2026 Midterm Elections - Talarico wins, Paxton/Cornyn headed to runoff
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My grandad was a Baptist preacher in South Texas. He told me at an early age that we follow a barefoot rabbi who gave us two commandments: love God and love neighbor.
My faith teaches me to love my neighbor as myself. Not just my neighbor who looks like me. Not just my neighbor who prays like me. Not just my neighbor who votes like me. I am called to love all of my neighbors the way I love myself.
That’s what motivated me to go into public service — first as a public school teacher and now as a public official.
As a legislator, I’ve brought Democrats and Republicans together to take on corporate special interests and lower the cost of housing, lower the cost of childcare, and lower the cost of prescription drugs including insulin.
I’m trying to love my neighbor through public policy, I’m trying to make my neighbor’s life a little easier and a little better.
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Quite the right wing conspiracy kerfluffle ongoing about whether Trump will endorse Cornyn:
Maybe Trump is surprised by the fierce pushback about his TX endorsement post and is looking for a way out?
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This new kind of politics is being born right here in the Lone Star State.
The number of young people who showed up to vote in this election is unprecedented.
The number of Texans who have never voted before but showed up in this election is unprecedented.
The number of Independents and Republicans who voted in this Democratic primary is unprecedented.
There is something happening in Texas.
The people of Texas just gave this country a little bit of hope. And a little bit of hope is a dangerous thing.
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Free and fair elections are the cornerstone of our democracy. But right now, they’re under attack.
Several Republican-controlled states have redrawn their congressional maps to give themselves an unfair advantage in the midterm elections.
Now Virginia has a chance to help level the playing field. If you live in the Commonwealth, early voting begins March 6, and Election Day is on April 21. Vote YES.
lawtig02
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I have never agreed with Bernie more. The practical issue with liberal populism over the last couple of decades is that its primary advocates are not relatable to the grocery store Americans we need to win elections. Talarico bridges that gap better than anyone else I've seen so far.
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Here's hoping that just like with other recent examples, Trump gets mad that the Atlantic scooped his forthcoming Cornyn endorsement and/or because Thune and others continued to publicly press for a Cornyn endorsement, and endorses Paxton instead out of spite.
lawtig02
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There's been a lot of analysis over the last few years of the importance of authenticity in electoral politics. For example --
Even Trump, as repulsive as he is, comes across as unapologetically authentic. Contrast that with Kamala, who, fairly or not, came across to most Americans as superficial, manufactured and unlikeable.
Talarico just exudes authenticity. This may be picking nits, but I prefer an analogy other than youth pastor. Talarico comes across to me as that young associate pastor just out of seminary who hits the ground running, full of love for every person he meets, excited to preach the sermon whenever he gets the chance, and eager to get his hands dirty doing on-the-ground work in the community. Anyone who grew up in an evangelical church knows the person I'm talking about.
Will Talarico's authenticity, contrasted with Cornyn's complicity or Paxton's extraordinary corruption, be enough to win? I don't know. But I genuinely think he's the best man for this moment, and I hope this can be a template for the future evolution of American liberalism. As that study concludes --
"As such, our findings can help explain why citizens trust some politicians and not others, and shed light on how politicians might inspire more trust, in a supposed ‘age of distrust’ in politics (Dalton, 2004; Foa et al., 2020; Rosanvallon, 2008). For instance, politicians could make a more concerted effort to understand ordinary people and everyday life in their community, to listen to their concerns and realities and reflect these more in their rhetoric and behaviour. They might also consider whether they come across as ‘typical politicians’, such as by not answering questions directly and coming across as scripted and stage-managed, and come to understand that such manoeuvres that may seem like the best political strategy might come at the cost of eroding the public’s trust in them – and perhaps in politics in general. In some cases, authenticity perceptions might be cultivated simply by abandoning strategic performances, while in others, it may require adopting a performance of ordinariness. Of course, calculated performances of authenticity sound somewhat paradoxical, since the point of authenticity is that politicians come across as simply being themselves, not just behaving strategically to reach political aims, but what appears to matter is the perception that they are more like ordinary people and less like scripted politicians, answering questions directly and saying what they mean instead of what is politically expedient. More broadly, it appears that increased authenticity in politics might be one important aspect of the ongoing effort (see, e.g. OECD, 2022) to rebuild political trust in modern democracies. This is compounded by our finding that citizens with lower levels of generalized political trust value authenticity even more than others: authenticity might be especially important in reaching out to them."
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My guess is that he was hoping the leak would get Paxton to bow out because Cornyn is justifiably seen as the stronger candidate for the general election, but now that Paxton has said he isn’t quitting and is arguably the favorite to win the primary runoff, Trump is in a bind because he hates backing a loser and there’s a good chance of that happening again - either Cornyn in the primary or Paxton in November.
tallheel95
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This is so important. I was just talking with a friend about the Harris/Walz campaign... mind you I don't think she was ever going to win, but imo the campaign certainly went downhill after they veered from "weird" to repetitive, scripted talking points like "turn the page" and whatnot. To me, Harris did not come across as authentic because she just always reverted back to these trite catchphrases. Possibly she was doing so out of fear of making a blunder, but people actually could get behind "falling out of a coconut tree" instead of something benign and inauthentic like "new way forward."
I'd actually argue that is one of my small hesitations about Pete Buttigieg. He is incredibly smart and can have elements of authenticity, but he also does things that seem very calculated (e.g. military service, growing a beard) that can cast an inauthentic shadow.
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I think this hits on one thing that made Trump successful in 2016 (not so much anymore)...he was essentially a blank slate onto which anyone could project their own thoughts and feelings.
Of course, the reality is that he was a "blank slate" because he only cared about power and not about any of the issues, so I'm not sure how repeatable that is, but it is an interesting part of his early success.
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That is an reasonable assessment as to Trump’s expectations except it was not a leak or trial balloon — it was an express Truth Social post by Trump (or in his name).
So while I think he may have had exactly the expectations you describe, he didn’t give himself plausible deniability of using a leak.
And now we have a second instance in a short period of questions about who has ability to post for Trump in Truth Social (when were also told that Trump’s Truth Social platform is the burning bush of Trump 2.0) is being used to repudiate something (allegedly) posted by Trump. First it was the Obama apes video snippet, now (possibly) this command about the Texas GOP primary.
An ultra-conservative billionaire funded 2/3rds of the opposition to Crenshaw. We gotta reform campaign financing or this country and our states will never have good leadership.