Democratic Texas Senate hopeful James Talarico will not appear alongside Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders when the progressive independent brings his national tour to the Lone Star State next week, as new polling shows Talarico's lead over Republican Ken Paxton in some polls shrinking inside the margin of error.
Sanders is scheduled to hold his "Fighting Oligarchy" rally in El Paso on Monday, October 19, with former Texas Representative Beto O'Rourke and Texas Representative Greg Casar, both Democrats. Talarico won't attend, his campaign told The New York Times on Wednesday.
The tour also lists a stop in Amarillo that same Monday and a Houston rally on Tuesday, October 20, again with Casar and O'Rourke as special guests. The El Paso stop falls on Texas's first day of early voting.
The race between Talarico, a state representative from Austin, and Paxton, the state's attorney general, could play a role in which party controls the U.S. Senate. Democrats have not won a Senate race in Texas since 1988.
Newsweek reached out to the Talarico campaign for comment Wednesday.
What the Polls Say
Talarico has spent the general election courting independents and moderate Republicans, while Paxton and the national GOP have tried to tie the Democrat to his party's left wing. Vice President JD Vance rallied for Paxton in East Texas on Tuesday, days after President Donald Trump did the same in San Antonio.
A number of polls have favored Talarico throughout the race following his victory over U.S. Representative Jasmine Crockett in the Democratic primary. A Marist poll released Wednesday found Talarico leading Paxton 47 percent to 45 percent among likely voters. Among registered voters, Talarico held a four-point lead, which was down from six points a month earlier. The poll's margin of error for likely voters was plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.
The poll offered bright spots for the Democrat among independents, with 52 percent saying they backed Talarico. Paxton's favorability was 22 points underwater, with 34 percent viewing him favorably and 56 percent unfavorably.
Despite those numbers, 53 percent of likely voters said they still expect Paxton to win the race.
A University of Texas/Texas Politics Project poll out this week put Talarico at 50 percent among likely voters and Paxton at 47 percent.
September looked better for Talarico. A Texas Public Opinion Research survey released late that month had him ahead 49 percent to 44 percent, and Marist's previous poll showed a 50-44 lead.
Paxton has led in only three public polls since late June, according to The New York Times tracker, though Talarico's margins have narrowed since mid-September. Ad spending in the contest has passed $500 million, and it could become the most expensive nonpresidential race in U.S. history, the Times reported.
Prediction markets currently favor the Democrat. Talarico was priced at 63 percent to win on Kalshi and 64 percent on Polymarket on October 11, compared with 37 percent for Paxton.
Talarico's Push to Moderate Texans
Talarico won the party's nomination by arguing he could widen the party's coalition. In the primary, he pitched himself as the candidate who could pull new people into the Democratic tent, while Crockett promised to boost turnout among the base.
The state representative has carried that approach into the fall. As he appeals to a statewide bloc of voters far more conservative than those of his Austin district, Talarico has tried to focus on a message tying rising costs of living to billionaire influence, while highlighting support from Republicans and independents. He has also shifted on some past positions, like transgenders athletes.
In the state legislature, he previously opposed Republican restrictions on transgender athletes competing. But, in an appearance on Fox News in September, Talarico said, "I’ve missed the mark on some of my past statements. I will be the first to admit it,” he said. He has also said he would back a national ban on gender-change surgeries for minors, and one of his ads features him saying, "No, I don't support sex-change surgeries for kids."
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On the issue of energy, Talarico has embraced an "all-of-the-above" platform that protects oil and gas while investing in renewables. This is a shift from 2021, when he sponsored a bill setting emissions reduction targets for the state. He calls himself a capitalist and rejects the socialist label Republicans have hung on him.
Political strategist Jim Kessler, executive vice president of the centrist group Third Way, told Newsweek the shift was necessary. Republicans, he argued, can win by consolidating support on the right, while Democrats must start in the middle and build outward.
Some Republicans have crossed. Glen Whitley, a retired Tarrant County judge, has urged fellow Republicans to "put country over party" and vote for Talarico.
The progressive firebrand Sanders has been a target of Texas conservatives before.
When he headlined the Texas Democratic convention in Corpus Christi in June, Republicans used the appearance to tie the state's Democrats to his brand of democratic socialism and paint them as too far left for Texas. Talarico also spoke at that convention.
Sanders and Vance Push as the Race Tightens
Both parties are sending big names to the state down the final stretch.
Sanders' tour is part of a national effort to turn out voters in competitive congressional races. On his website, Sanders bills the stops as conversations about taking on oligarchs and corporate interests.
Talarico's own pitch runs along similar lines. He describes the country's real divide as one between the top and the bottom.
Meanwhile, Republicans brought in national reinforcements. Vance flew into Tyler on Tuesday, days after Trump's third Texas trip in a month. He told the crowd that electing Talarico was the only way to "screw up" the state's future, and said the Democrat takes positions that clash with the moderate image he is now presenting to statewide voters.
"James Talarico needs to take a week or two to get his own head examined because he's lost his damn mind," Vance said.
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He also brought up Talarico's past comments about Texans eating less meat.
"He is a threat to your way of life," Vance told the crowd.
It was his second Texas swing this month. At the earlier rally, Vance questioned whether Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian who has built his campaign around faith, was sincere about it.
Paxton went after Talarico's following a 12-day absence at Trump's San Antonio rally last week.
"Where do you think they hid that little socialist?" he asked, before leading the crowd in a "Where Is James Talarico?" chant. Talarico's campaign later shared security camera images they say showed him recovering from the flu at his Austin home.
Voters may not get to see the candidates clash on stage.
If no debate happens, it would be the first Texas Senate race since 2000 without one. Trump called for a debate last week, and Talarico agreed almost right away.
Will Texas Finally Turn Blue?
Democrats have chased Texas for most of the past decade and come up short each time.
In 2018, Beto O'Rourke came within about 2.6 points of Senator Ted Cruz, the closest Senate race in the state in decades. Two years later, Democrats spent heavily in Texas, and Trump still carried it by about 5.6 points. O'Rourke lost to a governor's race against Republican Greg Abbott by nearly 11 points in 2022. In 2024, former Representative Colin Allred lost to Cruz by about 8.5 points, while Trump won the state by nearly 14 points on the back of a major swing among Hispanic voters.
"Texas is brutally tough for Democrats, and it will be this year too," Matt Bennett of the center-left think tank Third Way told Newsweek. "But with a Talarico vs. Paxton contest, it might be winnable."
This cycle has things those previous races lacked.
Paxton carries years of legal and personal baggage, and Republicans in Washington worried before he ousted longtime Republican Senator John Cornyn in the primary that Paxton would be the weaker general election candidate. As of September, Talarico had led in 15 of the last 16 polls released. He has also outraised Paxton, even in ZIP codes that previously backed Trump.
"It's still Texas. Still a very tough state for the Democrats," Madrid said. "But the conditions could not be more favorable for them at the same time."
Early voting runs October 19 through October 30. Election Day is November 3.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Samantha Beech and Geoffrey Rowland.