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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   3506 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 6, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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Ken Paxton isn't a nationally important race, he has other baggage, and it's Texas. If he were up for the presidency, he'd be Hitler Hisself. Nearly all politicians are adulterers who take bribes, you might as well call just him a politician.

Ken Paxton isn't a nationally important race,

How do you feel about Talarico's chances? It'd be nationally important if the Republicans lose control of the Senate by a losing seat in Texas, of all places. Paxton's odds feel much worse than Cornyn's would have been, and the decision to primary a long-time incumbent with someone of Paxton's, uh, moral character seems at least a potential own-goal.

I don't know enough about state politics there to have a good opinion. Single party states are always wildly corrupt and it damages the party in power. Talarico strikes me as deeply weird with a raft of opinions that would make him absolutely toxic to anyone with real religion, plus a carpetbagging "How do you do fellow Bar-B-Q enjoyers?" that seems very inauthentic as a presentation. I don't trust polling to be within forty points of the election. I don't trust someone of Paxton's "moral character" to not have some dodgy electioneering strategy. Uneducated guess, Talarico goes the way of Beto and we never hear from him again. Paxton is indicted a few years after winning.

I would give a slim edge to Paxton. If democrats are going to win a statewide race in Texas, it will be this one. But they haven’t done that in 40 years. Talarico’s, uh, controversial statements are just now starting to air, and we don’t know how voters will weight them versus Ken Paxton’s history of corruption.

But they haven’t done that in 40 years.

Ann Richards won the 1990 governor election, which isn't quite 40 years ago, and there were a few other statewide offices through the mid 90s that Democrats won. Texas hasn't been a red state, much less a very red one, as long as most people seem to think.

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