Texas Democrats Get New Ammo as Cruz
Concedes Talarico Could Win Senate Seat
Capitol Inside
July 9, 2026
U.S. Senator Ted Cruz gave James Talarico valuable new material for advertising on Thursday when he acknowledged that James Talarico has a decent shot to win a race for the U.S. Senate in Texas this fall in a development that could swing the chamber's majority to the Democrats.
Cruz offered the candid admission in an exchange with Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who served as the co-host for the nationally-syndicated Sean Hannity radio show during the past two days. But the state's now-senior Senate member expressed guarded confidence that GOP nominee Ken Paxton would emerge victorious in a potential thriller at the finish line.
"Unfortunately, I do think he has a chance," Cruz said when asked if Talarico was viable. "I think this is a real race. I think it's going to be close. I think we're going to win. I think we're going to keep Texas red. But the polling right now shows this is a one or two point race."
Abbott's guests while sitting in for Hannity have featured an entertaining mix that's included White House Border Czar Tom Homan, U.S. Senator Tim Scott, University of Texas football coach Steve Sarkisian and Elon Musk. But Cruz proved to be the most newsworthy by far with the analysis on the Senate fight in Texas where Democrats haven't won statewide in 32 years or prevailed in a U.S. Senate race since 1988.
Cruz's warning on a Senate seat in peril came about 18 hours after Talarico announced that he'd raised a stunning $30 million in a three-month span that ended on June 30. The Austin state representative's report for the second quarter pushed his running total beyond the $70 million mark after only 10 months as a candidate in the Senate race.
Talarico's disclosure made Paxton's own fundraising effort look paltry a couple of hours after the Republican state attorney general portrayed it as a huge success with over $9 million in contributions fur the same period. Paxton's campaign said the second-quarter total was the most that any Senate contender for the GOP who's not an incumbent had generated up to now in the 2026 election cycle.
Talarico has raised more than four times more for the Senate competition than Paxton. While the state AG has defeated candidates who were heavily-armed in the past - with incumbent John Cornyn as the best and most recent example - Cruz and the Republicans are scared that the rapidly-growing disparity in funding and overall effort could be difficult for Paxton to overcome despite the inherent advantage he has as the Republican candidate in the race.
President Donald Trump endorsement a week before a primary runoff that Paxton in May - coupled with the AG's strength with the far-right grassroots base as a MAGA darling - was sufficient to beat Cornyn in overtime despite the incumbent's huge advantage in money. Paxton plans for Trump to have an active role in the fall fight with Talarico without apparent concern about the president's historically low popularity ratings. Paxton, Abbott and the other Republicans here have appeared to believe they could run the table again in statewide races without the need to reach out to the political middle where Talarico has cultivated strong support among independents who could the game-changers in the final analysis.
Abbott - in vintage form - has sought to play it both ways on the prospects for a Talarico win in November. The governor has warned about a potential blue wave as a fundraising tactic while claiming at times that Talarico has no chance to break the Democrats' statewide losing streak this year. But the Republicans here have been on edge since the end of January when Democrat Taylor Rehmet set the tone for the 2026 midterm vote here when he beat a heavily-favored Republican by 14 points in a special Texas Senate runoff election in a Tarrant County district where Trump won by 17 in 2024.
Republicans blamed the fumbling of Senate District 9 on a poor turnout by GOP voters that said wouldn't happen again in the fall.
But Cruz is speaking from experience with the attempt to give an honest assessment on the Texas Senate bout pitting Paxton against Talarico. Cruz came closer to losing in 2028 than any Republican in a statewide contest has in two dozen years or more when he survived a scare from Democrat Beto O'Rourke in the first midterm election on Trump's watch in 2018. The Democrats' defeat at the top of the Texas ticket that year didn't stop the minority party from flipping 14 legislative seats and two congressional districts on the strength of the last blue wave in the U.S.
Cruz led O'Rouke by 7 points on average in polls on the Senate race in Texas in 2018 when he won by a 2.6 points. Cruz finished far worse than projected despite a rally that Trump attended on his behalf in Houston in the final stretch before the vote. O'Rourke left a trail of broken fundraising records in his wake en route to raising $80 million for the fight with Cruz. Talarico could top that mark by the end of July at the rate he's going.
Trump is far more unpopular now than he was eight years ago in term number one - and the country and the world has been considerably less stable in the past 18 months in his second stint as the nation's leader. Talarico is on track to set the all-time record for a U.S. Senate campaign - and then some. And the Republicans have been doing less to attract votes from outside the base in 2026 than they have in a major Texas race during three decades of GOP rule here. These are a few of the reasons why Cruz thinks Talarico may be the next senator from Texas.
more to come ...
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