Things Are About to Get Ugly in Texas

In the end, it wasn’t particularly close. Democrats in last night’s Texas Senate primary decisively chose their fighter for November: James Talarico, a 36-year-old state lawmaker who looks—and sounds—like a youth pastor.

At certain moments, the primary between Talarico and Representative Jasmine Crockett felt ugly. Online, supporters slung insults and accusations of racism. Crockett had harsh words for Talarico’s allies, and her campaign was hostile to the press, which it demonstrated by kicking me out of a rally.

But all of that drama was just a small taste of what’s coming next. On the right, the primary between incumbent Senator John Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is heading to a runoff, which likely promises nearly three months of nastiness. “The second wave is going to be a bitch,” Chris LaCivita, a top adviser to President Trump’s 2024 campaign who is working for an independent group supporting Cornyn, wrote on X, tagging Paxton.

On the left, Talarico now faces the uphill climb toward winning statewide as a Democrat in Texas—a climb that, depending on which Republican emerges from the primary, will be somewhere between big and enormous. The real ugliness, in other words, starts now. It’s “open season,” Vinny Minchillo, a Republican consultant in Texas who is not affiliated with either candidate, told me. “They’re going to release the hounds.”

The two Democrats couldn’t have run more different campaigns. And last night, their strategies yielded very different results. Talarico, whose message is a careful blend of Christianity and economic populism, won the northern suburbs of Dallas, his hometown of Austin, and San Antonio. Crockett, who’d touted her opposition to Trump and promised to expand turnout among the party’s base, earned the support of more voters in Dallas and Houston—just not enough. Some voters in Dallas County were turned away from the polls because of a change in where people could cast ballots on Election Day, but not enough to have altered the outcome. Ultimately, Talarico won by more than six points.

Given Crockett’s slightly Trumpian tendencies, including her low tolerance for critical coverage and her apparent willingness to deny reality, it seemed plausible, at least for a moment, that the congresswoman might refuse to concede. But this morning, she called Talarico to congratulate him. “Texas is primed to turn blue,” Crockett said in a statement, “and we must remain united because this is bigger than any one person.”

Still, Crockett seems to hold some lingering bitterness. After her call to Talarico, she did not directly respond to a New York Times reporter’s question about whether she would campaign with him. She added that she was concerned that her supporters might feel disenfranchised by the confusion in Dallas and be reluctant to turn out in the general election.

It is Talarico’s job now to earn their votes; he’ll have to if he wants to win statewide in Texas. Black voters, who polls showed overwhelmingly supported Crockett, are a crucial part of the Democratic electorate. “We’re not writing off any voter,” Talarico told me last week. “As folks get to know me, our approval ratings among Black Texans have gone up.”

[Read: ‘Elaine from Atlantic … she needs to leave’]

For Texas Democrats, who see Talarico as their best chance in decades to elect one of their own to the Senate, the hardest work starts now. Talarico has never run a race at this scale, making him relatively untested. As he attempts to bring moderates and regretful Trump voters into his campaign, Talarico is also particularly vulnerable to attacks from Republicans who seek to paint him as too progressive for Texas.

They’ve got plenty of votes and video clips to choose from. In the state House, for example, Talarico once spoke in opposition to Republican legislation that would prohibit transgender girls from playing in girls’ sports, arguing that there are “many more than two biological sexes.” Online, Republican activists are already sharing a 2021 X post from Talarico in which he wrote that “radicalized white men are the greatest domestic terrorist threat in our country.” Last night, the National Republican Senatorial Committee sent out a clip of the lawmaker saying in a floor speech that “God is nonbinary.” Minchillo, the Republican consultant, told me that Talarico’s position on these issues, and especially on gender, “is a real problem with the audience that he wants to attract.”

Talarico’s campaign is already preparing to defend those positions, sometimes on biblical grounds. I got a sampling of this last week when I asked Talarico, who is a Presbyterian seminarian, how he plans to respond when, for example, Republicans criticize his line about God being genderless. “Most Texans understand that God is beyond gender. The Apostle Paul says as much in his letter to the Galatians,” Talarico said. If Republicans have an issue with that, he added, “they should take it up with the Apostle Paul.” The line might sound like a banger to some of Talarico’s supporters, but it’s hardly a given that his progressive interpretation of scripture will appeal to conservative evangelicals.

The big fear for Democrats is that Talarico will go the way of Beto O’Rourke, whose 2018 candidacy attracted the party’s funds and fizzy optimism but who ultimately failed to defeat Senator Ted Cruz. Some Democrats argue that Talarico is different. “He knows how to talk to a lot of people who are turned off by partisan rhetoric,” Matt Angle, a Texas-based Democratic strategist, told me. “It allows him to identify himself as a different type of Democrat—a uniquely Texas Democrat.”

[Read: Trump is expected to endorse Cornyn]

The good news for Talarico is that, for the next 11 weeks, his two potential Republican opponents will probably be focused on each other. Cornyn has vowed to rain hellfire on Paxton, who was impeached in 2023 on charges including bribery and abuse of the public trust. A pro-Cornyn ad refers to Paxton as a “wife-cheater and fraud.” “Judgment Day is coming to Ken Paxton,” Cornyn said menacingly during a press conference last night. While those two “beat the crap out of each other,” Talarico will have time “to talk to Texans and contrast himself,” Angle said.

A last-minute endorsement from Trump might pour ice-cold water on some of that hellfire as well as on Talarico’s hopes for an opponent who may be easier to beat. Even though Cornyn is unpopular among some Republicans for being insufficiently MAGA, the president seems to recognize Paxton’s weakness in a general election—and, according to my colleagues Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer, is planning to give his support to Cornyn, which could help the senator. (Trump said on Truth Social that he plans to make an endorsement soon and to call on the other candidate to drop out, but he did not specify whom he would endorse.)

In Texas, Democrats and Republicans are weighing the same uncertainties ahead of the November election. Many believe that with Cornyn as the Republican nominee, a statewide victory for Talarico in November would be possible but unlikely. A Paxton win, however, would set up a much riskier general election, given his heavy baggage. In the coming days and weeks, as some Republicans do everything they can to avoid this outcome, Talarico’s party will be praying for it.