Just like that, the Texas election race for the US Senate seat that Republican John Cornyn has comfortably held for almost a quarter of a century has turned into a vivid and unholy hot mess.
Early voting ahead of the Republican and Democrat primary election date of March 3rd began on Tuesday with a blaze of publicity for Democratic rising star James Talarico after his scheduled Monday night appearance on the Stephen Colbert Show was apparently pulled at the last minute. Colbert went ahead and filmed the interview anyway, stuck it up on the show’s YouTube channel and then told his audience that CBS attorneys had told his team “in no uncertain terms” that they could not proceed.
The controversy drew more than two million dedicated viewers to the alternative airing, during which Talarico give the kind of performance that had caused heavyweight podcast influencer Joe Rogan, clearly smitten with Talarico’s wide-eyed candour and old-school religious preaching, to last summer tell the Texan that he should run for president.
“I think that Donald Trump is worried that we are about to flip Texas,” Talarico told Colbert. “And this is the party that ran against cancel culture. And now they are trying to control what we watch, what we say, what we read. And this is the most dangerous kind of cancel culture – the kind that comes from the top.”
RM Block
If the order to cut the interview did come from the Federal Communications Commission – and CBS is disputing Colbert’s claim, stating that it merely offered a range of options relating to equal time rules for each candidate – then it backfired.
Now more than ever, Talarico holds the curious position of state legislator who generates more excitement than many Democrats operating at national level. He is 36, an eighth-generation Texas and a Presbyterian seminarian who delivers a message of progressive inclusiveness with purely Christian values. He delivers a ferocious message with a smile. Here he is denouncing the problematic alliance of Christian religious movements and the new Republican movement.
“For 50 years the religious right convinced a lot of our fellow Christians that the most important issues were abortion and gay marriage. Two issues that aren’t mentioned in the Bible; two issues that Jesus never talked about. Jesus in Matthew 25 tells us exactly how you and I, and our fellow believers, are going to be judged and how we are going to be saved. By feeding the hungry, by healing the sick, by welcoming the stranger. Nothing about going to church, nothing about voting Republican. It was all about how you treat other people.”
The language, the sincerity and the absence of smarm is a throwback, and is finding an audience among an electorate exhausted by years of hate-filled rhetoric and political smoothness. Talarico is campaigning as the leader of a Carteresque grassroots movement, proudly claiming that fundraising has reached record levels without “a dime” of Political Action Committee (PAC) money accepted.
If he’s one of the reasons that Democrats are getting giddy about the idea of flipping a state that has not sent a party candidate to the senate since 1994, the other reason is running against him. Texas congresswoman Jasmine Crockett’s surprise December declaration that she would run for the senate complicated what had been a straightforward showdown between Talarico and Colin Allred, the former NFL player and Democratic congressman – who has since exited the race. So the Democratic race was reduced to a compelling choice between two of the party’s rising stars.
On Tuesday, both Talarico and Crockett made public appearances to mark the first day of early voting. Talarico confirmed Stephen Colbert’s version of events – that his segment had been pulled.
Understandably nonplussed by what she termed “this Colbert situation”, Crockett (44) found herself in the unique position of stating that her campaign team had “received information suggesting the federal government did not shut down this segment”.
“That is my understanding,” she repeated, wary of aligning herself too firmly with Trump-administration rhetoric.
Crockett is presenting herself as a proven figure at national level, arguing she decided to enter the senate race after the careful charting of data indicating that moderate Republicans and Independents are ready to back her. The St Louis-raised public defender is probably the most trenchant and outspoken Trump critics among Democratic House members and is carrying a combative, arresting speaking style into the closing weeks of her Texas campaign.
On Tuesday, she referenced a series of adverts run by PACS that, while independent of Talarico, are designed to attack her, criticising her opponent for having nothing to say about “ads that are darkening my skin, and with this continual if-she-wins-we-lose. It’s not even undertones right now. It’s straight up racist. The state of Texas has more African Americans than any other state. The state of Texas has a plurality of Latinos. Listen, if you got a super PAC doing your bidding, then they should lift you up. What they shouldn’t be doing is tearing down a black woman who at the end of the day is more qualified”.
Crockett’s contention is that her three years in the congress leave her best placed to campaign against and unseat John Cornyn in November’s election. But there is no guarantee that Cornyn will even be the Republican representative. The entry of Maga-darling and Texas attorney general Ken Paxton has split loyalties in that race, with Paxton portraying himself as a blood-red alternative to Cornyn’s DC-establishment figure.
Recent polling released by the University of Houston has Paxton leading Cornyn by 38 per cent to 31 per cent with a third candidate, Wesley Hunt, at 17 per cent. It points to a May run-off between the lead contenders, with Trump’s endorsement likely to be critical. Unable to resist a cat-fight and the opportunity to make Cornyn squirm, the president declined to name his choice when asked this week.
“I like all three, actually,” Trump teased.
“Those are the toughest races. They’ve all supported me.”
It’s only the preliminary election for the right to contend for one senate seat but for pure theatre, the Lone Star state is likely to fascinate the country over the next few weeks. As the saying goes: in Texas everything is bigger.
