Abbott Says Paxton Will Win as Dems Draw
Record Crowd in Rural Republican Outpost
Texas General Election Polls
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Capitol Inside
August 23, 2026
As Governor Greg Abbott brushed off growing GOP fears about a nightmare in November, Democratic U.S. Senate contender James Talarico drew a record crowd of nearly 2,800 people to a rally on Saturday night in a rural South Texas county where President Donald Trump won by 40 points in 2024.
Democrat Bobby Pulido, a Grammy-winning musician who's running for Congress, teamed up with gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa and Talarico at the event in Beeville and posted a report about it on social media.
"2,750 PEOPLE. IN BEEVILLE, TEXAS," Pulido wrote on X. "We SHATTERED the attendance record at the Grand Dancehall.
In deep-red, rural Texas.
Something is happening out here. You can feel it."
But Abbott assured Republicans that Ken Paxton would win the Texas Senate race in an interview with ABC News that was recorded on Friday at the Governor's Mansion in Austin. The third-term incumbent stuck to the script he hatched in December - refusing to acknowledge his own Democratic opponent while reserving his wrath for Talarico in the exchange with "This Week" co-anchor Jonathan Karl.
"What matters in elections is not in August, what matters in elections is November," Abbott said. "There's a choice at the ballot box. And when those voters go in, they're going to choose between common sense that's offered by Republicans versus the crazy that's offered by the Democrats."
The governor's victory prediction for Paxton flies in the face of polling that's shown the Texas Senate competition to be very close with Talarico leading by almost 3 points on average in the nine polls that were taken here on the federal contest in July and August. Abbott led Hinojosa by less than 3 points in the polling on the gubernatorial battle that's been inside the margins of error in a majority of the surveys this summer on the race. Abbott has ignored Hinojosa since she entered the contest despite the threat she poses based on polling that shows her within striking distance in the run up to a midterm election that's only 72 days away.
In the final analysis, Abbott predicted, Texas voters will choose Paxton after learning how radical, ridiculous and dangerous Talarico happens to be based on some of his comments in years past and votes that he's cast as a state representative from Austin for almost eight years. Abbott argued in the appearance on the network news show that the contrast between Paxton and Talarico will render all the things that have been working against the Republicans to be irrelevant once the ballots are cast on November 3. Trump's historic unpopularity won't drive the midterm vote, based on the Texas governor's analysis, and all the factors behind the president's approval marks that have been stuck for months at all-time lows will not matter after voters get a chance to see the contrast between the Senate competitors here.
The problem with the Abbott assessment is that the Republicans began touting the Talarico narrative long before he won the nomination in March with a six-point win over the Democrat who's run as the favorite for most of the race - U.S. Representative Jasmine Crockett of Dallas. And Talarico's support in the polls has gone up the more that Texans have heard the wild claims that the Republicans are saying about the state representative from Austin.
Abbott also dismissed the factors that are fueling predictions of a blue wave like Trump approval ratings that have been mired in record lows for months, a war that Iran claims it won, soaring prices for gas, groceries and other consumer goods as consequences of his tariffs, a backlash over data centers and other issues that are working against the GOP
But Abbott taped the ABC News interview before Talarico teamed with congressional nominee Bobby Pulido at an event on Saturday night in Beeville - a city with a population of 14,500 that's heavily Hispanic as the seat for local government in Bee County that Trump carried with 70 percent of the vote less than two years ago.
Pulido, who's a resident of Edinburg, is squaring off with second-term U.S. Rep. Monica De La Cruz in Congressional District 15, which Republicans in Austin redrew again in 2025 to ensure that Democrats couldn't win it back. But the CD 15 race has gone from being viewed as a safe seat for the GOP to one that's ranked now as leans Republican in some forecasts and toss up in others.
Talarico and Pulido have both attracted larger crowds for rallies than anyone in Texas has seen in the past for races at the levels where they're running. Pulido, who performs songs at campaign rallies, has proven to be far stronger candidate than anyone imagined when he tossed his name into the ring.
But the Republican Texas governor isn't worried - and he used the ABC News appearance to make a case on why Paxton will be fine even though he hasn't performed as well as Talarico up to now in a state where Democrats haven't won statewide since 1994.
Paxton "was in a three-month-long runoff that demanded capital, it demanded campaigning, demanded his attention, and so he's just now catching up in the campaign process with Talarico," Abbott told Karl.
Even Trump admitted late last week that the prospects for Republicans this fall might not be that good. Trump argued that the GOP could dig itself out of the hole if its voters would simply pretend that he's on the ballot again. The president implied that his advocacy for data centers could work against the Republicans as well in the upcoming election. So Trump signaled to Republicans that it would be OK with him if they came out against data centers before the election.
more to come ...
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