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The race for a US Senate seat in Texas could be decisive in determining which party controls Congress next year — a significant achievement in itself — but, for both parties, it represents much more than that.
For Democrats, the streak of defeats in state elections has lasted more than three decades. In the second most populous state in the US, liberals have been out of power for a generation.
But polls indicate that the party's candidate, 37-year-old James Talarico, may be on the verge of breaking that barrier and winning Democrats a Texas Senate seat for the first time since 1988.
That would be a dream scenario for Democrats — and a potential nightmare for Republicans.
“If the Democrats have their way, I think it will provoke a lot of soul-searching and a huge psychological blow to the Republican Party in Texas and across the country,” said Brendan Steinhauser, a Republican campaign strategist based in Texas.
The stakes help explain why this Senate race has become the most expensive in U.S. history, with total spending exceeding half a billion dollars.
For Talarico, the rise has been extraordinary: until last year, he was a relatively unknown Democrat active in state politics.
Last week, on Tuesday night, the line to see the soft-spoken former teacher, who studied to become a Christian pastor, wrapped around the Fiesta Center building in Lubbock and across the large parking lot to a busy road.
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In this western plains city of about 250,000 people that voted overwhelmingly for President Donald Trump two years ago, a visit from a Democratic candidate on the eve of an election was unusual.
"It's just amazing to watch this," said Aaron Gonzalez, chairman of the Democratic Party in Hockley County, which neighbors Lubbock. "This time is different."
Credit, Reuters
When Talarico took the stage in front of about 3,000 supporters — while another thousand listened to the speech over loudspeakers outside — he delivered a message familiar to many Democrats across the country this year, albeit with a Texas twist.
He attacked the conservative political establishment, which he said is indifferent to the economic hardships of ordinary Americans. He condemned the corrosive influence of big donor money on politics. And he promised to promote a "comprehensive anti-corruption agenda" in the Senate.
"Texans are ready for change," he said. "We are fed up with extremism and corruption. We are fed up with the politics of division and ready for something new."
The slogan for the last two weeks of the campaign — "clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose" — comes from Friday Night Lights, a popular TV series from the early 2000s about a high school football team in a small Texas town.
Its musical selection is dominated by Texas country music, with a characteristic sound. 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 audience in Lubbock, Andrew Robinson, a student at nearby Texas Tech University, liked what he heard. But the 26-year-old's optimism is cautious, after a lifetime of watching Democrats try — and fail — to gain ground in the state.
"A victory for Talarico would mean a lot," he said. "I haven't had the desire to stay in Texas. And if the government changed, that might give me a reason to stay."
For Republicans, a Democratic victory in Texas would have a very different meaning.
Practically at the same time that Talarico was speaking to his supporters at the Fiesta Center, Trump — accompanied by Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton — was just a few kilometers away, in a venue with twice the capacity.
"If you come out to vote, we will have an extraordinary victory in Texas," the president told the crowd.
Trump's visit to Lubbock, a traditionally Republican city, suggests the party is concerned about voter turnout in even the most conservative regions of the state. Other Texas Republicans have also expressed this concern.
"Understand: We could lose Texas," Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said on his podcast Friday. “The Democrats are getting a lot more people to the polls than the Republicans.”
Don Huffines, who is running for the position of responsible for state finances, issued an even more serious warning. “Texas is the home base of the Republican Party in America,” he wrote in X.
"When the foundation cracks, everything falls apart. When we lose Texas, we lose the United States."
For weeks, party leaders have been warning that a liberal victory in Texas could have disastrous consequences.
They fear that a Talarico victory will encourage more local Democrats to run for state and federal office. More competitive candidates with more resources could trigger a snowball effect similar to the Democratic advance seen in other southern states, such as Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia.
"I think it's pretty clear that Republicans — especially candidates, consultants, campaign operatives and other people active in the party — see this as a real threat," Steinhauser said.
"The days when you could ignore that and say Texas would never turn blue are over."
For the Texas Senate race to get to the point where recent polls suggest Talarico has a small but steady lead required a unique confluence of political events and dynamics — a "perfect storm," in Steinhauser's words.
"Everything that could go right for the Democrats is going right," he said, "and everything that could go wrong for the Republicans is going wrong."
But this turbulence was also caused, in large part, by Trump himself over the last year.
The national scenario is unfavorable to Republicans.
Voters are frustrated with the high cost of living, including the price of gasoline, and largely blame Trump's tariff policies and war with Iran.
Political corruption has become a growing concern. In a recent Cook Political Report poll, Democrats, independents and many Republicans singled out "billionaires and greedy corporations" and politicians seeking "personal gain" as responsible.
Issues specific to Texas have also contributed to creating a hostile environment for the party in power.
Recent polls and special elections in Texas indicate that Hispanic voters — many of whom have come to support Trump and helped lead to his election in 2024 — have been disappointed by the administration's immigration enforcement policies.
Hispanics make up nearly a third of the state's population, and through more than a week of early voting in Texas, they have been showing up to the polls in historically high numbers.
The construction of data centers, which Texas Republicans had touted as a welcome investment in the state, has been the target of widespread criticism, particularly in traditionally conservative rural areas.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who also faces a tight re-election race, recently announced a one-year moratorium on the construction of artificial intelligence facilities in Texas — a reflection of how quickly the issue has become a political liability.
"This is bad for the Republicans," a Texas political strategist who asked not to be named told the BBC. "Right now, we are demanding a lot from the electorate to continue to keep us in charge."
Furthermore, Paxton enters the race carrying the weight of his political history. Earlier this year, he defeated veteran Senator John Cornyn in a tight internal GOP race.
The 63-year-old Republican managed to portray the 74-year-old Cornyn as too old and out of touch with the realities of Texas conservatives. Paxton received a late boost just days before beating Cornyn in the primary runoff: Trump's support.
"Ken Paxton has been through a lot, in many cases very unfairly, but he is a fighter and he knows how to WIN," Trump wrote in Truth Social. "Our country needs fighters and also loyalty to the cause of greatness."
The "a lot" Paxton has been through, mentioned by the president, includes a federal indictment filed in 2015 for securities fraud — later dropped — and impeachment proceedings opened in 2023 by the Republican-controlled Texas House of Representatives on charges of corruption, bribery and abuse of power.
The Texas Senate ultimately acquitted Paxton after Trump intervened to pressure the state's Republican leaders.
All of this caused Paxton to accumulate several critics — and enemies — in Texas, including within his own party.
Talarico, on the other hand, has shown himself to be a strong candidate. The state representative defeated a strong opponent, federal representative for Dallas Jasmine Crockett, in the Democratic primaries.
Since winning the party's nomination, he has maintained his lead in the polls despite a barrage of negative advertising — much of it funded by the world's richest man, Elon Musk, whose company SpaceX is based in Texas.
Musk alone directed more than US$170 million to the dispute. The Trump-linked MAGA Inc. committee contributed $40 million.
Although Paxton has proven to be an ineffective fundraiser, money from outside groups spent on his behalf has flooded the state's TV and radio stations — even reaching sporting events involving Texas teams that are broadcast across the country.
The ads attacked Talarico for past statements in support of transgender people, for calling "radicalized white men" a domestic terrorist threat and for criticizing the fossil fuel and beef industries — two powerful interests in the state.
Talarico distanced himself from some of these previous comments, arguing that many were taken out of context and were "not well placed", or were "deliberately provocative" or "embarrassing".
Meanwhile, the Texas Democrat proved to be a successful fundraiser: He collected more than $140 million in donations throughout the campaign and set a three-month fundraising record for a Senate candidate.
The funding allowed Talarico to respond to Paxton, highlighting his past controversies and defending himself from Republican attacks.
He often draws on his religious background — he is the grandson of a Southern Baptist pastor and spent time at a seminary — incorporating biblical references into his campaign speeches.
There's one passage in particular that Talarico has been turning to lately: the well-known Old Testament confrontation between the fearless David and the giant Goliath.
“We are facing our own Goliaths,” he said in Lubbock. "The billionaire mega-donors, the big business special interests, the entire Washington establishment. Their power is real, but so is ours."
But the power of Texas Democrats has been overestimated in the past. In 2018, federal deputy Beto O'Rourke recorded record fundraising numbers, attracted widespread national attention and, in the end, lost to Texas senator Cruz by just over 2 percentage points.
Talarico's lead in the polls, although stable, remains close to the margin of error in most surveys. Last-minute Republican appeals, as well as Trump's repeated campaign visits, could drive more conservatives to the polls on Election Day and erase any Democratic advantage gained in early voting.
Last Tuesday, inside the small Democratic Party office at a Talarico rally in Amarillo, retired teacher Terri Mills listened to the candidate's speech.
Despite acknowledging the Democratic Party's decades of failures and false hopes, she said she allowed herself to hope for a Democratic victory once again.
"I've fooled myself before, you know?" she said. "But I feel like this time is a little different."
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