The issue that could tip the scales in the Texas Senate race

This year’s midterm elections in Texas are on track to cost a billion dollars, with more than half of it spent on the U.S. Senate campaign – what could be the most expensive non-presidential race in American history. But whatever the price tag, it’s certainly one of the most combative.

Republican State Attorney General Ken Paxton’s campaign bus displays a rally cry from the 19th century Texas revolution against Mexico: “Come and take it.” Paxton, whose government tenure has been marked by controversy, is President Trump’s hand-picked candidate. At a rally October 23, Paxton exhorted the crowd: “Do you believe in protecting Texas and stopping Sharia law? So do I. Do you believe that parents, not the government, should raise your children? So do I.”

Paxton’s opponent is a Presbyterian seminarian and former middle-school teacher, State Representative James Talarico. Going into Election Day, polls show the two locked in a tight race.

Talarico draws his campaign’s closing theme from the TV show about Texas high-school football, “Friday Night Lights.” He told a crowd in San Antonio Oct. 24, “To win this election, we have to execute. We have to leave it all on the field. We have to win.”

The issues in Texas mirror concerns across the country: high prices, immigration, government corruption, and the power of big tech and billionaires. As the song goes, “The eyes of Texas are upon you.” And now, all eyes are on Texas.

“A big, messy, complicated election”   

Sarah Adler Hartman and Matthew Watkins are the CEO and editor-in-chief of the Texas Tribune, a non-profit and non-partisan news organization. We invited them to the historic Salt Lick restaurant, just outside Austin, for some Hill Country barbecue, and a little politics.

Asked whether all the attention on Texas is inflating the egos of Texans to be the center of the political universe, Hartman replied, “Everything’s bigger in Texas!”

Hartman acknowledges that despite the popular image of Texas, the state has a growing Asian American population, a growing Latino population, and more people moving here from around the country. 

“Texas is very different than the caricature that people paint of Texas from outside of the state,” she said, “and I think you see this, and you see some of the growing pains, the cognitive dissonance in this.”

Watkins noted, “There’s more Democratic voters in Texas than there are in Massachusetts. There’s traditionally Democratic voters in rural areas of the Rio Grande Valley who are very socially conservative. There’s, you know, really liberal white people in Austin. That’s how we get into a big, messy, complicated election like we’re in now.”

“These races are all about turnout”

Last weekend, “Sunday Morning” followed Paxton and Talarico as both stumped in and around San Antonio, and spoke to some of their supporters.

Paxton’s backers say the race is about what it means to be a true Texan. One man said of Democrats moving to the state, “They don’t understand. They’re bringing their point of views here, and it’s going to ruin it. It’ll be just like California if something doesn’t change.”

Another woman said she doesn’t see Talarico as a Democrat: “He is more for Communism and taking away the rights that we have been founded on in this country,” she said, adding he “alarms” her.

Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz has been on the trail campaigning for Paxton. “Look, this race is neck-and neck; it is a dead heat,” Cruz said. “These races are all about turnout. The left is going to show up. They hate Donald Trump. They’re going to show up. The question is, does everybody else? Do regular people come out and vote? If regular people come out and vote, we’ll win Texas and have a good election.”

“There are a lot more decent people”  

Talarico supporters say GOP attacks on their candidate, over the border and transgender rights, are not working.

One woman doesn’t buy the argument that Latino voters in Texas are turned off by Talarico on cultural issues: “I mean, I’m Latina, so I’m Brown and proud,” she said. “I just voted this morning for James Talarico, so I am very excited to see, hopefully, the change that’s going to happen.”

That change won’t come easy. Conservative republicans have run Texas for decades. But some Democrats feel their time has come. One woman got emotional telling us, “I’m hoping that this election will see that there are decent people, there are a lot more decent people than there are corrupt and cruel people. It’s not about being Republican, it’s not about being Democrat right now. It is good versus evil.”

Congressman Joaquin Castro, a San Antonio Democrat, says economic concerns are paramount, even if the culture fights get the headlines. “Prices are so high, you know, people are really feeling it economically. They feel like they don’t have time for [cultural issue fights]. I mean, all these attacks on transgender or all this other culture stuff? It’s like, I can’t pay my bills, I can’t afford gas.

“Also, you know, James Talarico, he really is a generational talent,” Castro said. “I know you hear that. But he’s somebody who’s trying to unify people.”

Although diners back at the Salt Lick didn’t appear to give it much notice, rising costs – of beef and gas, and housing – could be the deciding factor here and nationwide.

“There are a lot of people nationwide who view Texas as sort of the beating heart of conservatism for the country,” said the Texas Tribune’s Matthew Watkins. “There are people on the right who say, ‘We can’t lose Texas or else we lose the country’; there are people who on the left who say, ‘Man, if we win Texas, like, this is a big deal.’ There’s this sort of psychological weight that is on it that makes people feel like, Okay, we can’t lose this, or, What if we win this? That is causing people to really take interest in this race”

    
Story produced by Ed Forgotson. Editor: George Pozderec. 

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