Getty ImagesThe race for a US Senate seat in Texas may prove crucial in determining which party controls Congress next year – a significant prize in its own right – but for both parties it represents so much more than that.
For the Democrats, their losing streak in statewide elections now stretches back more than three decades. In the second most populous state in America, liberals have been in the wilderness for a generation.
But polls suggest their candidate, 37-year-old James Talarico, may be on the verge of breaking through and turning a Texas Senate seat blue for the first time since 1988.
That would be a dream scenario for Democrats – and a potential nightmare for Republicans.
These dramatic stakes help explain how this Senate race has rocketed to become the most expensive in US history, with total spending reaching more than half a billion dollars.
For Talarico, it has been a remarkable rise for a candidate who in 2025 was a relatively unknown state-level Democrat.
At the Fiesta Center in Lubbock, Texas, on Tuesday night, the line to see the softly spoken former teacher, who studied to be a Christian minister before entering politics, stretched around the building and down the wide parking lot to a busy road.
In this dusty western plains town of about 250,000, which voted overwhelmingly for President Donald Trump two years ago, a visit from a major Democratic candidate on the eve of an election was unusual.
“It’s just so amazing to watch,” said Aaron Gonzalez, the Democratic Party chair for Hockley County, which borders Lubbock. “This time is different.”
ReutersWhen Talarico took the stage before an estimated 3,000 supporters – with another thousand listening on speakers outside – his pitch was a familiar one for many national Democrats this year, albeit with a Texas twist.
He railed against a conservative political establishment that he said is insensitive to the economic hardship of average Americans. He condemned the corrosive influence of big money in politics. And he promised to advance a “comprehensive anti-corruption agenda” in the Senate.
“Texans are ready for change,” he said. “We are done with the extremism and the corruption. We’re done with the politics of division, and we are ready for something new.”
The slogan for his final two weeks of campaigning – “clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose” – is taken from Friday Night Lights, a popular early 2000s TV show about a plucky small-town Texas high school football team.
His music playlist leans heavily on twangy Texas country music. He celebrates Texas breakfast tacos, quotes legendary Texas singer-songwriter Lyle Lovett and frequently mentions that his ties to the state go back eight generations.
In the Lubbock audience, Andrew Robinson, a student from nearby Texas Tech University, liked what he heard. But the 26-year-old’s optimism was tempered by an entire lifetime spent watching Democrats try, and fail, to get a toehold in the state.
“A Talarico win would mean so much,” he said. “I haven’t been keen on wanting to stay in Texas. And if the government were to change, it could give me a reason.”
Getty ImagesFor Republicans, a Democratic win in Texas would have a very different meaning.
At roughly the same time Talarico was addressing his supporters in the Fiesta Center, Trump – alongside the Republican Party’s Senate candidate Ken Paxton – was just a few miles away, in a venue twice the size.
“If you go out and vote, we’re going to have a tremendous win in Texas,” the president told the crowd.
Trump’s visit to reliably-Republican Lubbock suggests the party is concerned about turnout even in the most conservative portions of the state. It is a worry that has been echoed by other Texas Republicans.
“Understand, we could lose Texas,” Texas Senator Ted Cruz said in his podcast on Friday. “The Democrats are massively out-turning-out the Republicans.”
Don Huffines, who is running for election as the state’s chief financial officer, issued an even more dire warning. “Texas is the foundation of the Republican Party in America,” he posted on X.
“When the foundation breaks, it all falls apart. When we lose Texas, we lose the USA.”
For weeks now, party leaders have been warning that a liberal breakthrough in the Lone Star State could have dire consequences.
They fear a Talarico win would motivate more local Democrats to run for statewide and federal offices. Better quality candidates with more funding could lead to a snowball effect similar to the Democratic inroads seen in other southern states, such as Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia.
“I think that it’s pretty clear that Republicans, especially candidates, consultants, operatives, and others who are active in the party, see that this is a real threat,” said Steinhauser.
“The days of waving this off and saying that Texas would never turn blue are over.”
Getty ImagesFor the Texas Senate race to come to the point where recent polls suggest Talarico has a slim but stable lead has required a unique confluence of events and political dynamics – a “perfect storm”, in the words of Steinhauser.
“Everything that could go well for the Democrats is going well,” he said, “and everything that could go badly for the Republicans is going badly.”
But it is also a whirlwind that, in a significant part, has been sown over the past year by Trump himself.
The national environment for Republicans is a harsh one.
Voters are frustrated with high consumer costs, including the price of petrol, and largely blame Trump’s tariff policies and the Iran war.
Political corruption has become an issue of growing concern. Democrats, independents and many Republicans in a recent Cook political report poll identified “greedy billionaires and corporations” and politicians seeking “personal gain” as the ones to blame.
Texas-specific issues have also contributed to a hostile climate for the in-power party.
Polling and recent special elections in Texas indicate that Hispanic voters – many of whom switched to Trump to help him win the White House in 2024 – have soured on the administration’s immigration enforcement policies.
Hispanics make up nearly a third of the state’s population – and in more than a week of early voting in Texas, they have been casting ballots in historically large numbers.
Data centre construction, which Texas Republicans had touted as a welcome investment in the state, has drawn widespread criticism, particularly in rural areas that have traditionally been solidly conservative.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott, in his own tight re-election race, recently announced a one-year moratorium on AI construction in the state – a reflection of how quickly the issue has become a political liability.
“It’s bad for Republicans,” one Texas political strategist, who asked to remain anonymous, told the BBC. “We’re asking a whole lot of the electorate at this point for us to continue to be the guys in charge.”
Then there’s the baggage that Paxton, who defeated longtime incumbent Senator John Cornyn in a contentious primary campaign earlier this year, brings to the race.
The 63-year-old Republican successfully painted the 74-year-old Cornyn as too old and too out-of-touch with Texas conservatives. He received a late boost, just days before his run-off election victory over Cornyn, in the form of a Trump endorsement.
“Ken Paxton has gone through a lot, in many cases, very unfairly, but he is a Fighter, and knows how to WIN,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Our Country needs Fighters, and also Loyalty to the Cause of Greatness.”
The “a lot” the president referenced Paxton going through includes a 2015 federal indictment on charges of securities fraud – later dropped – and a 2023 impeachment by the Republican-controlled Texas House of Representatives on corruption, bribery and abuse of power charges.
The Texas Senate would later acquit Paxton after Trump intervened to pressure state Republican leaders.
All of this has meant that Paxton has more than a few critics – and enemies – in Texas, including within his own party.
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Talarico, by contrast, has proven to be an effective candidate. The state legislator defeated a well-known opponent, Dallas Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, in the Democratic primary.
Since earning the nomination, he has maintained his polling lead despite a withering onslaught of negative advertising – much of it funded by the world’s richest man Elon Musk, whose SpaceX company is based in Texas.
Musk alone has funnelled more than $170m into the race. Trump’s MAGA Inc. committee has chipped in $40m.
While Paxton has proven to be an ineffective fundraiser, the third-party money spent on his behalf has blanketed the airwaves in the state – spilling over into sporting events involving Texas teams that air across the nation.
They have targeted Talarico for his past comments supporting transgender people, for calling “radicalised white men” a domestic terrorism threat and for criticising the fossil fuel and beef industries – two powerful interests in the state.
Talarico has distanced himself from some of those earlier comments, arguing many were taken out of context and “missed the mark” or were “deliberately provocative” or “cringy”.
Meanwhile, the Texas Democrat has proven to be a historically successful fundraiser, amassing more than $140m in donations over the course of his campaign and setting a three-month fundraising record for a Senate candidate.
The funding has allowed Talarico to hit back at Paxton, highlighting his past controversies, and defending himself from Republican attacks.
He frequently leans into his religious upbringing – as the grandson of a Southern Baptist preacher who spent time in a seminary – leavening his stump speeches with biblical references.
There is one particular passage Talarico has been partial to of late – the familiar Old Testament showdown between scrappy David and the giant Goliath.
“We are going up against our own Goliaths,” he said in Lubbock. “The billionaire mega-donors, the corporate special interests, the entire Washington DC establishment. Their power is real, but so is ours.”
Inside the tiny Democratic Party office at a Talarico rally in Amarillo on Tuesday, retired schoolteacher Terri Mills listened to the candidate’s stump speech.
Despite acknowledging the decades of Democratic futility and false dawns, she said she was allowing herself to hope for a Democratic victory once again.
“I have gotten my hopes up before, you know,” she said. “But I do feel that this time is a little different.”
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