With the Texas midterm primary election rapidly approaching, my eyes are on the Senate. It promises to be an interesting contest which could portend the future of the Democratic Party, as well as the state at large.
On the Republican side, incumbent John Cornyn faces an aggressive challenger in current Attorney General Ken Paxton. Both are pro-Trump conservatives; however, Cornyn is marginally more reserved in his rhetoric, whereas Paxton uses his history of litigation to amplify his presence on the national stage.
On the Democratic side, Texas state Rep. James Talarico faces off against U.S. House Rep. Jasmine Crockett. Both share a largely uniform progressive agenda, but differ in rhetoric. Crockett tends towards aggressive, populist rhetoric reminiscent of Zohran Mamdani, whereas Talarico is more moderate, in line with Texas Democrats such as Colin Allred and Beto O’Rourke.
Attentive readers will note that both of these elections sound quite similar — two candidates with aligned policy platforms, differing in rhetoric. It seems, therefore, that what will be on the ballot in this stage is whether voters want to amplify or tone down political rhetoric.
This question is particularly essential for the Democrats — it’s clear that something needed to change after their calamity in 2024, but opinions are split on whether they need to move further left or towards the center. The 2025 election provided incentives for both, with Mamdani achieving victory in New York while the more reserved Abigail Spanberger triumphed in Virginia. With 2028 already being discussed, the Democrats need to unify around a candidate and a message — preferably faster than they did so last time.
The Republican side is less interesting. While they do face a similar question of rhetoric, there is no question of a new direction emerging for the party in this race — it seems that it’s still not possible for a non-MAGA Republican to win a primary in Texas. This is hardly surprising, but examining Republican primaries in blue states could yield interesting results.
Predicting a winner is difficult now that Disney, in their infinite wisdom, has axed 538, a polling aggregation and analysis website which was an invaluable source of statistics in the past few presidential elections. Its would-be successor, FiftyPlusOne, has some information available, though. Paxton seems favored to win the Republican primary by a slim majority, and Crockett is likewise favored to win the Democratic nomination. In the general election, though, Talarico has a slim chance against Paxton, Crockett is projected to lose and Cornyn is projected to beat any Democrat who comes his way. This may be the year Texas goes blue, but it’s a pretty long shot.
– Morgan Powers, class of ‘27, computer science and political science double-major
