Sizing up the Texas Senate race between James Talarico and Ken Paxton as early voting begins

On the eve of early voting in Texas, Democratic state Rep. James Talarico maintains a slim lead over Republican Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, in the race for U.S. Senate. The Real Clear Politics average of polls between September 24 and October 14 shows Talarico ahead by an average of 2.2 percentage points.

The bruising political fight continues as the campaigns and outside committees spend mountains of cash on advertising. According to Ad Impact Politics, spending on the Texas Senate race has topped $500 million. The figure includes the primary races and future ad bookings.

Of that, Republicans have spent more than $368 million, and $132 million has come from Democrats. With more than two weeks to go until Election Day, the number is sure to rise.

Both campaigns released their latest fundraising totals last week. Talarico raised $64 million in the third quarter, the most ever for a Senate candidate in the third quarter, according to his campaign. Paxton raised $18 million in the third quarter, double the amount he raised in the second quarter.

As part of his closing push, Talarico took part in a town hall hosted by CNN last week, repeating one of his overall campaign themes of bringing people together from all parties and bashing billionaires (CNN and CBS News Texas share the same parent company, Skydance).

"I am tired of us being divided into teams, left vs. right, blue vs. red, urban vs. rural because the truth is we're all on the same team," Talarico said.

In a bid to boost Paxton, Vice President JD Vance returned to Texas, campaigning in Tyler last Tuesday and urging Republicans to turn out to the polls.

"Because of you, we're going to make him the next United States Senator representing Texas, Ken Paxton. He fights for you. Let's fight for him," Vance said.

President Trump, who has also been urging Republicans to vote for Paxton, made accusations against incumbent Republican Sen. John Cornyn and longtime GOP strategist Karl Rove in a Truth Social post last week.

"Sadly, and very stupidly, John Cornyn and his Liddle' Buddy, Super RINO, Karl Rove, are doing everything possible to make it hard for Ken Paxton, the Greatest Attorney General in the History of Texas, and one of the Best in the United States, to win."

The post went on to say, "If Ken Paxton loses, it will be because of WEAK and INEFFECTIVE Political Hacks like John Cornyn and Karl Rove."

CBS News Texas reached out to Cornyn's office seeking comment, but has not heard back.

Parker Hevron, a political science professor at Texas Woman's University, spoke with "Eye On Politics" about the race.

The following selections from their conversation have been lightly edited for clarity.

Jack Fink: I think one of the key questions is: all of the negative ads, all of the Republican money flowing into the race for Paxton, is that going to raise Talarico's negatives and perhaps help Paxton squeak by and win in November?

Parker Hevron: It's a great question. It's the $286 million question, which I read today, is how much money Elon Musk has poured into the race in support of outside groups who are running ads that are hoping to bring up Talarico's negatives. The last time you and I talked, it was a few months ago, and we wondered when Ken Paxton was going to get on the air. It had been a pretty quiet summer for him in terms of hitting Talarico, buying airtime, and showing up on TV and the internet, and he is for sure on the air now. It's impossible to turn on the TV; it's impossible to watch anything online without seeing a Paxton ad that is inevitably going to be critical of Talarico. 

And I think at this point, given that Paxton's negatives are so, kind of, baked into the cake of this race, they're something that everybody knows about. If you're at all familiar with Ken Paxton, for, you know, in terms of name recognition, you're probably also going to be aware of the scandals that have really followed him around, and not just recently, but for a long time in Texas politics, and to this point, they haven't mattered. He's been able to run successful statewide races for attorney general. Before that, of course, he was a state senator from Collin County. 

But at this point, his negatives are really something to be reckoned with, and I think that his theory of this race is he has got to dissuade voters who may be willing to defect from the Republican Party and vote in favor of Talarico in November. He has to dissuade them from doing that. 

The environment is not favorable right now for Republicans, and I think that's true as much in Texas as it is nationwide. And so, Talarico is certainly facing the brunt of these attacks that Paxton is running at the moment, and is really just pouring millions and millions of dollars into trying to get Talarico's negatives much higher than they have been.

Jack Fink: If Talarico wins, what will that say about Texas? And if Paxton wins, what will that say about Texas?

Hevron: If Paxton does end up winning on the back of this influx of money, I think it's going to be very demoralizing for Democrats, because I think in many ways, Talarico and Paxton are pretty starkly different candidates, and, setting that aside, the national climate right now is so negative for Republicans in so many ways, from Trump's approval rating being down, to the cost of living being high, to Republicans dealing with the war in Iran, which has now lasted much longer than President Trump said it was going to. So, if Democrats can't win in this cycle in Texas, I do think it's going to be a very demoralizing thing for the statewide Democratic Party. 

[If Talarico wins], I don't think it's necessarily a repudiation of Republican politics as a whole, but I do think that it may be a bit of a come-to-Earth moment for the Republican Party in Texas. I think the last 10 years of Republican politics have really been characterized by a kind of mantra of there can be no enemies to the right, and so these politicians in Texas who run statewide, it's a race to see, in many ways, who can be the most conservative, and there's almost nothing that a politician can do, that would discount them from that side of the aisle. 

If Talarico does end up winning this race, it may cause Republican voters to have a serious reckoning about the types of candidates that they are nominating. And it's a very small part of the electorate that ends up nominating these people to run in statewide races, but if Paxton does end up losing in a state like Texas, I think it's certainly going to open some eyes.