This poll result should panic Paxton — and it’s not just that he’s losing | Opinion

Two recent polls in Texas’ Senate showdown grabbed attention because they showed Democrat James Talarico with a slight lead over Republican Ken Paxton — and one even had Talarico over the all-important 50% mark.

Neither finding, though, was the one that should keep Paxton’s campaign aides up at night. Deeper in one poll was data that shows why Talarico could become the first Democrat to win a statewide race in the lifetimes of Harry Styles, Bad Bunny and Justin Bieber, to name a few.

This is the Texas Senate Rundown — a sampling of the latest news and views in the Paxton-Talarico campaign, mixed with my analysis of the hottest race in town.

So far, Talarico is well-liked in Texas. Ken Paxton is … not

A Texas Public Opinion Research poll released July 28 gave Talarico his biggest lead yet, 5 points. That’s within the error margin of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points, so Paxton is far from doomed.

The pollsters also asked the 1,048 likely voters surveyed their general impression of various political figures. The highest favorability rating went to Talarico, with 43% liking him and 31% not. The lowest went to Paxton; 46% rated him unfavorably, while 33% said they liked him.

Put another way, Paxton is down 15 points on one of the most important measurements in politics: who voters like more, you or your opponent.

My take: With two-and-a-half months until Texans start voting, Paxton is just about out of time to win over enough Texans to him on a personal level.

That doesn’t mean it’s over. Paxton can help himself by shoring up his standing with self-defined Republicans and independents who have voted for the party for years. The poll found that the attorney general is the choice of eight in 10 Republicans, while Talarico has more than 90% of his (admittedly smaller) party on board. Factor in the Democrat’s big edge with independents and Talarico’s lead makes sense.

Impressions of Paxton, a three-term statewide officeholder, are firmer than voters’ thoughts on Talarico. And for Paxton, they are tainted by his impeachment, corruption charges and very public divorce, rife with adultery accusations.

He can’t fix a lot of that. What he can do is take the bark off of Talarico. Republicans will have to go relentlessly negative to remind Texans why they haven’t trusted Democrats to govern in 30 years. Paxton can bring down Talarico’s favorability rating by showcasing the Democrat’s progressive views on gender, religion, immigration and economic issues.

Republicans have been trying. The problem is that they’ve focused on a caricature — that Talarico is a soft mama’s boy who doesn’t eat enough brisket — more than the dangers of another Democratic vote in the Senate.

But they’ve surfaced all kinds of comments that should hurt Talarico in a general election, so much so that even Talarico has called some of his own comments on gender and Christianity “cringey,” even though many are just a few years old.

Republicans can’t suddenly make Ken Paxton popular. But they can make him a better option on cultural and economic issues by defining Talarico as far out of the mainstream. That will take tens of millions of dollars to sustain advertising and outreach to voters, which brings us to Paxton’s second-biggest problem.

Big-dollar Republican donors slow to back Ken Paxton

Two national outlets recently spotlighted the fact that top GOP donors, the ones who have subsidized three decades of dominance, aren’t quite ready to pony up for Paxton.

Some of it stems from hurt feelings over the divisive primary in which Paxton beat Sen. John Cornyn, a GOP stalwart since the 1980s. Dallas billionaire Robert Rowling bluntly told The Wall Street Journal of his reluctance to jump on board, though he indicated he would come around in the interest of beating Talarico. Others indicated they’re not quite ready to join him.

Some of the hesitance also involves broader disputes in the party about which races to focus on in a challenging campaign year and who should pay for what. Senate Republican leaders saw Cornyn as the better candidate, allowing them to focus on other races in hopes of keeping a majority. Many reportedly blame President Donald Trump for not backing an incumbent and think his campaign operation, sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars, should take responsibility for pulling Paxton over the finish line.

My take: Perhaps business interests will see a bad investment and decide their money is better spent elsewhere. Republicans could be on the defensive in Senate races in Maine, Iowa and Alaska, trying to keep a grasp on the barest majority.

That said, it’s hard to imagine a Texas Republican lacking the funds to compete in a race of national importance. GOP stalwarts understand the blow that losing in Texas would represent. It’s beyond one Senate seat or even which party takes the majority. It’s about taking the biggest red state and making it competitive, imperiling GOP national victories for years.

But mark this as another thing that Paxton and his campaign can’t control. He’ll have to turn on the charm, and he may have to appeal directly to Trump for help — at a minimum, the effort will eat up the campaign’s time and attention just as the competition heats up.

How Talarico’s Texas run compares to Beto O’Rourke’s

The reference point for any competitive statewide race is Beto O’Rourke’s near-upset of Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018. He came up short, but Cruz needed every dime and vote he could get to prevail.

A comparison of that race to this year’s battle finds more bad news for Paxton: Talarico is in better shape than O’Rourke was at the same point. Decision Desk HQ, a group of analysts trusted across the spectrum for their data analysis, noted that O’Rourke led Cruz in only about 10% of polls taken that year, while Talarico’s leads have been fairly consistent, if small.

My take: For a while, it seemed O’Rourke had all the momentum and buzz in that race, so it’s instructive to note that he rarely led it.

Cruz has never been the most cuddly candidate, and even many Republicans were annoyed at him for his bruising battle with Trump in the GOP presidential primaries two years before.

So, how did he win? Cruz activated Republican concerns about guns, taxes, abortion, all the issues that have helped the GOP control the state. He had the same task that Paxton does now, to make his opponent unacceptable. Cruz, it should be noted, is a vastly better politician than Paxton.

The fundamentals of this race still favor Paxton. But Decision Desk HQ rates it a tossup. Each day’s headlines make that more plausible.

Ryan J. Rusak is opinion editor of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He grew up in Benbrook and is a TCU graduate. He spent more than 15 years as a political journalist, overseeing coverage of four presidential elections and several sessions of the Texas Legislature. He writes about Fort Worth/Tarrant County politics and government, along with Texas and national politics, education, social and cultural issues, and occasionally sports, music and pop culture. Rusak, who lives in east Fort Worth, was recently named Star Opinion Writer of the Year for 2024 by Texas Managing Editors, a news industry group.