Are the Democrats ready to win in Texas?

0:00Sarah Montague:This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.

0:05Anthony Zurcher:When you hear the phrase made in China, what do you think? I'm Tristan Redman. And I'm Asma Khalid and together we host the Global Story podcast from the BBC.

0:15Sarah Montague:And today on our show we look at the origins and evolution of made in China because it actually wasn't inevitable. What we're talking about is the world's largest communist nation is at the beating heart of the capitalist system.

0:30Anthony Zurcher:For more, listen to The Global Story on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

0:38Sarah Montague:We have just witnessed one of the fiercest and the most expensive primary races in US state history. The battle to decide who's going to be Texas's Republican candidate for senator. Donald Trump had turned his back on the long-serving senator from Texas and backed a really controversial outsider instead. That sets up a midterm election that could actually be competitive for the Democrats. Did Donald Trump just put Texas in play? Welcome to AmeriCast.

1:11Anthony Zurcher:AmeriCast. AmeriCast from BBC News. You hear that sound? Oh, I think when I hear that sound, it reminds me of money. We didn't start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it. This is a big cover-up, and this administration is engaged in it. This guy has Trump derangement syndrome. I have four words for you. Turn the volume up.

1:38Sarah Montague:Hello, it's Sarah in the BBC's Bureau in Washington. And it's Anthony right here with Sarah in Washington, D.C. Just you and me, Anthony, running the show from Washington instead of what the others insist on wrongly calling the worldwide headquarters of AmeriCast. But it's Texas we're going to be focusing on, the great state of Texas, as they say, and one of your favourites.

1:57Anthony Zurcher:One of the biggest, one of the best, the big enchilada, as Richard Nixon once called Texas. And we're talking about it because it could be a key battleground in November's midterm elections, in part because of what happened there in the Republican Senate primary race on Tuesday night.

2:13Sarah Montague:Yeah. So we saw the sitting senator who's been there for 23 years, John Cornyn, defeated. He will not be running for the Republicans in November. Instead, it will be the Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is quite a controversial figure, shall we say. A lot of people say he's less likely to win. Maybe this puts the state of Texas in play come November. But Donald Trump backed Ken Paxton, and he thanked him for that in his victory speech on Tuesday night. And then there's one person who I think you might know.

2:45Anthony Zurcher:President Donald J. Trump.

2:54Anthony Zurcher:When everyone in Washington told him to abandon me and abandon the people of Texas, he didn't listen. Instead, he gave his complete and total endorsement. President Trump is the leader of our party and his endorsement is the most powerful force in politics.

3:11Sarah Montague:So he's thanking Donald Trump there for his endorsement and obviously thinks that it made a difference. Why did Trump back him and not John Cornyn? I mean, we've seen him go after Republicans in Congress who he thinks were disloyal to him or voted against him. But John Cornyn hadn't done any of that. He'd been pretty good to Donald Trump.

3:31Anthony Zurcher:Pretty good. Yeah. He campaigned on his ties to Donald Trump. His campaign website has pictures of him and Donald Trump. He tried to name a state highway after Donald Trump in legislation a couple of weeks ago. He really wanted Donald Trump's endorsement. And for a time, it looked like he might actually get it. But what Trump focused on, I guess, was that Cornyn wasn't quite as enthusiastic in supporting Donald Trump's 2024 re-election bid. Cornyn said that Trump had been passed by and that he didn't realize that in order to win elections, he has to reach out to more than just the base. So Cornyn ultimately came around and endorsed Donald Trump.

4:11Anthony Zurcher:But clearly, the president has a long memory, at least when it comes to personal slights.

4:16Sarah Montague:And Ken Paxton as well was running as a more kind of MAGA type candidate, but it's not as though Trump got behind him at the beginning. I mean, it was only a week ago that he finally picked which Republican he was going to give his endorsement to.

4:28Anthony Zurcher:Right. Paxton was going to win this race. I think people who had been following this and understood Texas politics were pretty confident that Cornyn was going down even without Donald Trump's endorsement of Paxton. And the reason was that Paxton ran a very Trumpian kind of campaign. He did run as more Trumpian than Cornyn. He attacked Cornyn as being a Washington insider, as too much of an establishment, too weak, too timid, too old. All of the things that we've heard Donald Trump say when he's been campaigning for the past 10 years. And it was effective. Cornyn, for his part, was attacking Paxton's being corrupt and having too much baggage and being a weaker candidate in November's general election.

5:12Anthony Zurcher:But none of that seemed to make a difference. There were a lot of Texas Republican voters, particularly in the runoff where it's a smaller electorate, a more conservative, a more right wing electorate. all of that made it much more likely that Paxton could win by saying he's he's the Trump one, even if Trump hadn't endorsed him.

5:33Sarah Montague:But you think that Trump got behind him because he was going to win and then he could notch it up as a victory rather than him really being heavily invested in who became the Republican candidate?

5:43Anthony Zurcher:Yeah, I definitely felt that way, that Trump was following his base here. He needed to weigh in. He needed to find another another feather for his endorsement cap. I've read a lot of coverage saying that this is just another show of Donald Trump's endorsement power. And I think that Paxton, the size of Paxton's victory was reflected in Donald Trump's endorsement. I think Corden's people just stayed home in the runoff because they knew that the game was up. But Trump, I think, wanted to be able to get out in front of this. And that's what he did. And then Donald Trump threw all this stuff about Corden being disloyal when in honesty, that was overstating the case, I think.

6:24Sarah Montague:But what he's done as a result is possibly make Texas more competitive, because as you mentioned, Ken Paxton comes with quite a lot of baggage. There's an attractive, young, exciting Democratic candidate that's going to be running against them. And so you've got significant amounts of the Republican Party a bit worried about this. Republican Senator Tom Tillis is speaking his mind these days because he's retiring from the Senate. So he doesn't mind about getting on the wrong side of Donald Trump. And last night after the result on CNN, he did not hold back in his criticism of Ken Paxton. And to call Paxton ethically challenged is to call Jeffrey Dahmer suffering from an eating disorder.

7:02Sarah Montague:This guy is an empty suit and will do us no service by being in the US Congress. I hope the Texans realize how tough John Cornyn is, how pro second amendment he is, how pro limited government he is, how pro America first he is. And when they go to the polls on Tuesday, I hope that they know that they've got a great American who deserves reelection. And the other guy is going to be nothing but an anchor on our conference for as long as he's in

7:26Anthony Zurcher:the U.S. Senate. You know, Cornyn hammered Paxton with tens of millions of dollars in television advertising, highlighting all of those doubts that people might have had about about Paxton. And in fact, the Republican Senate Campaign Committee. So not just Cornyn, but this is the the committee that handles electing Republicans in Senate contests across the country, they were running negative ads attacking Paxton for being ethically corrupt. And you hear it time and time again, all of these hits on him. He still won despite these doubts. He still was able to get a majority, a large majority of Republican voters to support him.

8:06Anthony Zurcher:Although I will also add that turnout in this runoff was down considerably compared to March, where Cornyn finished slightly ahead of Paxton. So it wasn't necessarily that a lot of people switched over to Paxton after Donald Trump endorsed him or because of the campaign over the past month and a half. It was more that Cornyn's people stayed home. And that could be a reflection of they just gave up the ship because it was clear Paxton was going to win and it was clear that Donald Trump had thrown his weight behind Paxton. So it was a lost cause.

8:35Sarah Montague:And that's a really important point to make about primaries because, I mean, they're better than opinion polls and it's actually people turning up and casting their votes. So it's real data for us to use to try and look at what's happening among the electorate. But it's a very self-selecting bit of the electorate. It's not as though all of Texas or all of the potential Republican voters in Texas went out. It's the hardcore who go and vote in primaries, isn't it? It's the most passionately committed and sometimes the most right wing or the most left wing, the ones, you know, people who are more extreme in their political views are the ones who tend to come out in primaries.

9:08Sarah Montague:So that's why you sometimes get a more MAGA or a more progressive candidate with the Democrats getting selected there. And talking of Democrats, there is a question specifically for you, Anthony, that has come in from Will in Leicestershire. And he asks, as you are AmeriCast's resident Texan, which of course you are, very proud Texan, he wants to ask you about your thoughts for the Senate race there. Do you think Texas might now elect a Democrat senator in November? And that would be a very big deal. I know you're bound to know off the top of your head, when was the last time there was a Democrat return to the Senate from Texas?

9:45Anthony Zurcher:Lloyd Benson in 1988. It would be, to answer this question, a remarkable feat for Democrats to win this seat. Having covered Texas politics for decades, I've heard Texas Democrats talk about how Texas was going to become a swing state that is going to go blue or at least purple. for decades. It seems like it's always just around the corner and then it never happens. Beto O 'Rourke ran against Ted Cruz in 2018, and he came within a handful of percentage points, just a few hundred thousand votes from beating Ted Cruz. That is as close as any Democrat has come to winning a Senate seat in most people, most young people's lifetimes.

10:26Anthony Zurcher:And what he did was it was a Democratic wave election. He ran as a centrist. Cruz was somewhat controversial, had some people who didn't like him, and it still came up short. Now, we're also getting the same kind of perhaps series of events that need to happen for this to be a serious contest, which is Tallarica running as a centrist. He's pro oil and gas. He is pro border security. He tries to fashion himself as someone who is in touch with Texas values, although we'll see how Republicans are attacking him in a bit, an unpopular or at least controversial opponent who is not even an incumbent like Ted Cruz was.

11:04Anthony Zurcher:And it also is shaping up to be what could be a Democratic wave election with an unpopular president and Donald Trump concerns about affordability. So if all of those things combine, that is why, as you mentioned earlier, that this race has been moved by the Cook Political report from likely Republican to leans Republican. This is going to be a race that Republicans are going to have to fight to win. And that in itself is pretty remarkable.

11:32Sarah Montague:And back to James Tallarico, people are very excited about him. And I'll tell you what I've noticed when I've been talking to friends back home in Britain, his name comes up a lot. I mean, this is somebody who is not holding office at the moment at all. But people keep asking me, who is he? Is he as good as everybody says? Is he going to be the Democratic nominee in 2028, people are asking me, which would be a bit of a stretch, even if he wins this seat. But I mean, I think it's a sign of how much excitement there is behind him.

12:00Anthony Zurcher:He's raised tens of millions of dollars. So clearly he has been able to make an impression on the national stage. If you remember, there was that thing where he was on the Colbert show, the Stephen Colbert show, late night show, and some of his responses or his appearance was cut because it was a question of equal time and they have to give time to Republicans or another Democrat. And that kind of elevated the platform, kind of the Streisand effect, where you do something trying to keep people from finding out about someone and then everyone finds out about that thing. He's a former seminarian, so he is able to speak to evangelical conservatives, evangelical Christians in a way that a lot of Democrats may not be able to.

12:41Anthony Zurcher:As I mentioned, he does try to position himself as a centrist, although he also has some comments in the past that are more tilted towards liberal social policies, talking about transgender rights and talking about LBGTQ issues. And that, I think, might end up coming back. It certainly is going going to be used by Republicans to attack him as too liberal for Texas. But at least for now, there are a lot of people on the national stage who feel like he is the perfect candidate to be able to win in a place like Texas. And he is. He's a pretty good stump speaker. He's pretty charismatic. He's pretty quick on his feet.

13:18Anthony Zurcher:It'll make an interesting contrast with him going up against Paxton.

13:21Sarah Montague:Yeah, he sounded pretty excited about the fact that he's going up against Paxton. This was him after the results came in on Tuesday night.

13:29Anthony Zurcher:Something just happened in Texas. The most corrupt politician in America just became the Republican nominee for the United States Senate. If we, the people, can come together to defeat the most corrupt politician in America, we can defeat this entire corrupt system. We can start unrigging this economy. We can start raising our pay, cutting our taxes, lowering our costs. We can finally get ahead. It's time to come together. The people versus Ken Paxton. And he also made an explicit pitch on Tuesday to Cornyn supporters saying that he didn't always agree with everything that Cornyn has said and done, but that they both believe in the value of public service.

14:16Anthony Zurcher:So he thinks he can win over some of these disaffected Republicans who may not like Paxton. I know there are a lot of Cornyn supporters out there who despise Paxton just the same way that there were a lot of Paxton supporters out there who really hated Cornyn. So we'll see if the party can come together or if Tallarico can take advantage of those rifts. And the other interesting thing to listen to there in that clip was he started by talking about how Paxton is corrupt. But as we've seen, just saying a candidate is corrupt or has personal issues isn't enough to beat them.

14:51Sarah Montague:We know, though, what Kempax and the Republicans will use against Tallarica, what their playbook's going to be of their arguments against them. And one of the things they're most likely to say is, I've heard him using a clip where he talks not just about there being only two genders, he suggests there are six genders, and he even says that God is not male, God is not female, God is non-binary. Can you win anywhere in America? but most particularly in Texas, if you say God is non-binary, that sounds like, you know, practically disqualifying, isn't it?

15:27Anthony Zurcher:Yeah, I mean, I guess you could see his point, right, that God is bigger than any one gender. I also think he may have said cisgender and the people just misheard him and said it was six genders. But yes, I mean, that is the stuff that Republicans are going to target on him. They're going to say and point to these past comments, particularly on social issues, issues of transgender rights, that there are a lot of that will animate a lot of conservative voters in Texas and get them out to the polls to vote against him. And that was a playbook against Beto O 'Rourke, Beto O 'Rourke, as the Republicans used to call him.

16:06Anthony Zurcher:And the Republicans are calling Tallarico, Tala Freco, and Low T Tallarico, and all of these different nicknames. Because he's not, he doesn't look like a kind of a macho guy, necessarily. He's kind of looks mild-mannered. He's kind of soft-spoken. He looks really young as well. He looks young.

16:22Sarah Montague:So he's 37, isn't he? He looks 27.

16:25Anthony Zurcher:Yeah, he looks younger than his age. So I mean, that is, they're going to hit him on the macho thing, which Donald Trump ran on in 2024 and probably made headway into younger male voters, as we've talked about in the past. And definitely Ken Paxton's going to do the same thing. In fact, Ken Paxton at his victory party on Tuesday night was already on the attack against Tallarico, as we hear in this clip. My opponent is the most extreme radical the Democrats have ever nominated. He's even running a vegan campaign, whatever that is. He goes by a few names that you may all have heard of. Some people know him as Tofu Tallarico.