James Talarico, the Democrat running for senate in Texas, predictably has the musician vote on lock. Some of that support is coming from outside the state: Yo La Tengo are playing a benefit show on his behalf, and Turnstile featured him at their Austin City Limits festival performance last weekend. But Texas natives from Willie Nelson to Don Henley (who has become a Democrat mega-donor in his home state) are also rallying on Talarico's behalf. And Kacey Musgraves, whose fantastic new album Middle Of Nowhere is partially about reconnecting with her roots in Golden, TX, welcomed him to her tour stop at American Airlines Center in Dallas on Saturday.
The Musgraves show became the setup for some campaign-season social media fanfare. Screenshotting Talarico's social media post thanking Musgraves for having him, former DHS secretary and South Dakota governor Kristi Noem took the opportunity to reference this year's biggest hit, Ella Langley's record-breaking "Choosin' Texas." "I'll take @ellalangleymsic over Kacey Musgraves any day," Noem wrote on X. "And if I'm choosin' Texas, I'll take Ken Paxton over James Talarico."
Langley, who has fraternized with country music's MAGA wing but kept her own politics to herself, used X’s "Leave this conversation" feature to untag herself from this discourse. Musgraves, meanwhile, responded by quote-tweeting Noem's message with a reference to one of Noem's most notorious moments: "I don't think you have a dog in this fight but if you did you would have shot it." (Noem infamously wrote in her 2024 book No Going Back that she killed an out-of-control wirehaired pointer named Cricket: "It was not a pleasant job, but it had to be done.")
Hopefully we're many years beyond the point of worshipfully you go, girl-ing celebrities for sassy social media clapbacks, but that one's pretty funny. Credit where credit's due.
Republican nominee Paxton, who has faced multiple criminal indictments, is so radioactive in the world of underground rock that some bands are boycotting a Houston venue that hosted one of his events.