AUSTIN, Texas — Democrats are starting to believe that the stars at night, big and bright, just might align in Texas.
Those lyrics from “Deep in the Heart of Texas,” the Lone Star State’s unofficial anthem, blared through the speakers at a packed rally for state Rep. James Talarico ahead of Tuesday’s primary, with the prospect that Democrats could have a real shot at winning this year’s Senate race weighing heavily on voters’ minds.
“I get so excited every time,” said Certya Lockett, a Democrat from Austin who attended the rally, as a friend noted that Lockett “gets her heart broken” every election cycle.
“I do, and then I can’t talk to anybody for days,” Lockett said. “But I’m feeling — I feel good.” She said that she was still torn between Talarico and Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett in the Senate primary and that she would make her final decision based on “who can win.”
Talarico and Crockett have presented different visions for how to win in November as Democrats search for their first statewide victory in Texas in more than 30 years. Talarico has stressed cross-partisan appeal, while Crockett says she can turn out disillusioned voters who are likelier to back Democrats.
The potential for a competitive November is also dividing the Republican candidates, with longtime Sen. John Cornyn arguing that nominating controversial state Attorney General Ken Paxton would lead to a “massacre” for the GOP up and down the ballot in Texas and endanger Republicans’ Senate majority.
The debate over which candidate is most electable is a familiar one for both parties, echoing arguments from recent presidential primaries on each side. In Democrats’ case, some of the undertones on race and gender from the party’s 2020 primary — ones that could divide presidential candidates in 2028 — have reared up again here.
“I think that we have to be careful to not conflate electability with race, gender or fundraising, right? It’s the actual person who can really get out there and sell a message, galvanize people and excite people in a meaningful way,” said Jamarr Brown, a former executive director of the Texas Democratic Party who is not involved in the Senate race.
Brown said that Democrats have “a really strong opportunity” this year and that the eventual Democratic nominee would have to build a coalition that includes Black, Latino and Asian voters, as well as Democrats, independents and, he said, “a few disgruntled Republicans.”
Democratic divides
Electability remains a top concern for Democratic voters, according to conversations with nearly 30 of them in recent days.
Talarico says he has built a robust campaign organization to compete statewide, noting at his rally that his campaign has recruited more than 22,000 volunteers from across the state.
“If you hate politics and you’ve never voted before, you have a place in this campaign. If you have voted for Democrats but you’re tired of D.C. Democrats always folding, you have a place in this campaign. And if you voted for Donald Trump but you are fed up with the extremism and the corruption in our government, you have a place in this campaign,” Talarico said.
Crockett said at an event with faith leaders in Houston that there has been a lot of discussion about what it will take to win Texas.
“They have told us what will work, what won’t work. And the reality is that in the last 30 years, ain’t none of it works,” Crockett said. Later, she said that, as a Black woman, “I can tell you that my path has always been a little different and a little bit more challenging. The reality is that I’ve always risen to every single challenge in my life. This time will be no different.”
Crockett told reporters after that event that Democrats would be energized by the Trump presidency and that her campaign was “showing up where people don’t normally show up,” at concerts and flea markets, and reaching voters via text messages and social media.
And Crockett’s supporters see her as a fighter who could better take on Republicans in November.
“Especially if Paxton wins, then she’ll be able to go toe-to-toe with him and throw elbows, because he’s going to take them in the mud,” said Rodney Cobb, a voter who attended a recent Crockett campaign event in Conroe. Later, he said: “In Texas, it’s going to be a hard race. Talarico would be — I think he’ll be a little bit more polite. But if he’s not willing to throw elbows, he won’t do well.”
Talarico’s allies have raised questions about whether Crockett can win. A pro-Talarico super PAC launched a TV ad with a narrator saying, “If she wins ... we lose.”
Crockett slammed the attacks, calling questions about her electability “nothing but dog whistle” and saying the super PAC’s ad was “straight-up racist.”
A number of Talarico’s supporters said they liked Crockett but questioned whether she could win, with a few raising concerns about her race and gender.
“As great as Jasmine Crockett is, rural Texas probably will be very reluctant to vote for a Black woman, a woman of any color,” said Karen Alexander, an Austin Democrat who attended Talarico’s rally. “I don’t like saying that, but I think he has a better shot at winning them over, and I think he’s working pretty hard at going out on the road and winning them over.”
Other Talarico supporters described Crockett as too polarizing, based on the national profile she built on her combative style and sharp criticisms of Trump and Republicans.
Domingo Cruz, a 30-year-old Democrat who works in tech, came to the Talarico rally in Austin undecided between Crockett and Talarico. But he left the rally “pretty convinced” to support Talarico, who he said had a “unifying” message.
“I do think we have to reach across the aisle sometimes, as hard as that might be, but that’s really gonna be the only way, I guess, we take back Texas,” Cruz said.
Senate battleground?
With both Senate primaries unsettled, Democrats so far have hesitated to declare that Texas could be part of their uphill path to the Senate majority. The party would have to sweep the core battleground states and win multiple states Trump carried by double digits in 2024.
Trump carried Texas by 14 points that year, more than doubling his 6-point margin in 2020. But Democrats believe they could have a better shot at a statewide win this year with a more favorable political environment.
Trump’s approval ratings have dipped, and the president’s party typically loses seats in midterm elections. In 2018, during Trump’s first stint in the White House, then-Rep. Beto O’Rourke, a Democrat, came within 3 points of unseating GOP Sen. Ted Cruz.
Cornyn himself has warned about how fired up Democrats are this year, pointing to their winning a special election for a Texas state Senate seat that Trump carried by 17 points.
“I think Democrats are energized. ... They’ve got full-blown Trump derangement syndrome, and they have a very active, active base who turn out to vote,” Cornyn said at a recent campaign event in Fort Worth.
Cornyn has suggested he is the best candidate to counter that Democratic enthusiasm. He has won each of his four previous Senate races by 10 points or more, even outperforming Trump by a few points in 2020.
Trump has not endorsed a candidate in the GOP primary featuring Cornyn, Paxton and Rep. Wesley Hunt. He name-checked all three at an event Friday in Corpus Christi, saying the primary was “a little bit of a race, gonna be an interesting one.”
Losing Cornyn’s Senate seat is a concern for some Republican voters, like Marilyn, a real estate broker who declined to share her last name as she cast an early ballot for Cornyn on the first day of early voting in Austin.
“I think he’s the most electable,” she said, noting that she liked Hunt but thought he was “relatively new.”
“I don’t want to lose the seat,” she added, saying she was not sure whether she could support Paxton if he is the nominee and raising concerns about the allegations of bribery and corruption that led to his impeachment in 2023. The state Senate acquitted him.
Paxton, meanwhile, has argued that he can energize Trump’s supporters who are less likely to turn out when the president is not on the ballot.
“Ensuring that low-propensity America First voters are motivated to show up in November is critical to Republicans’ success in 2026, and John Cornyn is the single worst person in Texas to accomplish that,” Paxton said in mid-February.
Hunt, meanwhile, has pitched himself as a young conservative without Hunt’s and Cornyn’s “baggage.”
“Me versus Talarico, me versus Jasmine is better than any of those two gentlemen because of energy, youth, optics, which matter big-time,” Hunt told a group of Republicans at the Smith County GOP headquarters in Tyler. “And you’re going to have to have people that are willing to go toe-to-toe with these people.”
The Republican primary is expected to head to a one-on-one runoff on May 26. With the three candidates dividing the primary vote, it is unlikely that one will be able to win a majority and the nomination outright on Tuesday.
While recent public polling has found that Paxton is likely to finish in the top spot Tuesday, with Cornyn and Hunt vying for second place, Cornyn is confident he will advance to a runoff.
If he does, he will continue to make the case that the GOP’s Senate majority is at stake.
“We could well lose the Senate if we’re not careful,” he said in Fort Worth. “I just think this is one that we ought to put in the bank.”
