What's Giving Democrats Confidence in Texas

Less than a week out from election day, Democrats in Texas are feeling confident in their chances to win in the state’s closely watched Senate race, even as some analysts warn that Gov. Greg Abbott’s political coattails in the state could be hard to overcome.

In Texas, state Rep. James Talarico, the Democratic Senate nominee, is giving Democrats a chance to win statewide for the first time in decades, with polls consistently showing him leading Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Republican nominee, by a few points in the final stretch.

The hype around Talarico’s campaign has also attracted significant spending both from the candidates and outside players. Talarico, in the latest campaign finance filings, has raised more than $146 million in the race and spent about $136 million of that. Paxton, by comparison, has raised just $22 million and spent about $18 million.

While these campaign finance figures might suggest that Paxton would be the financial underdog in the race, the attorney general has attracted record outside spending, most prominently from billionaire Republican donor Elon Musk, who has spent $158 million in the race in outside expenditures, making him, when combined with his previous political spending, the top individual political funder in American history.

Despite this flood of outside cash, Chuck Rocha, a Democratic strategist working on the Talarico campaign, tells The Caucus that Democrats are feeling confident in their chances going into election day, and finishing with an anti-Musk message to boot. 

“We're going to continue to stay focused on what we've stayed focused on since day one, which is cost and corruption, and bringing this thing home strong as Elon Musk and billionaires continue to dump ungodly amounts of money,” Rocha said.

So far in the state, Democratic hopes have been buoyed by favorable polls and early voting returns that seem to match up with the expectations that this could be Democrats’ year to finally flip a Senate seat in the Lone Star State. Voters have already cast about 56% of the total number of votes that were cast in the 2022 Senate competition in Texas, with high turnout, including in the Rio Grande Valley and urban areas, which would likely favor Talarico. According to Rocha, the campaign has long focused on bringing infrequent voters out in an attempt to not only persuade voters but to expand the electorate.

“I get to see a lot of polling and focus groups. Not right now, but over the last year, that most people don't get to see. And just take my word for it: that voters are pissed,”  Rocha said. “They're blaming Republicans, and they're showing up to show their discontent. That is a fact, and you can't run from that because it was proven in the primary, where 30% of the people that showed up in the Democratic primary had never voted in a Democratic primary before.” 

In Rocha’s view, Democrats are set up to succeed in the midterm elections with strong candidates like state Rep. Gina Hinojosa running for governor and candidates like singer-songwriter Bobby Pulido, who is running for Congress in South Texas, putting them in a position to take advantage of discontent with Republican governance.

At the same time, Joshua Blank, the research director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Austin, warns that Republicans could see Abbott’s coattails save them down ballot. 

While Blank largely agrees that things look better for Democrats in Texas than they have in recent history, the three-term governor has proven to be a singular electoral force for Republicans. Abbott’s success has largely come down to his dominance in most of the rural parts of the state.

“The governor is extremely, extremely effective when it comes to campaigning. And I think one of the things that you have to be paying really close attention to here to notice is that while Democrats have been leading in urban and suburban areas in most of the polling throughout most of the summer and the fall, a number of the recent polls have shown Republicans regaining an advantage in the suburbs,” Blank said.

The problem for Democrats, Blank explained, is that Democrats need to win big in urban and suburban areas to overcome the Republican “firewall” in rural Texas.

“In a state as large as Texas with Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, El Paso, Fort Worth, and where 80% of the population more or less lives in or around an urban or suburban area Democrats could still lose the election because the Republican dominance of the rural areas is enough to keep them in office statewide,” Blank said.

The effectiveness of this GOP firewall, Blank said, will come down to the sort of electorate that comes out to vote and the size of the margin Democrats maintain in urban and suburban areas.  

“Look at where the campaigns are right now. Republicans are not trying to hit the major media markets with their campaign stops. They're looking at places like Waco, places like Corpus, places whose media markets extend out into rural communities where there are voters who are looking at high gas prices and maybe a little bit disengaged, but who Republican candidates here in Texas really, really need,” Blank said.