There were a few hundred Democrats gathered at a venue called Lofty Spaces in Dallas on Monday, in a sweltering heat that could not hold back the annual Labor Day political rally. And while on the surface all was confidence, when you scratched a little deeper, you struck frayed nerves.
Ellen, a retired nurse who sometimes protests in a Statue of Liberty costume, was there, and agreed to an interview if I helped to take her gear to her car, which I would have done anyway, of course.
Ellen was optimistic about Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico in his race against Republican Ken Paxton.
“I feel very good about him, I’m very optimistic, I don’t think Texans are going to vote for a criminal, cheat, adulterer, Ken Paxton,” she said.
When I pointed out that Paxton, the current state attorney general, had already won statewide elections twice, she smiled and said, “That’s the problem.”
But not the only problem. Asked about Talarico’s Senate primary opponent, Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a high-profile Black Texas Democrat who has thus far refused to back Talarico, Ellen said, “I voted for her, and after he won…and she decided she wasn’t going to support him, I was so glad that she lost.
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Joanna and Ruth, who are in Ellen’s age demo and also very active in the Democratic Party in Dallas, thought Talarico is looking good.
,”I’m feeling more encouraged than I have in a really long time, that it is going to flip over,” Joanna added, “I’m feeling really fabulous about it too,” but again, concerns over Crockett and the Black vote lingered.
Joanna shared that, “I really hope she gets on board to help with the Black people, because we need them voting, but she has always been my rep and I love her.”
Several Black Democrats I spoke with at the event felt confident that Crockett’s obstinance would not be decisive, and were not willing to attack her for it.
Perhaps the biggest headwind for Talarico that I discovered in Dallas, something that polling has a hard time catching up to, is a lack of enthusiasm over him. Determination to win is in the air, but far less so is excitement.
Later that day, downtown, I met Richard who is in his 30s and works in the service industry. He said there was more buzz in the lead-up to Beto O’Rourke’s narrow 2018 Senate loss,
“The energy for Beto was everywhere, it was palpable,” he said. “I was sure that Ted Cruz was going to lose. I don’t feel that this time.”
Jaime, a liberal elementary school principal, seemed a bit less worried about the energy gap, though he did acknowledge, “Beto had style and rizz, Talarico is kind of a square.”
And let’s face it, back in 2018, we even had a term for O’Rourke’s appeal: ‘Beto-Mania.’ There is no Talarico-Mania.
I wound up asking several people this question, and even those who shrugged it off only did so after a look in their eyes told me they knew it was at least a real thing, if not a dealbreaker.
Meanwhile, the massive on-hand money advantage that Talarico has enjoyed is starting to evaporate, as President Trump’s PAC this week committed $10 million to back Paxton. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s ads, focused on oil production and culture issues, also serve as de facto anti-Talarico spots.
On final bump in the road for Talarico is that in Texas, even among many Democrats, immigration is a tricky issue. Unlike in places like Michigan and Virginia, Democrats in Dallas were not saying they want to abolish ICE, but rather reform it. They do not want a return to Joe Biden’s policies on the southern border.
Well do they recall the 15,000 Haitians lined up at the border in Del Rio, under Grandpa Joe’s watch.
Curiously, a name that did not come up very often in my discussions with Democratic voters was Donald Trump, and after a decade of hearing little else from them, that was a bit jarring.
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Voters on the Left are realizing that they can’t simply run against Trump anymore, because The Donald is in the home stretch of his presidency. Time will succeed, where their party failed, in ending Trump’s tenure in the White House. The real question is, what comes next?
Will Texas be fool’s gold for the Democrats again this year, as it has so often been, or will the new demography of blue state transplants finally get them over the top? For now, as Republicans are set to make their pitch in Dallas this week, the feeling is more one of worry than outright confidence.
