As Texas Senate Race Tightens, Talarico's Mask Is Slipping

The U.S. Senate race between Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Democratic seminarian state Rep. James Talarico is tightening.

August polls showed Talarico ahead by at least 2 percentage points. Now, the Cook Political Report calls the race a dead heat. Another poll, from Overton Insights and the Texas Public Policy Foundation, shows the same tightening: 44% for Talarico, 43.4% for Paxton and 12.6% still undecided.

Despite his moderate everyman pitch, Talarico's true progressive beliefs keep surfacing, slowly shifting voter sentiment and leaving Texans wondering what he actually believes.

James Talarico's progressive views don't represent Texas

I could sense hints of Talarico's authentic leftism back in June, when Texans learned he'd gone from running a "non-meat" campaign a few years ago to wearing a Texas flag shirt and devouring a barbecue-basted turkey leg. That's when I knew the rebranding of Talarico as a Texas everyman had begun.