Democrat in the race said they did it because “they just would not support any MAGA candidate,” said Katherine Fischer, the group’s director.

“It was tough for us last cycle to run in an environment where our president was deeply unpopular,” Fischer said. “Now it’s on them.”

Democrats believe Cornyn’s closing argument: That Paxton and his long trail of controversies will create a drag on the Republican ticket.

“Ken Paxton will be an albatross,” Cornyn said during a Fox News appearance Tuesday. “He could well lose, but even if he doesn’t lose, he will win by such a razor-thin margin that it’s likely to have a negative drag on the down ballot races in Texas.”

It’s a message that has some national Republicans wringing their hands. “The national mood is not great for Republicans right now, and Texas feels even worse,” said one Washington GOP operative close to Cornyn, granted anonymity to speak openly. “We already know we’re heading into a headwind in the state, up and down the ticket, and we just put up the worst possible top-of-the-ticket person.

“I can’t think of a worse person to put on the top of the ticket than Ken Paxton,” he added. “It’s laughable. All I can do is laugh.”

Still, it may be Paxton who gets the last laugh. Although his impeachment, the securities fraud investigation and ethics complaints against him, and his ongoing divorce were played up in the many attack ads Cornyn ran, the attorney general still managed to garner support from a large majority of GOP runoff voters.

“I think Talarico is the only opponent Paxton can beat,” said Tim Edson, the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s former political director. “Democrats are going to wish they had Beto again. … Talarico is a Marxist creep who will make Paxton seem normal after this race is litigated.”

The NRSC backed Cornyn in the primary. In a post-election statement the group blasted Talarico, but didn’t mention Paxton.

“A state President Trump won by nearly 14 points isn’t going to elect James Talarico — a radical leftist who thinks God is nonbinary and that Texas should be a welcome mat for illegals,” said NRSC spokesperson Samantha Cantrell. “He is the most dangerous flank of the far left. Texas isn’t swapping brisket for open borders.”

Paxton is already laser-focused on attacking Talarico as too progressive: A Paxton-aligned super PAC spent the past week running an ad that labeled Talarico as “weird,” clipping the state representative’s statements on gender, race, meat consumption and patriotism.

Those culture war issues are seen as Talarico’s largest liability as he seeks to win over a wide umbrella of progressive and moderate Democrats, independents and Republicans dissatisfied with Trump. Talarico has claimed there are “more than two” biological sexes and said he’s had to “reckon” with his own whiteness and masculinity.

Some of his allies want him to avoid those issues altogether.

“Stay away from it,” said state Sen. Royce West, a Democrat who represents Dallas. “I’m pretty sure he’ll have a strategy to do that, but he’s got to be able to get centrists.”

The same goes for downballot Democrats, who may be hoping to ride the energy of Talarico’s campaign to victory in their own races. The stakes are high: Future control of Congress could run through the Lone Star State, as the post-2030 Census reapportionment is poised to gift additional House seats to Texas while kneebuckling the map for Democrats nationwide. With newly redrawn House maps that favor Republicans and not another U.S. Senate race in the state until 2030, now is the ideal moment for Texas Democrats to notch victories up and down the ballot and send a message that they can play in the state.

“There’s just a ton of evidence to suggest that this is a much more favorable cycle than anything we’ve seen in Texas in the last 30 years. Is it enough to win in November? I don’t know,” said Fischer. “If it’s possible to win in Texas, all of the things are there for us to do it.”

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Blakeman’s uptown fracking fiesta

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9 hours ago

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October 20, 2026

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GOP gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman has hammered Gov. Katy Hochul over rising energy costs but has not offered a plan to lower them.

BLAKEMAN’S (LACK OF) ENERGY PLAN: GOP gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman continued to hammer Gov. Kathy Hochul on rising energy costs today, promising to slash utility bills in half if he’s elected.

The Republican, however, still has not offered up a policy proposal on how he’d go about doing that.

“Kathy Hochul increased our utility rates 48 times in four years,” Blakeman said in upper Manhattan this morning.

The Washington Heights press conference, which included former Gov. George Pataki, was heavy on rhetoric and relatively light on details. Afterward, Blakeman’s campaign would not spell out how exactly he plans to cut consumer utility costs and did not respond to a request for clarification about his claim that Hochul increased utility rates 48 times. (While the state’s Public Service Commission has approved increases in major utility rate cases during Hochul’s tenure, those hikes have been less than what the utilities requested.)

“Donald Trump’s puppet, Bruce Blakeman … wants data centers raising your costs and said Trump was doing an ‘amazing job’ after he jacked up utility bills.” Hochul campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said in a statement. “Two weeks from irrelevance, here’s what Blakeman won’t tell you: Governor Kathy Hochul delivered a billion dollars in energy relief, ten billion in tax relief, and made data centers pay for the energy they use.”

The Nassau County executive described meeting the owner of a Bronx diner who told him the business would need to sell 1,000 burgers a month to pay its $16,000 utility bill. Blakeman said he would legalize fracking to help New Yorkers lower their energy bills fast.

Aside from the fact that fracking doesn’t necessarily lead to lower utility bills and the reality that Blakeman would need buy-in from the state’s Democratic-dominated Legislature to do so, he insists that legalizing fracking could offer near-term relief from high energy costs.

“I met with those same individuals and companies that are doing the extraction of natural gas in Pennsylvania. They told me they can be up and running in 60 days,” Blakeman said. “If Albany has the will to reduce people’s utility bills … we can get it done in 60 days.”

He pointed to Pennsylvania, arguing that the state has lower electric bills because it allows fracking. But he neglected to mention that Pennsylvania is not part of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative — the carbon trading program of 11 eastern states, which Blakeman has pledged to withdraw from if he is elected.

Pataki, the last Republican to serve as governor in the Empire State, spearheaded the creation of that initiative, which is commonly known as RGGI.

“The concept is right, but the way it’s being done in Albany is wrong,” Pataki said at the presser, accusing Albany of using RGGI as a “slush fund.”

Even if New York did withdraw from RGGI, the benefit would amount to a 5% to 6% decrease on an average New York residential household bill, according to an estimate from National Grid — barely making a dent in the 50% Blakeman is promising to slash.

Exactly how the state would cover the rest of his proposed cut remains unclear.

Affordability, though, continues to be a key concern in Washington Heights, a largely Dominican neighborhood that Mayor Zohran Mamdani did well in during his ascent to victory last year.

To drive their message home, the Republicans even attempted to make their pitch in Spanish. Pataki, much more practiced in this than Blakeman, talked about how much he loved the “barrio” when he was governor, describing Blakeman as a leader “muy fuerte.”

“Gracias, hombre grande,” Blakeman exclaimed, before touting what he views as the GOP ticket’s immigrant bonafides — Saritha Komatireddy for attorney general and Joe Hernandez for comptroller.

“Governor, your Spanish is better than my Spanish, and I grew up speaking it,” Hernandez praised Pataki. — Mona Zhang

From the Capitol

A coalition of public employee unions are spending through super PACs to support Gov. Hochul.

LABOR BOOSTS GOV: A coalition of public employee unions is joining the crowded roster of super PACs spending on the gubernatorial election.

The New York Accountability Coalition has received $550,000 in recent weeks from the Civil Service Employees Association, Public Employees Federation, District Council 37, and CWA District One. It’ll soon spend that money to boost Hochul.

The governor “is laser-focused on lowering costs for working families and investing in public services,” AFSCME’s Courtney Brunelle-Kim said. “Bruce Blakeman is just another pay-to-play politician. From now until Election Day, we’ll be working to ensure that voters in key districts know The Blakeman Record.”

The super PAC spent $460,000 this spring helping Comptroller Tom DiNapoli as he faced two Democratic primary challengers. — Bill Mahoney

FROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL

A clean energy super PAC's ad was pulled after Republican House candidate Anthony Constantino's lawyer alleged it was defamatory.

AD PULLED: A clean energy super PAC yanked a version of an ad airing in a competitive upstate House district after Republican candidate Anthony Constantino’s attorney complained the spot was defamatory.

The group Invest In Tomorrow Coalition recently began airing the spot in the sprawling North Country House seat that accused Constantino — who runs a custom sticker business — of selling anti-police merchandise.

“What do Anthony Constantino and violent anti-cop extremists have in common? They both think ‘kill the police’ is a good slogan,” the ad’s narrator says.

Constantino’s attorney last week contacted a lawyer for the super PAC alleging the contents of the ad were false and defamatory. On Saturday, the group signaled it would suspend further distribution of the current ad. So far, the PAC has spent some $243,000 in the district in the last three days, according to AdImpact.

“Anthony Constantino may lawyer up, but he can’t sticker over the truth: he’s gotten rich off selling vile merch, including hosting a listing for a ‘Kill the Police’ sticker and other anti-cop listings that are still active today,” said Chris Coffey, a spokesperson for the group. “As a token of our gratitude and recognition of his desire to spread that message, ITC PAC is putting $250,000 more behind the original ad buy to make sure all of NY-21 knows the real Anthony Constantino.”

The fight over the commercial comes as Constantino is trying to retain the seat being vacated by GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik. Polls have shown Democrat Blake Gendebien running competitively against the Republican, however, giving the race a surprising dose of uncertainty in the final two weeks. — Nick Reisman

HOUSE HUNTING: Two New York battleground districts have again moved in Democrats’ favor, according to a nonpartisan election forecaster.

Sabato’s Crystal Ball shifted Stefanik’s upstate seat from “likely Republican” to “leans Republican” today, as well as Democratic Rep. Laura Gillen’s Long Island district from “leans Democratic” to “likely Democratic.”

The Stefanik seat covers a sprawling, deep-red area — though Democrats are feeling bullish in part because of the Trump administration’s tariffs impacting farmers there.

Gillen faces a challenge from Hempstead Receiver of Taxes Jeanine Driscoll. Kamala Harris narrowly won that district in 2024, but Republicans are counting on tailwinds from Blakeman, the Nassau County executive, to boost down-ballot candidates. — Madison Fernandez

IN OTHER NEWS

— REAL ESTATE STRIKES BACK: A new organization called Built For New York hopes to promote the real estate industry’s interests in the wake of a pro-tenant political sweep in New York City. (The New York Times)

— PAC ALERT: A coalition of Jewish Democrats from the Capital Region launched a state-level PAC dedicated to supporting liberal candidates who push back on anti-Jewish and anti-Israel forces. (Jewish Insider)

— BOOZE BUCKS: Lily Fan, chair of the State Liquor Authority and a close Hochul ally, donated $40,000 to a pro-Hochul super PAC that’s run by people who lobby the liquor industry. (New York Focus)

Missed this morning’s New York Playbook? We forgive you. Read it here.

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Trump is promising farmers $8B. Republicans are praying it will save their campaigns.

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11 hours ago

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October 20, 2026

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Republicans locked in tight races this November are desperately hoping the Trump administration’s last-minute gambit to send farmers $8 billion in taxpayer money will work.

President Donald Trump announced the new round of money, aimed at farmers struggling with high diesel prices, during a Monday rally for at-risk GOP Sen. Roger Marshall in Kansas. The move comes as White House officials have scrambled to address anger in farm states from Republicans. Trump’s decisions to import more foreign beef, his tariff regime and high fuel costs amid the Iran war have riled already strained farmers and ranchers — a key GOP voting bloc.

Farmers won’t know how much money to expect for several more weeks. Even then, if approved, they won’t receive the payments until late November or early December at the earliest, according to three people close to the plans, granted anonymity to share details.

With two weeks to go before the election, the new aid may also arrive too late to convince some voters.

But top Republicans are banking on the announcement to stem GOP bleeding in farm states — especially in the Midwest, where Marshall, GOP Senate nominee Ashley Hinson in Iowa and GOP Senate nominee Mike Rogers in Michigan have been struggling in their election campaigns. In some cases, they’ve broken with Trump publicly on high prices and the war.

“This will go a long way to making sure the folks that feed us have it a bit easier when they most need it,” said Rep. Derrick Van Orden, referring to the farmers in his district. The Republican is locked in a highly competitive race in a rural-heavy stretch in Wisconsin’s 3rd District.

However, the internal USDA taxpayer-funded account Trump is tapping for the payments doesn’t actually have enough money in it right now to make the payments, meaning Congress will have to approve the new funds or the administration will have to take it from another program, according to three Trump officials who were granted anonymity to discuss private conversations.

Marshall — who’s facing a tougher-than-expected reelection campaign in deep-red territory — and Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.) were among the Republicans who helped push for the $8 billion, according to the three Trump officials.

Marshall requested the administration allocate money to assist farmers with spiked fuel costs in a letter to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins in September.

“Roger Marshall is the leader who fought for that to happen,” Trump said during the Monday rally.

Spokespeople for Marshall and for Scott did not respond to requests for comment. The White House referred Blue Light News to USDA’s announcement on the money.

USDA spokesperson Harry Fones said in a statement that the aid package is Trump’s “latest action to deliver” for farmers and the department is actively reviewing the data to determine payments.

Trump’s decision also comes after administration officials realized the president’s previous step to make off-road dyed diesel more widely available had limited benefits for farm country over other options, according to two of the Trump officials and another administration official involved in the matter. Top agriculture lobbyists further warned the dyed diesel plan could actually backfire on farmers, because they could still be required to pay taxes on the product — just further down the road.

So, Trump officials settled on the $8 billion tranche of direct money for farmers, given that similar kinds of payments to farmers — dating back during the president’s first trade war in 2018 — have quelled enough farmer and rural voter anger to shore up necessary support for Republicans during election season.

Trump officials and Republican operatives in the Midwest are banking on the money shoring up support again this cycle — especially for GOP voters who are angry but also don’t want to vote for Democrats. Trump heads this Thursday to Iowa — where top Republicans have been worried about internal polling that warned several weeks ago they could lose all three Iowa House races, key Senate races and other once-safe red seats across farm states.

“It’s going to help bring farmers’ votes out,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) told Blue Light News of Trump’s plan on Tuesday.

“This is some way that the federal government can step in to help farmers for problems that they face through no fault of their own,” he said.

Most Hill Republicans weren’t given a heads-up about Trump’s announcement, including appropriators, and many hadn’t received any details from USDA as of Tuesday morning, according to two people familiar with the conversations who were granted anonymity to share private details.

Top agriculture groups have warned they’d need at least $50 billion in direct aid this fall to make farmers whole following the impacts of tariffs, weather-related disasters and other high costs linked to the Iran war’s chokehold on agricultural supplies. Farm-state Republicans are pushing to add at least $12 billion in direct farm aid payments to a separate year-end legislative package.

Monday’s aid rollout followed a number of other funding announcements made in swing rural districts. The White House doled out a first round of $12 billion in bailout funds earlier this year for growers of top agricultural commodities who were hit hard by Trump’s tariff agenda.

Alongside Republican Senate candidate Mike Collins in Georgia, Rollins announced a $3.3 billion loan to build a power plant last week. Rollins rolled out $180 million in funding for seed research alongside vulnerable Iowa Reps. Zach Nunn and Marianette Miller-Meeks earlier this month.

Trump also said he would approve long-derailed permanent year-round sales of ethanol during the Kansas rally — which would be a critical boon for corn growers across the Midwest. But the move has been long-stalled in Congress.

“With Roger Marshall in the Senate, we will make year-round E15 permanent. But if Adam Hamilton is in, I’m not doing it,” Trump said. “That’s a big deal for Kansas, actually.”

Rachel Shin contributed reporting.

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Poll: Voters see Republicans as the party of Big Tech tax breaks

Published

14 hours ago

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October 20, 2026

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Americans are fed up with data centers and Big Tech, and Republicans are poised to take more of the political blame in the Nov. 3 midterms.

The Blue Light News Poll found last week that Americans were far more likely to associate the GOP with giving tax incentives to tech companies at a time when the public’s concerns about artificial intelligence and data center sprawl are only deepening.

Nearly half of respondents — 47% — called Republicans the party of tech tax breaks, more than double the 21% who said the same for Democrats.

Voters are also far more likely to want candidates who propose stripping away tax incentives for the data centers needed to fuel the AI boom, according to the new poll, conducted by PF Global.

About a fifth of respondents said that ending those tax breaks would be among their most important tax issues in the midterms, while only 1 in 10 wanted to offer new preferences for data centers.

The top tax priorities for voters, according to the poll, are hiking taxes on billionaires and curbing breaks for big companies.

The findings come as lawmakers in both parties have scrambled to respond to the growing voter concerns over AI and data centers — and as Americans increasingly associate Silicon Valley titans with the Republican Party.

But in both Democratic and Republican-led states alike, governors have sought to put new limits on tax incentives that were already approved for data centers.

Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) rolled out a proposal last week that would take that a step further by imposing a 100% tax on any state or local incentive offered to AI data centers.

But it’s Democrats who have gone more on the offensive about the issue.

Former Sen. Sherrod Brown, for instance, has made data center incentives a key issue as he tries to unseat Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio), a former state lawmaker and lieutenant governor.

“Jon Husted’s ‘deals’ gave wealthy tech companies a windfall and left Ohioans footing the bill,” Brown recently posted on social media.

Democrats have specifically homed in on Meta, which has cut its tax liability in recent years by billions of dollars as it builds out its AI products. And they have sought to tie expanded tax breaks approved by Republicans in last year’s megabill to the increase in data center construction.

The GOP enacted incentives for companies in a broad array of industries as part of the 2025 tax cuts. But Big Tech has found those tax breaks particularly useful, helping to drive a big decrease in corporate tax payments as AI spending keeps trending upward.

Meanwhile, Democrats with 2028 ambitions have floated new taxes on AI companies, while Democratic lawmakers have teed up legislation that would keep data centers from taking advantage of incentives like Opportunity Zones and bonus depreciation, both of which Republicans expanded in 2025.

In fact, Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) recently gave last year’s megabill another new name in a recent debate with his opponent, Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.).

“I want to know if you will commit to voting to repeal that data center tax scam that you voted for,” Ossoff said.

It’s not clear how much the current anti-AI energy will lead to new legislative limits in the coming months. But the new poll found Americans have a real fear of the unknown with artificial intelligence.

A majority of respondents said that tech chief executives had been secretive about the potential risks of AI, while a plurality of Americans believe both that the risks of artificial intelligence development outweigh the benefits and that the government should strictly regulate the emerging technology.

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