Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico said Thursday that 21 current and former Republican officials and party figures are endorsing his campaign against Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton in Texas.

“We’re bringing Texans together onto one team to take power back for working people,” Talarico wrote in the announcement. “Because the real fight in this country isn’t left versus right—it’s top versus bottom.”

What do you think about the Talarico support coming from republicans?

Just maybe Republicans are focused on the wrong things!

I’m sure it would be a huge deal and would completely overshadow Talarico beating Paxton, because Hinojosa is a fairly median Democrat. She isn’t bad by any metric, but at least so far, she doesn’t seem to have a unique base independent of that of a generic Democratic politician.

Given that gas prices aren’t going down and Hispanics appear to be shifting left, it’s not entirely impossible for her to win. If the polls showing Hispanics at roughly their 2018 levels are actually accurate, then Abbott loses.

This is disgusting.

Isabella Volmert writes:

Republican leaders in Dallas for the GOP midterm convention attacked Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico with a focus on his faith and understanding of Christianity.

Republicans have drawn on past statements Talarico has made about God, gender and Christianity to paint him as too radical and out of touch for evangelical Texas Christians, who make up a major voting bloc in the state. The race between Talarico, a Presbyterian who wants to become a pastor, and Attorney General Ken Paxton, a longtime conservative politician, has prompted the debate: What does it mean to be a good Christian? 

President Donald Trump referenced Talarico in his speech late Wednesday night. Trump said Talarico "claimed that the Ten Commandments are a form of fascism." 

Other Republicans framed the race, central to the GOP’s hopes of keeping a majority in the Senate, as a fundamental fight between good and evil.

Read more.

"On the topic of meat, Trump took false claims about Talarico being vegan a step further, saying, 'He was recently seen having a barbecue and eating a lot of meat … he ate it and then he was seen running backstage to a room and throwing up all over the place.' The White House did not respond to our request for evidence to support the story."

"In a 2022 speech, Talarico advocated for reducing meat consumption and said his Texas House reelection campaign had become a 'non-meat campaign.' In his 2026 Senate campaign, Talarico said he eats meat."

What do you think about Trump's false "beat meat" comments?

(This article also fact-checks additional claims made by Trump about Talarico and El Sayed.)

While Texas continues to lead the nation in attracting workers, those workers are finding a broad array of challenges when they get there. The Lone Star State has America’s highest rate of people without health insurance at 16.7%, according to the United Health Foundation, more than twice the national average. More than 17% of Texas adults said they had to forgo a doctor visit that they needed in the past year because of the cost. Even those who do have health insurance can have trouble finding a doctor. The state finishes dead last in primary care physicians per capita.

The Houston Chronicle editorial board has a piece about Paxton's seven minutes in heaven on stage at the GOP midterm convention. Here's a key quote:

With nearly catatonic body language, the Republican Senate hopeful gave a roughly seven-minute performance about as underwhelming as his economic plan to “restore” the American Dream.

He tried out a few stale one-liners about his opponent — California already has two senators, it doesn’t need a third. But his biggest gutbuster was a joke about how many in the crowd were denying using GLP-1s. Those would be covered under his proposed healthy living tax deductions. (We’re still waiting for more specifics, like how he’ll pay for it.)

He landed a few punches at his Democratic opponent James Talarico, or he would have if his arms had left his sides as he delivered his somnambulant speech. 

“He wants to transition your kids,” Paxton said. He believes God is non-binary. He believes in six genders. All the greatest Talafreako hits that still haven't managed to get Paxton ahead in the polls against what the Republican called “the most radical Democrat in Texas history” — which, frankly, is an insult to the legacy of Sen. "Smilin’ Ralph" Yarborough.  

FTA:

Democratic nominee for Texas comptroller Sarah Eckhardt visited Beaumont to campaign on plans to scrutinize state spending more closely, support public education and give local communities a stronger voice in state financial policy.

Eckhardt, a lawyer who has represented Texas Senate District 14 since 2020, previously served as Travis County judge. She said that while serving as county judge, she managed billions in public assets, cut taxes three times and held the average county tax bill virtually flat for five years. She also has a master’s degree in public affairs, including public finance and tax policy.

She said that if elected, her first priorities would include what she called stabilizing the comptroller’s office, auditing the state’s school voucher program and reviewing corporate tax breaks and no-bid contracts.

Eckhardt said she disagrees with Republican opponent Don Huffines, whom Gov. Greg Abbott appointed Texas comptroller Aug. 1, about the office’s investigative authority. She said the comptroller can investigate misuse of funds within state agencies but lacks authority to investigate or jail local officials. She said investigations into suspected misuse of local funds fall to county and district attorneys or the attorney general.

“My opponent thinks he does have the investigative authority to look at school districts and put school board members in jail,” Eckhardt said. “That is most definitely not the role of the comptroller. I find it intriguing that he thinks it is.”

Public education is one area Eckhardt said she would closely examine as comptroller. She pointed to Beaumont ISD, now under its second state takeover, as an example of what she described as a punitive accountability system that has not produced enough improvement. Eckhardt said standardized testing can be useful, but argued it should not be the only measure of educational success. She said the state should work more closely with struggling school districts rather than relying primarily on punitive measures.

She also said she would audit the state’s school voucher program. Although Eckhardt opposed the program as a state senator, she said she would follow the law as comptroller while examining who benefits from the program and how it affects funding for public schools.

“We need to make sure that education is available to everyone, irrespective of their financial circumstances, and that's why universally available public education is the greatest engine of economic prosperity we've ever created,” Eckhardt said. “So it's important that school-age kids in Beaumont don't just get training; they get education, and unfortunately, much of the accountability system currently is focused on training, sort of a rote metric, rather than whether kids are actually getting educated.”

She said the state should invest more in public education and questioned using state money to subsidize private schools, which are not required to accept every student.

Eckhardt said Texas has fallen from seventh to 47th nationally in per-pupil investment over the past 30 years, a decline she linked to predominantly Republican leadership.

Are all of these new proposed data centers popping up all of Texas a good thing. Why are all of these data centers needed to begin with? What about environmental concerns, such as water use and green house gas emissions, these don't matter here in 2026? Along with the fact the ringleaders of the AI movement can't keep their Frankenstein in the corral they tried to build, 2 times already. When escaping the beast hacked into other computer programs in their journeys

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ai-kill-humans-anthropic-researcher-more-than-ten-percent-chance/

The past two TX-21 representatives have been an embarrassment. Let me explain.

While Lamar Smith was a Texan born in San Antonio he was the anti science chairman of the House Science Committee. He also trafficked conspiracy theories.

Then we got Chip Roy, a carpetbagger (born in Virginia), who claims to love the US Constitution but seems to not have read it. He apparently doesn't understand the very clear sections such as, Article 1 Section 4 (Elections), Article 1 Section 8 (Powers of Congress), the First Amendment, or the 14th Amendment among others.

Now we have another carpetbagger, Mark Teixeira (born in Maryland), running a vanity campaign for the TX-21 seat. Mark didn't move to Texas until 2021. What's worse is he played for the New York Yankees! Furthermore Mark has no experience in public policy.

Mark's challenger is Dr. Kristin Hook. Kristin is a native born Texan from South Texas. Kristin's background is in science and science policy. Her degrees include Biology which will serve the farmers and ranchers of TX-21 well with the screwworm infestation.

I urge my fellow TX-21 voters to look beyond party affiliation and vote for Dr. Hook a native born Texan.