There used to be a political designation in the South of “Yellow Dog Democrats,” meaning voters who’d vote for a yellow dog if the Democrats put them up for election. But in Texas, the yellow dogs have been Republican for a generation. Texas last had a Democratic senator in 1993, and last occupied the Governor’s Mansion in 1995, when Ann Richards gave way to George W. Bush.
Nevertheless, the dogs are barking this year. Senator John Cornyn is up for re-election, and the primary contest has been chippier than usual. On the Democratic side, former football player Colin Allred dropped out of the race in December, hoping for a return to Congress, leaving the nomination wide open for James Talarico, a state representative and Presbyterian minister. That is, until Dallas-area Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, smelling weakness, entered the race. And then the controversy began to swirl.
Last Sunday, a political Dallas-based TikTokker named “morga_tt” posted a video where she said that Talarico had told her, in private, that he had “signed up to run against a mediocre black man, not a formidable, intelligent black woman”.
Why this TikTokker chose to share the information isn’t exactly clear, but she wasn’t lying, either. Talarico’s campaign almost immediately released a statement. “I described Congressman Allred’s method of campaigning as mediocre – but his life and service are not,” the statement read. “I would never attack him on the basis of race. As a black man in America, Congressman Allred has had to work twice as hard to get where he is.”
Things quickly grew uncomfortable, like watching a family have an argument at a restaurant. But Talarico wasn’t lying either. There’s certainly nothing offensive about Allred, but he’s not an interesting candidate – and Ted Cruz easily beat him in the 2024 election. Allred showed more fire than he’d showed in either Senate campaign Monday when he released a video saying, “Let me just give you some free advice, James. If you want to compliment black women, just do it. Just do it. Don’t do it while also tearing down a black man.” Allred then endorsed Crockett.
Crockett has yet to personally responded to this situation, other than thanking Allred for his endorsement and calling him an “an even-tempered and measured person who doesn’t engage in pettiness.” But a Crockett spokeswoman told ABC News, “It’s unfortunate that at the start of Black History Month, this is what we’re facing. In former congressman Colin Allred’s video, he drew a line in the sand. He made it clear that he did not take allegations of an attack on him as simply another day in the neighborhood.”
In other words, we’re meant to believe that Talarico, a Presbyterian minister and leading Texas Democrat who also worked as a sixth-grade English teacher, and lobbied in Washington to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, is an unreconstructed racist. That’s absurd on its face. But, as Chicago’s Harold Washington once said, “politics ain’t beanbag.”
Meanwhile, the Texas Republican primary, usually an incumbent cakewalk, has also been unusually competitive. Senator John Cornyn, the definition of an establishment Republican, is feeling massive heat from state Attorney General Ken Paxton, a right-wing ideologue who has more baggage than an eight-person family going on vacation. The Texas House impeached Paxton in 2023 on charges of bribery, abuse of office and abuse of public trust. Paxton paid $271,000 in 2024 to settle securities fraud charges. The impeachment investigation revealed that his wife had divorced him for “biblical” reasons.
And yet he’s currently tied in the polls with Cornyn, with a third candidate, MAGA Republican Congressman Wesley Hunt, polling high enough that a runoff is almost inevitable following an early March primary. After a New York Times story this week revealed that pro-Cornyn PACs had spent more than $50 million since July attacking Paxton (while Paxton has done basically no advertising), Paxton’s X account posted, “Cornyn’s career is done and everyone knows it.”
Cornyn’s account fired back, “Ken, when this over, you will have nothing. Which turns out to be the same thing you offered to give Angela in divorce proceedings. This after you cheated on her multiple times.”
That’s way soapier and juicier than the warmed-over identity politics currently consuming the Democratic primary. But both primaries leave Texans with absolutely no idea which way the pendulum will swing. I do, however, have an idea of how it’s going to all turn out. The boring contest would be Cornyn versus Talarico. The more interesting one, which will garner more national attention, would be Paxton versus Crockett. Either way, though, this is Texas, the most Republican of states. Even if it’s against an impeached Attorney General who’s committed Biblical indiscretions, whoever the Democrats put up would have trouble getting elected Yellow Dogcatcher.
