Few topics ignite passion in Democrats like the idea of Blue Texas, or “Blexas” as the phenomenon is called. And with the match-up between Democratic state Representative James Talarico and scandal-plagued Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton polling neck-and-neck, the possibility of Blexas has been hard to ignore this midterm cycle. Once a Democratic stronghold that produced the likes of President Lyndon B.
Johnson and Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn, Texas voted Reagan in 1980 and has grown redder ever since. Not since 1994 have Democrats won statewide. Today, the caricature of the gun-toting, oil-loving Texas Republican has left a cultural mark on the GOP like no other.
To win in Texas would be to defeat the Republican psyche. Knowing that, Democrats have spent tens of millions in the state in 2018, 2022 and 2024, only to suffer repeated defeats in return. Texas Democratic Party leaders would say there’s a reason for that—those resources funded the top of the ticket while ignoring the absence of the political infrastructure and downballot energy needed to win statewide.
This year, that’s changed. Talarico currently outpaces Paxton—who has faced securities-fraud charges, whistleblower allegations and a 2023 impeachment attempt, all to which he has denied wrongdoing—in the fundraising race. However, Republicans understand that losing Texas wouldn't just possibly lose them the Senate; it could threaten the very coalition they rely upon to win the White House.
President Donald Trump's MAGA Inc. super PAC controls a $400 million war chest waiting to be unleashed for this very kind of race. If that were to happen, grassroots organizing could be the difference maker. As a boy growing up in an East Texas farming family, Scudder was surrounded by Democrats.
That's how things were in those days. But as the years passed, that community grew steadily red. Nonetheless, Scudder maintained his “populist [Senator] Ralph Yarborough-style views.” A new deal Democrat rooted in rural America, Yarborough won East Texas by pledging to protect workers from Big Oil, Big Banks and Big Landowners.
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