Not sure anyone outside of Texas (and maybe even a lot of Texans themselves) are aware of this, but the 2 counties where the GOP shenanigans caused problems are the home counties of Crockett and Talarico. Coincidence? I don’t believe in coincidences. If it is, it’s an intriguing data point.
The amusing part of that is that it hurt Crockett worse than Talarico, I think. The amusement is because the MAGAt leadership that did it actually wanted Crockett to win the primary!
I love when their stupidity screws up their meanness.
It did, but let me add this to your comment for the folks who don’t live in Texas or who live in the rural parts a world away from the urban centers.
Williamson County (where Talarico is from) is geographically smaller than Dallas County (Crockett’s home county). So if Paxton’s shenanigans aimed to hurt Talarico, he doesn’t understand Texas geography (which is inexcusable given that Williamson County is adjacent to Travis County; Round Rock is a northern suburb of Austin, but I digress). It was much easier for the Williamson County voters to get to their precinct’s polling location than it was for the Dallas County folks.
When I lived in Williamson County, I wanted to bang my head against the wall because every election a guy who spent the entirety of his congressional term with his feet on the desk doing nothing, John Carter, won without lifting a finger every single time. 84 years old, and he is still at it.
He won again, but I’m not sure he had any ‘good’ challengers. Texas, as a whole, needs to start running better candidates statewide. I’m just not sure the ‘good’ candidates really want the job.
I think he had one competitor when I was there, but no support from the national Dems. I don’t remember who it was, but we had some higher hopes. But that district is, like a lot of Texas districts drawn in such a way as to dilute Dem votes and has a lot of rural voters either way.
There has been a lot of coverage of that dirty trick and the assessment is it could not have changed the outcome. We don't know how many people gave up trying to vote, but we do know that the ballots being sequestered due to Paxton and the Texas Supreme Court is only a few hundred. Talarico's margin of victory was also huge and so the impact of the dirty trick could not have tipped the election to Crockett
True. Those shenanigans may have had a greater impact in the general than in a primary. But the fact that Paxton targeted both home bases is something I think we need to pay attention to. Even if they had no effect on the outcome of Tuesday’s elections, we need to look at the shenanigans as dry-runs for the general. I have no doubt, as someone living in Texas, that the state GOP is going to do what they can to monkey with the November elections — dirty tricks that have the shade of legality, but will draw out the vote count so Trump can declare fraud.
I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think I am. Losing a Texas Senate seat would be a huge blow to the GOP.
As said, "When conservatives realize they cannot win democratically, they won't give up on conservatism, they will abandon democracy."
I wish the Democratic Party organiations were broadcasting that they understand that this is not politics as normal and are being proactive. But regardless of what the party does, turnout is the most critical thing we can do to ensure they can't steal the election. Either we overwhelm them at the ballot box so no amount of dirty tricks can steal the election, or the extent of the cheating is so outrageous that it triggers mass protests / a general strike
This goes to the necessity of a massive turnout during the midterms. They WILL cheat. We need to make the margins big enough that they can't cheat enough, and then empty the prisons of small time drug users and fill them with Republicans.
I wish people would quit acting as if Talarico is out there trying to evangelize voters into becoming Christians. HE'S NOT. He has very, very clearly said in so many words that church and state need to be kept separate.
What he *is* doing is calling out all of these people who claim to be Christians while stomping all over what Jesus asked his followers to do. He's simply using the words of Jesus to say, only slightly over-simplified, "we are supposed to be taking care of each other, not seeing how cruel we can be, and especially not in the name of God."
There are all kinds of examples of social justice in the Gospels, but you'll never hear abut them from the insecure men and botoxxed women who think wearing a cross on camera means something.
Edit: He has also said that Christianity is not the only true religion and that he has learned good things from others as well.
I agree, but I've seen several comments around Substack to the effect that he talks about his faith too much. If they really listened to what he's saying, maybe they'd get a more accurate picture.
Let me tell you something about Texas that you can't learn from a poll or a precinct map. You learn it from living there. From driving forty-five minutes to a grocery store that has both a wine section and a gun counter. From going to a church potluck where the pastor quotes Leviticus and the brisket is transcendent and somehow both of those things make complete sense at the same time.
I lived in Dallas for fifteen years. The eighties and nineties. Back when Ann Richards was governor and her hair was an act of God and her mouth was even better. Back when you could feel Texas starting to split down the middle like a pecan, two halves that looked identical from the outside and tasted completely different once you got in there.
So when Jay Kuo writes that Texas is the "big prize," I want to say — yes, obviously, forty Electoral College votes, possibly forty-five, we all have calculators — but I also want to say that Texas isn't a prize. It's a personality. And you don't win a personality. You court it. You show up for it. You eat the brisket and you mean it.
James Talarico winning on faith and unity and anti-corporate populism is interesting to me in the way that all unexpected things from Texas are interesting: it makes total sense once you remember that Texas has always had a genuine left, a labor left, a “churched” left, that got buried under thirty years of Republican infrastructure and voter suppression and the sheer exhausting myth that the state was monolithic. It never was. I watched it not be monolithic for fifteen years from a zip code that voted Republican the way other people breathe.
The racial gap Talarico needs to close is real. But so is the opening. Latino voters in Texas have been taken for granted by both parties for so long that genuine respect — which is different from pandering, and voters always know the difference — could actually move numbers.
And Cornyn and Paxton failing to hit a majority? I'm not surprised. Texas Republicans have been eating their own for years. They just used to do it more quietly.
The runoff will be ugly. Trump will insert himself. It will be the kind of ugly that has its own aesthetic, like a rattlesnake — you know exactly what you're looking at and you still can't look away.
I'll be reading your piece this afternoon. I always do. But I'll be reading it the way I read everything about Texas: with the specific, stubborn tenderness of someone who knows the place well enough to love it and leave it and still, somehow, root for it.
Oh what a force Ann Richards was! And I'll forever remember and love her line about Bush - "he can't help it, he was born with a silver foot in his mouth."
Thank you. I remember reading that Ann Richards said that Florida - and the presidency- was the second election GW Bush stole, after one in Texas, in 1994.
Jasmine Crockett accepted her loss very graciously. I hope she will campaign hard to get her voters out in support of Talarico in November.
I write as an elderly white voter who prays that she will continue to have an enormously significant role in either Texas politics or on the national stage or both.
A racial quotation to make up? Call it what it is, racism. Yes, maga counted on it. Religion should NOT be mixed with politics, even though maga keeps it at the forefront. WE NEED Ms Crockett!
Now we need to see Crockett throw her support 100% of behind Talarico. Rally with/for him. Speak out in full-throated support wherever and whenever she can. It would be a REALLY positive look for her, and show long-term benefits for her career.
And, BTW, I'm not a Democrat (Independent here), and not a Texan, so I get no say in what happens there, except in the way that any American should be interested in the outcome. What's more, I'm not a Christian (pagan is closer), and I have absolutely no problem with the "religious rhetoric" I've heard from Talarico. Like Pete Buttigieg, he is a self-avowed Christian, who: is guided by what he sees as the teachings of Jesus, while accepting that all spiritual paths are legitimate; and believes firmly in the separation of Church and State. To imply that he is trying to force his Christian beliefs on anyone is just plain wrong. But, like Pete, his religious beliefs inform his ethics. That's a good thing.
Talarico bothers me. Too soaked in religion, which is never a good thing where government is concerned. Give me a kind, dedicated Humanist who is not concerned with burning in hell any day.
He is an unknown quantity, in my opinion. No matter; what we categorically do not need is more religion in government. Period. Believe what you want in private. It has no place in government.
Hudson E Baldwin lll - why are you leaving cryptic comments to me, then deleting them and then blocking me? I'm fine with the block - but what does this mean?: "That is stupid. Donor fellation tools are everywhere."
Not sure I understand why Texas is such a huge deal. Dems have the potential for flips in other states - and each state has only two Senators. I don’t get it.
Sorry. I cannot handle another account so I am not going to go to the Big Picture. I wanted to share your article with a person I convinced to vote in Texas for the first time in years. However, this is not here so I won't be sharing it. I used to have both accounts and when I had to pare down chose one.
Not sure anyone outside of Texas (and maybe even a lot of Texans themselves) are aware of this, but the 2 counties where the GOP shenanigans caused problems are the home counties of Crockett and Talarico. Coincidence? I don’t believe in coincidences. If it is, it’s an intriguing data point.
The amusing part of that is that it hurt Crockett worse than Talarico, I think. The amusement is because the MAGAt leadership that did it actually wanted Crockett to win the primary!
I love when their stupidity screws up their meanness.
It did, but let me add this to your comment for the folks who don’t live in Texas or who live in the rural parts a world away from the urban centers.
Williamson County (where Talarico is from) is geographically smaller than Dallas County (Crockett’s home county). So if Paxton’s shenanigans aimed to hurt Talarico, he doesn’t understand Texas geography (which is inexcusable given that Williamson County is adjacent to Travis County; Round Rock is a northern suburb of Austin, but I digress). It was much easier for the Williamson County voters to get to their precinct’s polling location than it was for the Dallas County folks.
When I lived in Williamson County, I wanted to bang my head against the wall because every election a guy who spent the entirety of his congressional term with his feet on the desk doing nothing, John Carter, won without lifting a finger every single time. 84 years old, and he is still at it.
He won again, but I’m not sure he had any ‘good’ challengers. Texas, as a whole, needs to start running better candidates statewide. I’m just not sure the ‘good’ candidates really want the job.
I think he had one competitor when I was there, but no support from the national Dems. I don’t remember who it was, but we had some higher hopes. But that district is, like a lot of Texas districts drawn in such a way as to dilute Dem votes and has a lot of rural voters either way.
There has been a lot of coverage of that dirty trick and the assessment is it could not have changed the outcome. We don't know how many people gave up trying to vote, but we do know that the ballots being sequestered due to Paxton and the Texas Supreme Court is only a few hundred. Talarico's margin of victory was also huge and so the impact of the dirty trick could not have tipped the election to Crockett
True. Those shenanigans may have had a greater impact in the general than in a primary. But the fact that Paxton targeted both home bases is something I think we need to pay attention to. Even if they had no effect on the outcome of Tuesday’s elections, we need to look at the shenanigans as dry-runs for the general. I have no doubt, as someone living in Texas, that the state GOP is going to do what they can to monkey with the November elections — dirty tricks that have the shade of legality, but will draw out the vote count so Trump can declare fraud.
I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think I am. Losing a Texas Senate seat would be a huge blow to the GOP.
As said, "When conservatives realize they cannot win democratically, they won't give up on conservatism, they will abandon democracy."
I wish the Democratic Party organiations were broadcasting that they understand that this is not politics as normal and are being proactive. But regardless of what the party does, turnout is the most critical thing we can do to ensure they can't steal the election. Either we overwhelm them at the ballot box so no amount of dirty tricks can steal the election, or the extent of the cheating is so outrageous that it triggers mass protests / a general strike
This goes to the necessity of a massive turnout during the midterms. They WILL cheat. We need to make the margins big enough that they can't cheat enough, and then empty the prisons of small time drug users and fill them with Republicans.
I wish people would quit acting as if Talarico is out there trying to evangelize voters into becoming Christians. HE'S NOT. He has very, very clearly said in so many words that church and state need to be kept separate.
What he *is* doing is calling out all of these people who claim to be Christians while stomping all over what Jesus asked his followers to do. He's simply using the words of Jesus to say, only slightly over-simplified, "we are supposed to be taking care of each other, not seeing how cruel we can be, and especially not in the name of God."
There are all kinds of examples of social justice in the Gospels, but you'll never hear abut them from the insecure men and botoxxed women who think wearing a cross on camera means something.
Edit: He has also said that Christianity is not the only true religion and that he has learned good things from others as well.
I think he strikes just the right tone. He makes it plain what he believes, but also that he doesn’t expect you to agree to anything except kindness.
I agree, but I've seen several comments around Substack to the effect that he talks about his faith too much. If they really listened to what he's saying, maybe they'd get a more accurate picture.
Exactly. People need to watch his famous interview on Steve Colbert's YouTube channel.
https://youtu.be/oiTJ7Pz_59A?si=n6WsxG3v_o3Pk3mI
If this is the one that didn't get aired on CBS, yes, it's good. Thanks for looking it up!
Yes it is HW. sure thing! ✌🏾
He's also trying to make the party more welcoming to people of faith. Which apparently bothers many Dems.
Some, yes. Pete Buttigieg is open about the fact that he's a practicing Christian.
But then, for a certain number of them, this current loud-mouthed swagger is all of the "faith" they've seen.
Boy howdy, do I know this State!
Let me tell you something about Texas that you can't learn from a poll or a precinct map. You learn it from living there. From driving forty-five minutes to a grocery store that has both a wine section and a gun counter. From going to a church potluck where the pastor quotes Leviticus and the brisket is transcendent and somehow both of those things make complete sense at the same time.
I lived in Dallas for fifteen years. The eighties and nineties. Back when Ann Richards was governor and her hair was an act of God and her mouth was even better. Back when you could feel Texas starting to split down the middle like a pecan, two halves that looked identical from the outside and tasted completely different once you got in there.
So when Jay Kuo writes that Texas is the "big prize," I want to say — yes, obviously, forty Electoral College votes, possibly forty-five, we all have calculators — but I also want to say that Texas isn't a prize. It's a personality. And you don't win a personality. You court it. You show up for it. You eat the brisket and you mean it.
James Talarico winning on faith and unity and anti-corporate populism is interesting to me in the way that all unexpected things from Texas are interesting: it makes total sense once you remember that Texas has always had a genuine left, a labor left, a “churched” left, that got buried under thirty years of Republican infrastructure and voter suppression and the sheer exhausting myth that the state was monolithic. It never was. I watched it not be monolithic for fifteen years from a zip code that voted Republican the way other people breathe.
The racial gap Talarico needs to close is real. But so is the opening. Latino voters in Texas have been taken for granted by both parties for so long that genuine respect — which is different from pandering, and voters always know the difference — could actually move numbers.
And Cornyn and Paxton failing to hit a majority? I'm not surprised. Texas Republicans have been eating their own for years. They just used to do it more quietly.
The runoff will be ugly. Trump will insert himself. It will be the kind of ugly that has its own aesthetic, like a rattlesnake — you know exactly what you're looking at and you still can't look away.
I'll be reading your piece this afternoon. I always do. But I'll be reading it the way I read everything about Texas: with the specific, stubborn tenderness of someone who knows the place well enough to love it and leave it and still, somehow, root for it.
Oh what a force Ann Richards was! And I'll forever remember and love her line about Bush - "he can't help it, he was born with a silver foot in his mouth."
Thank you. I remember reading that Ann Richards said that Florida - and the presidency- was the second election GW Bush stole, after one in Texas, in 1994.
One could always count on Ann Richards to tell the truth.
I appreciate your well written thoughts! I lived in San Antonio for 8 years, loved it. But I would never lead in with Boy Howdy!
Also lived in Tennessee and Mississippi— the trifecta of trouble.
That explains it!
Jasmine Crockett accepted her loss very graciously. I hope she will campaign hard to get her voters out in support of Talarico in November.
I write as an elderly white voter who prays that she will continue to have an enormously significant role in either Texas politics or on the national stage or both.
She left her own watch party...
A racial quotation to make up? Call it what it is, racism. Yes, maga counted on it. Religion should NOT be mixed with politics, even though maga keeps it at the forefront. WE NEED Ms Crockett!
You don't know what you are speaking about.
Now we need to see Crockett throw her support 100% of behind Talarico. Rally with/for him. Speak out in full-throated support wherever and whenever she can. It would be a REALLY positive look for her, and show long-term benefits for her career.
And, BTW, I'm not a Democrat (Independent here), and not a Texan, so I get no say in what happens there, except in the way that any American should be interested in the outcome. What's more, I'm not a Christian (pagan is closer), and I have absolutely no problem with the "religious rhetoric" I've heard from Talarico. Like Pete Buttigieg, he is a self-avowed Christian, who: is guided by what he sees as the teachings of Jesus, while accepting that all spiritual paths are legitimate; and believes firmly in the separation of Church and State. To imply that he is trying to force his Christian beliefs on anyone is just plain wrong. But, like Pete, his religious beliefs inform his ethics. That's a good thing.
She has thrown her support to him, yes
Pete has no ethics. Total charlatan.
Talarico bothers me. Too soaked in religion, which is never a good thing where government is concerned. Give me a kind, dedicated Humanist who is not concerned with burning in hell any day.
As a atheist/agnostic myself for over 50 years, as long as a person doesn't proseletyze, I have no problem with them in government.
everyone in government needs to keep his or her religious beliefs to themselves. period.
That is his stance also.
He’s a great counterpoint to this “Christian nationalism“ bullshit. That’s running this country right now. I’ll take him.
He is an unknown quantity, in my opinion. No matter; what we categorically do not need is more religion in government. Period. Believe what you want in private. It has no place in government.
He's been in the state legislative body since 2020. He's NOT a corporate donor DNC water carrier like JC.
Good to know--hope it actually works out well.
The best chance of getting real representation. At least we have the correct nominee. That is a change. 😉
The work you do is special.
Anyone else worried Talarico will become another Fetterman? I am. And do we get to keep Crockett in the House? Please!
Nope not worried
I SO hope your confidence pays off, maggie!
Hudson E Baldwin lll - why are you leaving cryptic comments to me, then deleting them and then blocking me? I'm fine with the block - but what does this mean?: "That is stupid. Donor fellation tools are everywhere."
Are you embarrassed by your weird comment?
Wut! She left her own watch party.
Do we know if Jasmine Crockett will run for reelection in the House? I'd hate to lose her voice in government.
Her district no longer exists. JFC WtP SUCK
Thanks for the update. Argh!!
While I think Talarico (?) is the easier lift for winning election, I still hate to lose Crockett.
That is stupid. Donor fellation tools are everywhere.
Not sure I understand why Texas is such a huge deal. Dems have the potential for flips in other states - and each state has only two Senators. I don’t get it.
TEXAS MENTION!!! 💙💙💙
Sorry. I cannot handle another account so I am not going to go to the Big Picture. I wanted to share your article with a person I convinced to vote in Texas for the first time in years. However, this is not here so I won't be sharing it. I used to have both accounts and when I had to pare down chose one.
"Sitting in limbo"
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