Democrat state representative James Talarico won Tuesday’s party primary by nearly seven points over Jasmine Crockett, a U.S. House member, and now awaits the results of the GOP runoff between Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Talarico earned 52.4% of the vote to Crockett’s 46.2%.
He built momentum in South Texas and among Hispanic voters, a critical Democratic constituency.
He presented himself as a unifying, cross-partisan candidate capable of winning statewide, contrasting with Crockett’s more combative progressive style.
As a Presbyterian seminarian, Talarico emphasized his Christian faith and populist message, appealing to moderate and religious voters. However, his knowledge of scripture has been questioned.
A censored CBS interview with Stephen Colbert went viral on YouTube, boosting Talarico’s visibility and fundraising.
Talarico was not well known across the vast Lone State until entering the race in September.
Tom Pauken served on Ronald Reagan's White House staff and later became chairman of the Republican Party of Texas.
"He is the more dangerous of the two candidates. I think Jasmine Crockett would have been easy to defeat in the general election for the Republicans. He will be a formidable candidate. He has sort of been picked out as one of the future stars of the Democrats, and he will have a ton of money to run in November and will try to claim he is a centrist while he's really not."
Pauken says on the Republican side the question is what will President Trump do?
"There's been speculation that if the wrong person got nominated by the Democrats for Senate -- and the wrong person did get nominated by the Democrats -- that he potentially could come out for Cornyn in the runoff because if he does come out for Cornyn that could tip the scales in the primary runoff."
Pauken says the stakes are very high.
"I think there are a lot of people that will say, ‘well we've got to keep control of the Senate because if we lose the House, which is expected …’ Then if we lose the Senate, Trump is in real trouble."
