Why James Talarico May Be the Big Winner in Texas GOP Senate Runoff

After more than a year of bitter fighting and $109 million in advertising, state Attorney General Ken Paxton and Senator John Cornyn retreated into silence over the weekend in the Republican primary runoff for U.S. Senate in Texas. They scheduled no public events and offered no fresh messaging as they waited for the election that would settle their fight for the GOP nomination.

James Talarico, the Democratic state representative who will face the winner, was waiting, too, in the race that could determine control of the Senate. But while Paxton and Cornyn were spent from their primary war, Talarico was watching the destruction unfold.

A Texas Democrat hasn’t been in the U.S. Senate since June 1993, when Robert Krueger, who was appointed by Governor Ann Richards five months earlier after Senator Lloyd Bentsen became President Bill Clinton’s treasury secretary, lost a special election to Kay Bailey Hutchison for the remainder of Bentsen’s term.

But Paxton's path to the nomination, boosted by President Donald Trump's endorsement on May 19, has made Talarico's long-shot campaign look more viable. What was supposed to end the GOP's bitter infighting has instead become, in the eyes of strategists in both parties, a rare opportunity for Democrats to flip the seat.

Why Texas 2026 Senate Race Could Flip Blue

Republican strategist Mike Madrid believes the political environment has fundamentally shifted in Democrats’ favor. The convergence of three factors, he argues, has created an unprecedented opportunity for Talarico to win a statewide race in Texas for the first time in 32 years.

“I think the chances of the Democrats winning in Texas are better now than they’ve been in 25 years,” Madrid told Newsweek. “You have to have a favorable political environment for the Democrats. You have to have a remarkable Democratic candidate with crossover appeal, and they have that. And the third is you have to have a remarkably damaged Republican candidate, and they have that.”

For Talarico, a seminarian and first-term state representative, Trump’s decision to back Paxton over the establishment-preferred Cornyn amounts to what Madrid described: a damaged Republican nominee with ethical baggage, a historically unpopular president, and a window to flip a seat that has seemed locked in Republican hands for a generation.

Paxton-Cornyn Choice: Loyalty vs. Electability

Trump's endorsement of Ken Paxton raised eyebrows among Republican officials and strategists. It was part of a weeklong revenge tour that underscored a growing problem for Republicans: Trump's strength in primaries depends on loyalty, yet the candidates most eager to prove that loyalty are often the weakest in a general election.

Paxton has branded himself as one of Trump's fiercest loyalists, embracing the president's rhetoric and grievances with enthusiasm. That loyalty has energized Trump's core supporters in the primary. But it has also made Paxton radioactive with moderate and independent voters who have watched his impeachment trial, legal settlements and ethical controversies pile up.

Cornyn, the four-term senator and establishment favorite, represents the opposite problem. He has been reliably conservative and largely supportive of Trump's agenda in the Senate, backing his judicial appointments and economic priorities. But his relationship with Trump has long been complicated by moments of distance and perceived disloyalty. Cornyn opposed Trump's original border wall proposal, was slow to endorse him in 2016, and declined to immediately embrace Trump's false election fraud claims after 2020. Those moments have damaged him with the MAGA base.

Trump made his judgment clear in his endorsement announcement.

“John Cornyn is a good man, and I worked well with him, but he was not supportive of me when times were tough,” Trump wrote. “John was very late in backing me in what turned out to be a Historic Run for the Republican Nomination.”

However, Paxton carries significant political baggage. He was acquitted in a 2023 impeachment trial over corruption allegations and settled a long-running securities fraud case in 2024. His campaign has also been shadowed by allegations of an affair. Cornyn's campaign has relentlessly highlighted those controversies, and they are likely to remain a major issue in the general election if Paxton becomes the nominee.

Latest Polling Shows Talarico Leading Paxton

Recent surveys confirm what strategists see. In April, the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas found Talarico ahead of Paxton by 8 points (42 percent to 34 percent) in a general election matchup.

A separate Texas Public Opinion Research poll from the same period showed Talarico leading Paxton 46 percent to 41 percent.

Both results carry margins of error that leave room for movement, but they signal something unprecedented: a Democrat in striking distance in a state where no party member has won statewide office since 1994.

If Paxton wins the runoff Tuesday, as polling and prediction markets now heavily favor, Republicans face an outcome they did not anticipate entering this cycle: a genuinely competitive Senate race in Texas.

“If Cornyn wins the nomination, Talarico has very little chance,” Jim Kessler, vice president for policy at Third Way, a centrist think tank, told Newsweek. “If Paxton wins the nomination, Talarico has a fairly good chance, not as good as 50-50. He’s still the underdog. To win a Senate race in Texas, a Democrat needs to win at least 70 percent of moderate voters there. That’s not impossible, but it’s hard. But with Cornyn, it would have been close to impossible. So it puts the task within range.”

Talarico, by contrast, presents what strategists call crossover appeal in a state where Democrats are outnumbered. He is a practicing Christian who talks openly about his faith in ways that are unusual for Democratic nominees. He is young, charismatic and independent of the national party apparatus that Texas voters view unfavorably.

“Talarico represents a couple of things: a post-Trump politician who wants to bring voters together, rather than pinning them against each other,” said Keith Edwards, a political influencer and digital strategist who oversaw social media for Senator Jon Ossoff's 2020 Senate campaign in Georgia. Ossoff is widely seen as a rising star within the Democratic Party.

“Republicans are terrified about actually having to not only run on their record but run against someone who knows and understand how badly they've misused God and Jesus Christ's name.”

Texas Advantage: Why Demographics Still Favor GOP

Republican strategist Alex Patton offered historical perspective that should temper Democratic optimism. He noted that Republicans averaged 53.8 percent of the presidential vote in Texas across 2012, 2016 and 2020, while Democrats averaged 43.7 percent. Though the GOP margin has narrowed from roughly 16 points in 2012 to about 5.5 points in 2020, a structural Republican advantage remains.

“A 5- to 10-point swing toward Democrats is possible but unlikely,” Patton told Newsweek. “There is no evidence Texas voters are warming to the national Democratic message. The data shows that Texas voters are responding to Talarico as a candidate and support for the opposition is softening. Those are different things, and conflating them would be a mistake.”

The more interesting variable, Patton argued, is Republican enthusiasm itself. The current political environment, marked by the start of a new war and broad dissatisfaction with Trump’s direction, is generating real frustration among some reliable MAGA and GOP voters.

“This softening could matter at the margins,” Patton said. “Talarico is exactly the type of candidate in Texas who can capitalize on an unfavorable environment for his opponents. So yes, the Democrats have a right to be cautiously hopeful about Texas, but the context in September and October will matter.”

Latino and Independent Voters Fleeing Republicans

If Republicans lose Texas, it would represent a historic reversal. But the real story is not Talarico’s personal appeal alone. It is the simultaneous collapse of Republican support among two groups that powered Trump’s 2024 victory: Latino voters and independents.

Trump won 55 percent of Texas’ Latino voters in 2024. In recent polling, his approval among all Hispanic adults has plummeted to just 22 percent. Among the Latino voters who backed him in 2024, approval has fallen from 93 percent at the start of his second term to just 66 percent as of May 2026. A University of Houston poll found that only 41 percent of Trump’s 2024 Latino supporters would back him again. The driving force: economic hardship and concern about immigration policy.

In a Texas Public Opinion Research poll, Talarico led Cornyn and Paxton by roughly 30 points among Latino voters. He received 57 percent of the Latino vote compared to their 25 to 27 percent. That is not marginal improvement, it is a realignment.

Madrid, the longtime Republican strategist and Latino voting expert, explained why the shift is happening.

“It’s got to be the economy,” Madrid said. “There’s no question about it. But it is also the overreach of government with the ICE raids and the crackdown for mass deportations.”

Polling and prediction markets confirm what strategists see: Paxton is heavily favored to win Tuesday’s runoff. Once he does, Texas becomes a genuine battleground in a cycle in which Republicans had assumed they would be on offense nationally. For Talarico, the waiting is over.

But the caveats matter. This is still Texas. Republicans hold structural advantages. Talarico’s personal appeal may not translate into sustained Democratic support. And the months between now and November offer ample opportunity for the political environment to shift.

“It’s still Texas,” Madrid cautioned. “Still a very tough state for the Democrats. But the conditions could not be more favorable for them at the same time.”

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This story was originally published May 25, 2026 at 2:03 PM.