The Midterms Begin With a Texas-Size Showdown

authoritarian era, or are we on the brink of a technological golden age, or the apocalypse?

“No one really knows, but I'm trying to find out.”

From New York Times opinion, I'm Ross Douthet and on my show, interesting times, I'm exploring this strange new world order with the thinkers and leaders giving it shape. Following all of it, wherever you get your podcasts. From New York Times, I'm Michael Barrow, this is The Daily. In Texas today, amid the president's sinking popularity and his widening war with Iran,

Democrats and Republicans will head to the polls for an election that will send both parties a message about what voters want and don't want in Trump's America. Fighting or healing, loyalty or defiance. I spoke with my colleague, National Political Correspondent Shane Goldmacher about the Senate primary that everyone in US politics is watching, it's Tuesday, March 3rd.

Shane, Michael, good to see you, nice to see you in person. So the midterm elections, which we promised were really around the corner, are actually now. They are starting, starting on Tuesday in of all places, Texas, state known for very big political personalities and political dramas.

Are you ready for it? I'm ready for it, Texas is the big kickoff of the midterm season. Literally the first. Yeah, there's three states, but this is the central one.

And we're not actually interested in it just because it's the first, although that's plenty

of reason to be interested in it, we're interested in the Texas midterm primary on Tuesday because it looks to be a race on both sides, the selection of a Democratic nominee and a Republican nominee for US Senate that is really capturing the big soul searching battle for the identity of both parties in this era of Trump's America.

“Yeah, on the question of like, what is the direction of the Democratic party at this moment?”

And what is the direction of the Republican party in this moment? The midterm fight there in this primary is one of the most interesting ones. This Texas race has a little bit of everything. It's a fight over race, it's a fight over religion, it's a fight over ideology, it's a fight over Donald Trump, it's a fight over electability, it is, in short, a fight over almost

everything that we fight about in American politics. And it is a race for Republicans between a sort of a fixture of the old guard of the Republican party to the degree there is an old guard stall to agree there's an old guard a guy who's been around for 20 years and a challenger who is really made in the image of Donald Trump controversial and popular with the right wing base of the Republican party.

For Democrats, it's a choice between two candidates who really offer the paths for the party forward. Do you want to pick someone who is a fighter who is going to just throw hammakers all day, fight fire with fire with fire or do you want to pick somebody who is more of a healer type?

Someone who says yes, there's fights we need to be have, but ultimately it's about bridging our divides and this is the first measurement for both parties this year of where they stand on those kind of big ticket questions. And I'd say the cliche everything is bigger in Texas. This is the most expensive primary already in American history.

Wow. How expensive has it then?

More than a hundred million dollars of advertising in a primary.

In a primary.

“So which side should we start with here at the Democratic candidate's or the Republican ones?”

I mean, I think you definitely want to start with the Republicans and the Republican incumbent who is running for reelection. I love Texas. It's been my great honor and privilege to represent her all 29 million of us in the United States Senate, which is Senator John Cornean.

I don't believe we need to make Texas like Chuck Schumer's New York or Nancy Pelosi's California. We need to make the rest of the country more like Texas. John Cornean's been in the Senate for 20 years. He's been in the Senate leadership.

He has run the Senate Republican campaign arm. And on paper, that's the kind of person who should just have a shoe in for reelection. But this isn't that moment and Cornean has committed some sins in the eyes of Republican primary voters, which is that he has broken at times with Donald Trump.

to overturn the election, including Texas Senator John Cornean. Most notably after January 6th, Texas Republican John Cornean says he is struggling to understand the legal theory behind this case, Texas Congress. He expressed criticism of Trump's behavior and the run up to the riot. Now he didn't vote to impeach him or anything, but he wasn't pro-Trump at that moment.

And then when Trump runs in 2024, calling it like he sees it. Cornean's an open skeptic. Our state senior United States Senator John Cornean says former president Donald Trump cannot win a general election in a call with Texas reporters today, Senator Cornean said

“"I think President Trump's time has passed him by."”

And Cornean gets on board eventually with the Trump trend, but he wasn't an early occupant of the 2024 Trump comeback ride. And so then Cornean is announcing his own reelection for 2026.

In President Trump's first term, he made America great.

And the shoes suddenly on the other foot, meaning that Trump might have wanted Cornean's endorsement before, but now it's Cornean who wants Donald Trump's endorsement. And President Trump's first term, I was Republican whip delivering the votes for his biggest wins. And so his launch video is a big homage to Donald Trump.

His materials are about he voted with Donald Trump 99% of the time. He is bare-hugging the president, who he had been skeptical of, not that long ago. God bless you and your families, God bless America, and God bless Texas.

“So on paper, he still kind of seems like a fairly logical, not just shoe-in for reelection”

in theory, but someone the president could probably get behind. Yeah, most Republican senators coast to reelection. It's uncommon for a sitting senator face a real primary challenge. However, however, he has a primary as a real primary opponent. I went through the Obama administration trying to put me in prison having the FBI

investigating me for two years because I sued him 27 times in two years. And it is a person in the mold of Donald Trump. I had the Biden administration, yes, the Biden administration, also investigating me for four years because I sued them 170 times over four years and they didn't like it. The attorney general of Texas, a guy named Ken Paxton.

The attorney general, Ken Paxton protected our gunlights, defended the right to life, and took on the radical transgender movement.

And if Corning was at times skeptical about Trump, Ken Paxton has never been skeptical

about Donald Trump. I can tell you this, I watched a lot of presidents in my lifetime and no president accomplished more with that type of diversity that any other president of my lifetime. He has believed in back to almost everything Trump has done.

“Talk about that key moment for Trump that run up to the certification of the 2020 election.”

We had the opportunity to go fight in other states. And we sued four states over the ballot fraud and we took it directly to the Supreme Court. Ken Paxton as attorney general was the guy filing a lawsuit on behalf of Texas trying to invalidate the results. Third Texas, we're Americans and we're not quitting God bless.

So Ken Paxton is a Trump ally and in a lot of ways, he's Trump before Trump in Texas. It's like the Ken Paxton has been indicted. Ken Paxton has been impeached by Republicans. Ken Paxton, you know, has been accused by his ex-wife of marital infidelity. And, you know what, the Republican primary voters in Texas have loved him.

So Ken Paxton gets in this race and immediately he's up in the polls. He is tied or ahead of John Cornean at the very start and the Republican political establishment of which Cornean is a card-carrying member. He's freaking out. They're saying Ken Paxton is so vulnerable because of impeachments and indictments and corruption

accused by his own top AIDS that Ken Paxton could make the seat something Democrats could conceive of when when if he wins the Republican party fears, then potentially a Texas Senate seat could be in play for Democrats in a general election if they put up a strong candidate. They're pretty open about it that Ken Paxton would be a disaster for the party.

Even if he might be able to win, they say it could cost $200 million to save Ken Paxton.

And so the Republican political session has made this decision instead of letting this primary just play out and seeing where the cards fall, they're going to intervene early to save John Cornean. And are they saving him? Not yet.

This could go to a runoff because there's in fact a third candidate in this race.

A congressman named Wesley Hunt, who's a younger, black congressman from Texas, gets into

the race later and says, I want to be an alternative candidate here. And that's why I'm running for Senate. And I don't think we should think of him just as an afterthought because in recent weeks, both Paxton and Cornean have stopped attacking each other and started chiefly attacking Hunt and why are they doing that?

“So in Texas, you have to get 50% to become the nominee and in a three-way race, that's”

really hard. And so what they're both doing is trying to ensure that they get to face each other and run off. Cornean had fears that Hunt might pass him and make the runoff instead and Paxton wants to make sure he's running against Cornean at the end of the day.

And so they've found common alliance in attacking Hunt. That's the race that's happening now, but the main event. Both now and likely in the runoff is Paxton versus Cornean. So let's spend some time with that main event, Cornean versus Paxton, how are they campaigning against each other and what's been the most effective lines of attack between

them? Well, if Cornean has started his race trying to bear hug Donald Trump, Senator John Cornean turned his back on President Trump. Ken Paxton has been trying to divide them from each other. On Cornean of Texas told CBS News, he simply doesn't think Donald Trump can get elected

president quite a statement from Senator Cornean and pushing out and highlighting all the ways that Cornean has previously broken with Donald Trump. Join the Ken Paxton for 17 today and look the air wars that broke in the records in this race. The commercial wars have overwhelmingly been trying to prop up John Cornean.

Thank you, Senator Cornean, for working with President Trump. And for making Texas great again. And the way to do that is to push him closer and closer to Donald Trump. Call Senator John Cornean and thank you for standing with President Trump. And of course, the biggest question of all in this primary is what has the president said

and what has he signaled about whether he's going to back either Cornean or Paxton

or perhaps any bit of a surprise move the third candidate on.

Yeah, I mean, the primary thing of primary for almost every Republican race is who can get Trump and Cornean made some early moves for this. He hired Trump people, right? He hired Trump's polster to be his polster.

“So when there's somebody making a case for Trump about races, guess what?”

And somebody Trump trusts his super PAC hired Trump's campaign manager, Chris Lassovita to help lead his super PAC. So he has Trump allies on the inside helping him make his case in that Senate leadership that is spending all that money to prop up Cornean, their lobbying Trump, too. They're saying, get on board, save money, save the seat now, back John Cornean.

And Trump just hasn't done it, right? The polling and all that spending Cornean has not pulled away from Ken Paxton. He's not anywhere close to 50% of that. So Trump could probably decide this race with a tweet or social and he's not doing it. It's possible, but also, right, Trump doesn't want to waste his endorsement on a candidate

who loses. He deeply values his influence with the Republican Party electorate. And he knows the Ken Paxton holds sway. He sees and Ken Paxton, some of himself, that ability to sustain your support despite scandal.

So how should we think about what this primary race and its dynamics really tell us about this moment in Trump's second term, because in some ways, the simplest analysis is that polling shows the country is very tired of President Trump on the issues where he traditionally was the strongest after just a year.

But Trump's not tired of Trump, and the Trump base, which is always the animating galvanizing

force in a primary, is not tired of Trump. And so there's that classic tension between what party leadership in Washington thinks is best for a general election and the way the party actually works in a primary. Right, Trump continues to be popular among Republican voters. And that is the chief defining characteristic of Republican primaries for like a decade at

this point.

“I think what's interesting about this race is it's a test of his approach as popularity”

and not just his personal popularity. Is the Trump style that Ken Paxton mimics going to be successful into the future beyond Donald Trump? Ken Paxton is finds whatever the hard right issue is and leans into it and has his whole

And so I think that this is a test of that kind of politics and it's enduring a feel for

the party even beyond Donald Trump. Well, Shane, we're going to take a break. And when we come back, we're going to talk about the Democratic side of this Texas primary. And the question of how Democrats are thinking about who would be most electable against someone like Ken Paxton?

“If he were to win, how would they seize what could be for them a real opportunity there?”

We'll do right back. I'm Peter Baker. I'm Chief White House correspondent for the New York Times. I cover the president of the United States and I've covered every president since 1996. The pressure on an independent press today feels greater than any time I've seen it in

four decades as journalists. All that pressure, though, is just a reminder of why journalism matters. Our job is to bring home facts, help our readers understand what's happening, regardless of what the consequences may be to us. And if they punish us so be it, we will still go out there and report as honestly and

aggressively and fairly and truthfully as we can. I mean, if the New York Times were not at the White House asking the hard questions, looking for stories behind the stories, trying to understand what's going on, it's possible these questions don't get asked. Independent reporting requires resources.

“You can support it by subscribing to the New York Times at nytimes.com/subscribe.”

So Shane, let us now turn to the Democratic side of this primary. And my sense is that it's been no less dramatic. Maybe that little bit less, but not much less dramatic than the Republican side. I mean, it's been pretty dramatic, right? So Texas is the white whale for the Democratic Party.

They dream of competing, turning Texas blue and they have their heart broken every cycle. Right. You've had better work who came close. Even last election, you had Colin already $100 million as raised by the Democratic nominee.

Yes. Yes. I thought we can win a Senate race in Texas and raised a bunch of money only to lose.

And so this election starts, Colin always says that hey, I'm looking at running again.

And the Democratic Party already spent a bunch of money on him and they immediately to move over. A little bit more immediately, begin falling in love with another new figure. Please welcome my friend, the next US Senator of Texas, James, totally new. A state legislator who enters the race in his name is James Talleriko.

My granddad was a Baptist preacher in South Texas. And he starts with this kind of unique launch video. And he taught me when I was real little that we follow a barefoot rabbi who gave just two commitments, love God and love new, because it is him outside in his supporters. It looks almost like a preacher and their flock outside of a church building.

This American democracy is a lot more than a constitution. It's a covenant. And he's talking about what unites us rather than what divides us and bringing people together. It's a relationship between neighbors, it's a promise that we make to each other to share

this country. And while he's entering a democratic primary, there's very much has the feel of a person reaching out to voters across the political spectrum to make yourself palatable to that middle of the electorate. God bless you, thank you.

He entered the race last September, but his campaign really began a couple months earlier Oh, all right, James, who too? Well, are you? Very good. Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you. Thanks for having me. My pleasure. With an appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast.

It's always interesting to see a person who is a Christian, who is not four of the ten

commandments in schools. Yeah.

“And I think you made a very compelling argument, you know?”

Yeah, you know, I've gotten that a lot. Who are like, you're in seminary, you're studying become minister, why wouldn't you want the ten commandments in every classroom? So I reckon. And Talereco is not your standard fair Democrat.

He's a Democrat who had gone to seminary school, is deeply religious. And he speaks a little bit differently than your average Democrat and Rogan loves it. You know, this certainly exists on both as the aisle. But I think in recent years, this, you know, cancel culture on my side of the aisle has just become kind of the default spirituality on the left.

And it is so toxic because--

And at the end of this conversation, right, it doesn't have to be destroyed. That is the key step. Right.

“So that's not what you need to run for president.”

He says that James Talereco should run for president. And this interview comes just as the Republican governor of Texas is redrawing the redistricting lines. At President Trump's behest. At President Trump's behest.

You get Trump as many Republican congressional seats as possible. And Talereco's group of Democratic state lawmakers, they flee the state. So he's on national television.

In order to deprive the state legislature of a forum in order to redraw the line.

It's dramatic, in effect, it ends up not working, but along the way. Now to Texas, we're a new redistricting plan backed by-- Talereco, who just had this moment on Joe Rogan, is now on all the cable networks. Mm-hmm. Turning our coverage is Texas State Representative James Talereco.

Thanks, Talereco. Thanks so much for talking with us. Thanks for having me.

“As a sharp, articulate, well-spoken face of a democratic party's resistance to Trump.”

I would disagree that this is not racial cherry mandarin. You take a look at these maps and the communities they divide. The voices they dilute, it is primarily black and brown. And so he enters this race around Labor Day and just shoots off like a rocket ship, raises gobs and gobs of money online.

And so Talereco who entered this race as an asterisk by the end of the year looks like the dominant force and the likely democratic nominee for Senate. Right, it seems like there's really isn't much of a primary. And then in December in a huge twist, another candidate enters the race, another superstar for the Democratic Party.

Let me be clear. Jasmine Crocket. Donald Trump is running the most openly racist immigration regime in modern American history. I've said it once. And Crocket to the extent that you know her and democratic primary voters know her and many

of them do is as a Democrat who is fighting fire with fire. Do you know where here for you know we're here? Well, you don't want to talk about, I think your fake eyelashes are messing up. I mean, she's been in these committee hearings with Marjorie Taylor Greene where they've just attacked each other.

Miss Crocket. I'm just curious, just to better understand your ruling. If someone on this committee then starts talking about somebody's bleach blind bad built butch body that would not be engaging in personalities correct. And these things have gone viral and they've gone viral over and over again.

And sometimes she goes over the line right as maybe Trump has done so many times. She is attacked the governor of Texas who is in a wheelchair Greg Abbott. You don't know we got governor hot wheels down there. Come on now.

“And she is called him governor hot wheels and the only thing hot about him is that he”

is a hot ass mess honey so so yes, she later said I had no reference to the fact that he's in a wheelchair. She just happened to call him governor hot wheels and she enters this race and she's sort of a polar opposite Democrat and approach than James Talery going not a healer but a rupture a rupture and Talery go give a great quote recently to the New Yorker.

He said it was like an asteroid hit our campaign. He's been clocked as a rival is an asteroid that rams into the rising star of Talery go. And when Crocket enters the race, how forcefully does she espouse the role of the fighter of the asteroid? I mean, this is the entirety of her candidacy her opening ad is really a memorable and a

unique one. How about this new one they have the new star, Crocket, how about her? The features her head tilted to the side and the entire ad is narrated by Donald Trump. But you have this woman Crocket, she's a very low IQ person. I want to just speak the other day, she's definitely a low IQ person.

It's just Donald Trump attacking her. Somebody said the other day, she's one of the leaders of the party, yes, you got to be kidding. She eventually turns the camera across his arms and she is the fighter, she's the fighter that they fear is the message and she's open about her plans. She doesn't want to go heal and bring in, you know, disaffected Republican votes.

She is going to mobilize and create a new electorate of Democrats to take over Texas in the party. She's got a very different approach. And so Crocket excites the base of the Democratic Party, you know how she excites the Republican party.

The Republicans are thrilled with her entry in this race. And in fact, Republicans had quietly tried to get her to run.

The first poll that showed that she could be the Democratic nominee who was paid for by

the Senate Republican Party away, they put it out the summer before to try to stir

So on this electability question, Republicans are quite convinced that if Jasmine Crocket

wins the primary Democratic side, they stand a far better chance, no matter who their nominee is, of winning Texas, winning the Senate seat. If Republicans are afraid that Ken Paxon could lose this race for them, their confident that Jasmine Crocket could also win this race for them. And so how are Democrats thinking about these two pretty polar offers that candidates in

“this primary, Crocket, and Tallerika, what are the polls telling us?”

The polls immediately show that Crocket takes a lead when she enters this race. And the race frankly has been pretty charged, there's been a lot of attacks along racial lines, allies of Tallerika have pointed to old statements that Crocket made about Latino voters and their flirtation with Trump as having a slave mentality. And some of Crocket's allies in Crocket herself have criticized Tallerika in the entire

electability argument that has surrounded him as racist.

We should say, because we have that Jasmine Crocket is black, which has been Crocket

as black, and James Howlerico is white. And so the argument that some of the folks supportive of Crocket if made is, oh, so the only electable candidate in Texas has to be white. Shane, I have to imagine that Tallerika and his campaign are watching Jasmine Crocket's polling numbers and recognizing that they need to potentially adjust and make sure that the

Democratic electorate sees him as some kind of a fighter as well. That would be my political logic. Yeah.

“I mean, I don't know, overstate that he's exclusively been a healer from the start, right?”

He has identified a villain in the villainous billionaires. He's run from the start against the billionaire class and said, we all, the voters, the left, the right, the moderates. We are all on the same side. It's against these billionaires that are putting us down.

And he is attacking, he's attacking the Trump administration. He's attacking in one of his last ads, the immigration policies of the Trump administration. He's not attacking Jasmine Crocket in a way that her campaign has been pretty open about attacking him and looks, she has looked like the frontrunner in this race. And then in recent weeks, there's been a twist, right, which in a race of full of asteroids.

And a race full of asteroids, we've got more rocket fuel. We're going to go the outer space metaphor to the end here. And this is what is Stephen Colbert. And this is Stephen Colbert. So Tallerika was coming to New York and he's going to do the late show with Colbert.

And he records this segment, and the segment doesn't air. And Colbert says this segment doesn't air on his show because he was told not to air it because there was a threat from the Federal Communications Commission about airing only one side of a primary race or one candidate in a multi-candidate field. Now here's the thing.

I don't usually say this to a guest, but if people are watching this right now, it's because they found us online on YouTube. And the shore's way to get people to see something is to tell them that they aren't supposed to see in the place. Do you mean to cause Trump?

“I think that Donald Trump is worried that we're about to flip Texas.”

And so this is a huge viral moment for Tallerika. He gets to say, look, you want to know who's most electable here? I'm somebody who scares the Trump administration so much. They don't even want me on television, right? And the specifics of this, not as clear as maybe that storytelling, but if you're going

to tell the story, it's a perfect story for the Tallerika campaign. And he raises tons of money that day, it gets lots of views, and the actions of the Trump administration and the Tallerika telling shows that they're really afraid of him.

So in this confrontation, at this point is basically a dead heat, a true identity crisis,

kind of primary. We do not know who is going to win this primary. What I think we do know is that this fight is the exact same fight that the Democratic Party is going to be going through in other races this year and in a bigger race in 2028. What is the future face of the Democratic Party?

Do you turn to a person who is ready to just throw punches the entire time or do you turn to a person who is outwardly saying, I want to reach out to the middle? Do you mobilize your base? Do you wait for swing voters? Can you do both?

I think this is the huge debate in the party, and it's playing out with two of the stars of the party right now. Okay, let's project for just no moment to a theoretical general election. Our conversation will run before we know the winners. And we may not know the winners on the Republican side for quite some time.

If there is this, we expect a runoff. So just conjure what this race might look like and is it a foregone conclusion that Democrats can't win this race? Any year where Donald Trump is increasingly unpopular and losing support on the key issue

table, especially with Ken Paxton, who the Republican Party is saying in words and money,

they're afraid could lose.

“Well, James Hariko entered this race in the first place.”

He has said this because he liked the contrast that he would present with Ken Paxton. So that's the scenario that intrigues people, if he was like the most. The general election in which James Hariko runs against Ken Paxton. Yeah, this is the scenario that Republicans have most wanted to avoid. Republicans have intervened to stop Ken Paxton and they've intervened to encourage Jasmine

Crocket. So you don't have to believe me or what all the strategists are saying on the

record are off the record, their action showed that is the match up.

They've been trying to avoid here. Of course, everyone has and can be again wrong in American politics and it could turn out that Jasmine Crocket wins the Democratic primary and emerges as a quite strong general election candidate.

“Yeah, I mean, there are people Donald Trump, chief among them, who have won by motivating”

the Republican party base and I do want to just bring back Texas and my Texas is so important. It's already one of the biggest states in the country. It's growing. The next time that they do a census, it's going to pick up maybe four congressional seats.

That's the projection. This is not a state that Democrats think they can let fall off the map. They need to find a way to compete in Texas. And so this is an important test for the party. Can you find a candidate a message a style to make Texas competitive?

Well, Shane, thank you very much. Thank you. The voting in Texas begins at 7 a.m. and ends at 7 p.m. So far, early voting has already reached record highs on the Democratic side. If, as expected, the Republican race results in a runoff.

That election will be held in May. Take a great back.

“Here's what else you need to know today.”

On Monday, the war against Iran meaningfully expanded. In Lebanon, the Iranian-backed militia group has below fire rockets into Israel, prompting Israel to bombard the militia's strongholds outside Beirut. In Saudi Arabia and Qatar, officials said that Iran had attacked key pieces of infrastructure, including an energy plant and an oil refinery.

In Kuwait, local air defenses mistakenly shot down three American fighter jets in one

of the war's first major incidents of friendly fire.

All six American crew members survived, and one of them was greeted on the ground by a grateful group of Kuwaiti men. Finally, in the United States, military leaders said they would send more troops and fighter jets to the region. And President Trump said that the American is really assault could last even longer than

originally planned. Today's episode was produced by Mujzidi, Claire Tenisketter, and Carlos Prieto, with help from Mustafa Mirza, and Christina Avalos. It was edited by Rachel Quester, contains music by Mary and Lzano, Dan Powell, and Ian Wong.

Our theme song is by Bonderly. This episode was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. That's it for the Daily. I'm McBoward, see you tomorrow.