Texas Senate 2026: Paxton vs. Talarico

Race status as of July 26, 2026. Polling and campaign finance figures in this race change frequently.

Why this race is on our list

A sitting senator lost his own party’s nomination, which had not happened to a Texas incumbent since 1970. The man who beat him was impeached by his own party’s state House three years ago. His opponent is a 37-year-old middle school teacher turned Presbyterian seminarian who has raised more money in two quarters than any Texas general-election candidate in a decade. Texas has not elected a Democratic senator since 1988 and voted for Trump by about 14 points in 2024. Every public poll since the runoff has it within a few points.

Texas: the state behind the race

The usual story about Texas is that it is slowly turning competitive. The presidential numbers tell a more complicated story: the Republican margin narrowed from nearly 16 points in 2012 to 9 in 2016 to under 6 in 2020, and then widened back out to about 14 in 2024, when Republicans made large gains among Hispanic voters. Ted Cruz beat Colin Allred by more than 8 points that year despite record Democratic spending. No Democrat has won any Texas statewide office since 1994.

South Texas is where that reversal was sharpest, and it is where both campaigns have spent July. Hidalgo County, which includes McAllen, is one of four historically Democratic South Texas counties that voted for Trump in 2024. Whether that was a realignment or a one-cycle protest is the question both campaigns are testing, and the answer probably decides the race.

The issue environment is dominated by costs. The University of Texas poll finds prices and the economy as the top concern, and reporting from the border counties describes Latino voters frustrated by grocery and gas prices, by mass deportations affecting their communities, and by spending on the conflict with Iran. One newer irritant shows up in the same poll: Texans are broadly opposed to data center construction in their own communities, an issue with no established partisan shape yet.

Two notes on the ballot. The Libertarian nominee, Ted Brown, is the only third candidate that public polling has tested. Ballotpedia’s unofficial candidate list also shows several independents, and we could not confirm from the Secretary of State which of them certified for the ballot. Treat the race as three candidates unless the certified list says otherwise.

The candidates

Ken Paxton (R). Age 63, from Collin County north of Dallas. Texas Attorney General since 2015, previously ten years in the Texas House and two in the Texas Senate. Nationally known for suing to block Democratic administration policies. He lost the March 3 primary’s first round to Cornyn by roughly a point, about 42 to 41, with Wesley Hunt taking 13.5 percent, then won the May 26 runoff 63.8 percent to about 36, a margin near 28 points, after Trump endorsed him a week out and called him a true MAGA warrior. He said at his announcement that he would take a sledgehammer to the Washington establishment. He is endorsed by the National Border Patrol Council, which had backed Cornyn in the primary. He raised $9.3 million in the second quarter and $16.8 million since the start of 2025.

James Talarico (D). Age 37, born in Round Rock, an eighth-generation Texan. A government degree from UT Austin, a master’s in education policy from Harvard, and a Master of Divinity from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary earned while serving in the legislature. He taught middle school language arts in a San Antonio public school. Elected to the Texas House in 2018 by flipping a suburban Republican district, and now represents a district covering North Austin, Pflugerville, and Round Rock. He has Type 1 diabetes and in 2021 filed a bill to cap insulin at $50 a month. He talks constantly about his faith and says there is nothing Christian about Christian nationalism. He beat Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett 52.4 to 45.7 in the primary. His campaign frames the country’s real divide as top versus bottom rather than left versus right. He raised $31.6 million in the second quarter and $72.0 million since the start of 2025, ending June with $23.3 million on hand.

Ted Brown (Libertarian). On the ballot and below our threshold for full treatment, so described here rather than given a section. Age 65, a retired insurance claims adjuster and longtime small-government activist with a political science degree from UCLA. He ran for the same seat in 2024 and took 2.4 percent, more than 267,000 votes, a record for a Texas Libertarian Senate candidate. He is polling 2 to 3 percent and is explicitly courting Republicans who cannot bring themselves to vote for Paxton.

Worth stating plainly: our threshold is about who gets a full section, not about who matters. Southern Methodist University’s Cal Jillson has argued that a Brown vote of even 2 to 4 percent, drawn disproportionately from disaffected Republicans, could decide a race this close. A candidate can be below a polling threshold and still be the reason someone wins.

What the campaigns are contesting

Paxton is running on the president’s agenda, border enforcement, and his record of litigation against Democratic policy. He told a McAllen rally that Texas needs a secure border and that the country should be taken care of first. He and his allies have focused heavily on Talarico’s past statements about gender, sexuality, and transgender minors, arguing they disqualify him in a conservative state. Analysts who have watched both candidates’ events describe Paxton’s tone as oppositional.

Talarico is running on corruption and affordability, in that order, and is openly courting Republicans left homeless by the runoff. Public education, health care access including a Medicare buy-in option, and prescription costs make up most of his policy pitch. One political scientist summarized his tone at these events as love thy neighbor, which is an unusual thing to be able to say about a Senate campaign in a swing year.

The campaigns are also running at very different intensities. As of mid-July, Paxton had held one rally since winning the runoff while Talarico had been touring the state continuously. Whether that reflects strategy, resources, or confidence is contested.

Evidence check

Not a full fact check. Six recurring campaign claims, three per major candidate, with context and sources.

“Paxton was cleared.” Incomplete in one direction, and so is the opposite claim. What is documented: the Texas Senate acquitted him on all 16 impeachment articles that went to a vote in September 2023, with only two Republicans voting to convict on any of them and his wife, then a state senator, barred by rule from voting. The Justice Department declined to prosecute in the final weeks of the Biden administration. His 2015 securities fraud indictment ended in 2024 through a deal involving restitution, with no trial and no admission of guilt. What is also documented: in April 2025 a Travis County judge entered a $6.6 million judgment finding that his office violated the Texas Whistleblower Act by firing four senior deputies who reported him to the FBI, and that his office did not dispute any issue of fact in the case. He called the ruling ridiculous and appealed, then dropped the appeal. So he has never been convicted of a crime, and a court has found against his office on the underlying conduct. Both halves are true.

“Texas taxpayers paid $3.3 million to settle with the whistleblowers.” Widely repeated and wrong in a specific way. Paxton offered $3.3 million in February 2023 and asked the Legislature to fund it. The House refused, investigated instead, and impeached him. That settlement was never paid. The figure Texas actually owes is the $6.6 million judgment, and the Legislature still has to appropriate it, with roughly $1.2 million in interest accruing if it goes unpaid into 2027. The commonly cited number is the abandoned offer, not a payment.

“Paxton unites and turns out the base.” Evidence in both directions. Supporting it: Republican consolidation behind him rose sharply after the runoff, from 63 percent of Republicans in an April survey to 84 percent in June. Cutting against it: he won the runoff with fewer than a million votes, and total Republican runoff turnout of about 1.3 million was not much above the 1.2 million Greg Abbott alone drew in a 2022 primary with a comparable margin. Senate Republican leaders including John Thune, and Karl Rove publicly, argued before the runoff that his record would put the seat at risk. That was a Republican argument, not a Democratic one.

“Talarico’s money is grassroots Texas money.” Half right, and the half that is right is unusual. Fifty-one percent of his total has come from donors giving under $200, against 88 percent of Paxton’s coming from larger donors, and he takes no corporate PAC money. But only about 55 percent of his itemized contributions came from inside Texas, against 83 percent of Paxton’s, and his largest out-of-state sources are California and New York. Small-dollar and in-state are not the same claim.

“Talarico is an out-of-touch Harvard liberal.” The NRSC’s formulation. The Harvard part is accurate: a master’s in education policy. The rest is a judgment resting on facts that pull in different directions. He also holds a UT Austin undergraduate degree, taught in a San Antonio public school, grew up in Round Rock, and first won office by flipping a suburban district that Trump had narrowly carried. Voters can weigh that; the label is not a factual claim.

“Texas is finally winnable for Democrats.” A claim from national Democrats rather than from the candidate, and the evidence is genuinely mixed. For it: every public poll since the runoff shows a race inside or near the margin of error, including a New York Times/Siena survey that had the two tied at 47 percent, with Talarico leading among independents and Hispanic voters. Against it: the same polls have been showing Texas as nearly winnable in cycle after cycle, and Democrats have lost every statewide race since 1994, including 2024 by more than 8 points in this same seat. Close polling in Texas has a poor track record of predicting close results.

What supporters and undecided voters are saying

Both campaigns held border-region events in mid-July with press present, so on-the-record voter comment is unusually balanced in this race compared with most.

Paxton supporters. At his McAllen rally, a 40-year-old mother and her 19-year-old son told the Texas Tribune they support the president’s mass deportations and describe themselves as fully Republican. Reporting from the same event found his arguments about transgender policy landing with parts of the crowd, alongside his border message. His institutional support is narrower than a typical Republican nominee’s, which is itself notable: Trump and much of the state party’s grassroots, but not the Senate leadership that spent heavily against him.

Talarico supporters. Polling gives the clearest picture: he leads among independents, women, younger voters, and Hispanic voters, and holds a favorability rating well above Paxton’s in every survey we found. His fundraising base is more than 215,000 individual contributors. His Eagle Pass town hall drew border residents who told reporters they want crossings controlled and also want their next senator to actually legislate on immigration rather than litigate about it.

Undecided Republicans. This is the group both campaigns are chasing, and the Texas Tribune found them genuinely split rather than merely disappointed. One Cornyn voter said he will not vote for Paxton under any circumstances and plans to vote for Talarico, citing the whistleblowers’ allegations as contrary to what his party should stand for. Another said supporting Paxton is very difficult and supporting Talarico borderline impossible, which leaves Brown or an unmarked ballot. How many voters land in each of those three places is probably the whole election.

How this race is being framed

The polls agree more than they look like they do. The University of Texas poll had Paxton up 43 to 42 among 1,200 registered voters in early June. The Hobby School at the University of Houston had Paxton up 46 to 44. A Texas Southern University survey in late spring had them tied at 45. New York Times/Siena had them tied at 47. Two smaller firms split, one showing each candidate up two. Nobody has found a lead outside the margin of error. The disagreement is about direction, not about closeness.

National coverage frames the seat as a Republican self-inflicted wound: a safe state made competitive by a nominee the party’s own Senate leadership warned against. That framing is accurate as far as it goes, and it was made first by Republicans.

Texas coverage is more interested in South Texas and in whether the 2024 Hispanic shift holds. It also notes something the national frame misses: the two campaigns are making opposite bets about what wins a mixed electorate. Paxton is betting that cultural questions and turnout intensity decide it. Talarico is betting that a Democrat can win Republican votes by talking about corruption and costs and avoiding a fight about identity. One of those bets is going to look obvious in November.

A last note on scale. Cornyn and allied groups spent at least $64 million on television alone trying to hold the nomination, and lost by 28 points. Money has been an unusually poor predictor in this race so far, which is worth remembering when the fall spending totals start arriving.

Discussion Questions

Republican primary voters chose a nominee their party’s Senate leaders publicly warned would endanger the seat. When should a party’s voters defer to that kind of warning, and when should they ignore it?
Paxton has never been convicted of a crime, and a court found his office violated the Whistleblower Act. How should a voter weigh a civil finding against an acquittal?
Talarico talks about his Christian faith constantly and reaches opposite policy conclusions from most Texas Republicans who do the same. What does that tell you, if anything?
Ted Brown may take 2 to 4 percent and could decide the outcome. Is voting for a candidate who cannot win a wasted vote, a protest, or something else?
Republican margins in Texas narrowed for a decade and then widened sharply in 2024. What would you need to see to believe either trend is real?
Half of Talarico’s money comes from small donors and nearly half of his itemized money comes from outside Texas. Does where a candidate’s money comes from change your view of them?
South Texas counties that voted Democratic for generations backed Trump in 2024. What do you think changed there?
Paxton is campaigning on cultural questions and Talarico is mostly avoiding them. Which set of issues should a Senate race be about?
Cornyn’s side spent at least $64 million on television and lost by 28 points. What does that suggest about what political money can and cannot buy?
If your preferred candidate loses, what would you want the winner to do first?