Transcript of The Midterms Begin With a Texas-Size Showdown New

From the New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. 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 third.

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. Starting on Tuesday in, of all places, Texas, state known for very big political personalities and political traumas. Are you ready for it?

I'm ready for it, yeah. Texas is the big kickoff of the midterm season.

Literally the first.

Yeah, there's three states, but this is the central one.

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 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. It is a race for Republicans between a fixture of the old guard of the Republican Party.

To the degree there is an old guard still.

To the degree 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 haymakers all day? Fight fire with fire. Fight 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. This is the first measurement for both parties this year of where they stand on those big ticket questions. I'd say the cliché, everything is bigger in Texas, this is the most expensive primary in American history. Wow. How expensive has it been? More than $100 million of advertising has been spent. In a primary? In a primary.

Which side should we start with here? The Democratic candidates or the Republican ones?

I think you definitely want to start with the Republicans and the Republican incumbent who is running for re-election.

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 Cornan.

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 Cornan has 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 person who should just have a shoe in for re-election. But this isn't that moment. And Cornyn has committed some sins in the eyes of Republican primary voters, which is that he has broken at times with Donald Trump.

This morning, some Republicans are speaking out against Trump's long-shot legal challenge to overturn the election, including Texas Senator John Cornyn.

Most notably after January sixth. Texas Republican John Cornan says he is struggling to understand the legal theory behind this case, Texas Congress-where he expressed criticism of Trump's behavior in 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. Then when Trump runs in 2024-Calling it like he sees it. Cornan is an open skeptic. Our state senior, United States Senator John Cornyn says former President Donald Trump cannot win a general election. In a call With Texas reporters today, Senator Cornyn said, I think President Trump's time has passed him by. Cornyn gets on board eventually with the Trump train, but he wasn't an early occupant of 2024 Trump comeback ride. Then, Cornyn is announcing his own re-election for 2026.

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

The shoes suddenly on the other foot. Meaning that Trump might have wanted Cornyn's endorsement before, but now it's Cornyn who wants Donald Trump's endorsement.

In President Trump's first term, I was Republican whip, delivering the votes for his biggest win.

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 bear-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 seems like a fairly logical, not just shoe-end for re-election in theory, but someone the President could probably get behind.

Most Republican senators Coast to re-election. It's uncommon for a sitting senator to face a real primary challenge.

However, he has a primary, and he has a real primary opponent. I went through the Obama administration, trying to put me in prison, having the FBI investigate me for two years because I sued them 27 times in two years.

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 107 times over four years, and they didn't like it.

The attorney general of Texas, a guy named Ken Paxton.

As attorney general, Ken Paxton protected our gun rights, defended the right to life, and took on the radical transgender movement to And if Cornyn was at times skeptical about Trump, Ken Paxton has never been skeptical about Donald Trump. I can tell you this. I've watched a lot of presidents in my lifetime, and no president accomplished more with that type of diversity that any other president in my lifetime.

He has believed and backed 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.

We're Texans, we're Americans, and we're not quitting.

God bless you. So Ken Paxton is a Trump ally, and in a lot of ways, he's Trump before Trump in Texas.

Explain that.

Ken Paxton has been indicted. Ken Paxton has been impeached by Republicans. Ken Paxton 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 Cornen at the very start, and the Republican political establishment.

Of which Cornan is a card-carrying member.

Is freaking out. They're saying Ken Paxton is so vulnerable because of impeachments and indictments and corruption accused by his own top aides that Ken Paxton could make this seat something Democrats could conceivably win.

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 Cornan.

And are they saving him?

Not yet. This could go to a runoff because there's, in fact, a third candidate in this race.

So tell me about the man, Wesley Hunt.

There's so much to say about Wesley. 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.

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?

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 in a runoff. Cornyn had fears that Hunt might pass him and make the runoff instead. Paxton wants to make sure he's running against Cornyn at the end of the day. And so they 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, Cornyn versus Paxton, how are they campaigning against each other and what's been the most effective lines of attack between them?

Well, if Cornyn has started his race trying to bear hug Donald Trump. Senator John Cornyn turned his back on President Trump. Ken Paxton has been trying to divide them from each other. John Cornyn of Texas told CBS News, he simply doesn't think Donald Trump can get elected President. Quite a statement from Senator Cornyn. And pushing out and highlighting all the ways that Cornyn has previously broken with Donald Trump.

Join the Ken Paxton for Senate team today.

And look, the air wars that have broken the records in this race. Commercial wars. The commercial wars have overwhelmingly been trying to prop up John Cornean. Thank you, Senator Cornen, 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 him 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 Cornyn or Paxton or perhaps in a bit of a surprise move, the third candidate Hunt.

Yeah, I mean, the primary within a primary for almost every Republican race is who can get Trump. Cornyn made some early moves for this. He hired Trump people. He hired Trump's Polster to be his Polster. When there's somebody making a case for Trump about racist, guess what? It's somebody Trump trusts. His Super PAC hired Trump's campaign manager, Chris Lassevita, to help lead his Super PAC. He has Trump allies on the inside helping him make his case. That Senate leadership that is spending all that money to prop up Cornyn, they're lobbying Trump, too. They're saying, Get on board, save money, save the seat now. Back John Cornyn. And Trump just hasn't done it. The polling and all that spending, Cornyn has not pulled away from Ken Paxton. He's not anywhere close to 50%.

So Trump could probably decide this race with a tweet or a true social, and he's not doing it.

It's possible, but also, 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 that Ken Paxton holds sway. He sees in 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. The Trump base, which is always the animating galvanizing force in a primary is not tired of Trump. 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.

Trump continues to be popular among Republican voters, and that is the chief defining characteristic of Republican primaries for a decade at this point. I think what's interesting about this race is it's a test of his approaches' popularity and not just his personal popularity. Is the Trump style that Ken Paxton mimics going to be successful in the future beyond Donald Trump? Ken Paxton finds whatever the hard right issue is and leans into it and has this whole career, and he has found real support in the Republican Party base for that. I think that this is a test of that politics and its enduring appeal for the party, even beyond Donald Trump.

Well, Shane, we're going to take a break. 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 be right back. So, Shane, let us now turn to the Democratic side of this primary. My sense is that it's been no less dramatic, maybe a little bit less, but not much less dramatic than the Republican side.

I mean, it's been pretty dramatic, right? Texas is the white whale for the Democratic Party. They dream of competing turning Texas blue.

And they have their heart broken every cycle.

You've had Beto O'Rourke, who came close. Even last election, you had Colin Allred, $100 million was raised by the Democratic nominee.

Both of those were Senate evidence. Yes. Where Democrats thought, We can win a Senate race in Texas.

And raised a bunch of money only to lose. And so this election starts, Colin Allred says, Hey, I'm looking at running again. And the Democratic Party already spent a bunch of money on him. And They immediately-So should move over. A little bit move over. Immediately begin falling in love with another new figure.

Please welcome my friend, the next US Senator from Texas, James Talarico.

A state legislator who enters the race, and his name is James Talarico. My granddad was a Baptist preacher in South Texas. He starts with this unique launch video.

He taught me when I was real little that we follow a barefoot rabbi who gave just two Commandments, Love God and love neighbor.

It is him outside standing with supporters. It looks almost like a preacher and their flock outside a church building. This American democracy is a lot more than a constitution.

It's a covenant.

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, this very much has the feel of a person reaching out to voters 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 of months earlier.

All right, James. I'm doing well. How are you? Very good. Nice to meet you. It's 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 for the Ten Commandments in schools. I think you made a very compelling argument.

Yeah, I've gotten that a lot.

People who are like, You're in seminary, you're studying to become a minister.

Why wouldn't you want the Ten Commandments in every classroom. Talariko 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.

This certainly exists on both sides of the aisle. But I think in recent years, this cancel culture on my side of the aisle has just become the default spirituality on the left. It is so toxic because- At the end of this conversation- It doesn't have to be this way. That is the key step. That's because you need to run for president.

He says that James Talarico should run for president. 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.

To get Trump as many Republican congressional seats as possible.

Talarico'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 quorum in order to redraw the line.

It's dramatic, and in fact, it ends up not working, but along the way. Now to Texas, where a new redistricting plan, backed byTalariko, who just had this moment on Joe Rogan, is now on all the cable networks. Joining our coverage is Texas State Representative James Talariko.

James Talariko.

Representative Talariko, thanks so much for talking with us. Thanks for having me. As a sharp a articulate, well-spoken face of a Democratic Party's resistance to Trump. I would disagree that this is not racial gerrymandering. 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 Talrico, 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.

It seems like there 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 It may be clear. Jasmine Crockett.

Donald Trump is running the most openly racist immigration regime in modern American history.

I've said it once- Crockett, to the extent that you know her and Democratic primary voters know her, and many of them do, She says, A Democrat who is fighting fire with fire. Do you know what we're here for?

You know we're here about AG. I don't think you know what you're here for.

Well, you're the one talking about- I think your fake eyelashes are messing up. No, ain't nothing.

Hold on.

She She's been in these committee hearings with Marjorie Taylor-Green, where they've just attacked each other.

Ms. Crockett.

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?

A what now?

And these things have gone viral, and they've gone viral over and over again. Sometimes she goes over the line, right? As maybe Trump has done so many many times. She has attacked the governor of Texas, who is in a wheelchair, Greg Abbott.

You all know we got Governor Hot wheels down there? Come on now.

She has called him Governor Hot wheels.

The only thing hot about him is that he is a hot ass mess, honey. 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 Hotwheels. She enters this race, and she's a polar opposite Democrat. An approach than James Talarico.

Not a healer, but a ruptureer.

A rupture. Talarico gave a great quote recently to The New Yorker. He said, It was like an asteroid hit our campaign. Jasmine Crockett's arrival is an asteroid that rams into the rising star of Talarico.

When Crockett 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? Their new star, Crocket. How about her?

It features her, her head tilted to the side, and the entire ad is narrated by Donald Trump.

But you have this woman Crockett. She's a very low IQ person. I watched her 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. I said, You got to be kidding.

She eventually turns to the camera, crosses her 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 disaffected Republican voters. She is going to mobilize and create a new electorate of Democrats to take over Texas for the party. She's got a very different approach. Crockett excites the base of the Democratic Party. You know who else she excites? The Republican Party. The Republicans are thrilled with her entry in this race. In fact, Republicans had quietly tried to get her to run. The first poll that showed that she could be the Democratic nominee, it was paid for by the Senate Republican Party Committee. They put it out the summer before to try to stir the pot.

So on this electability question, Republicans are quite convinced that if Jasmine Crockett wins the primary on the 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 Paxton could lose this race for them, they're confident that Jasmine Crockett could also win this race for them.

That's fascinating. How are Democrats thinking about these two pretty polar operas that candidates in this primary, Crockett and Talariko. What are the polls telling us?

The polls immediately show that Crockett takes a lead when she enters this race. The race, frankly, has been pretty charged. There's been a lot of attacks along racial lines. Allies of Talariko have pointed to old statements that Crockett made about Latino voters and their flirtation with Trump as having a slave mentality. Some of Crockett's allies and Crockett herself, have criticized Talarico in the entire electability argument that has surrounded him as racist.

We should say, because we haven't, that Jasmine Crockett is Black.

Jasmine Crockett is Black and James Talarico is White. The argument that some of the folks supportive Crockett have made is, Oh, so the only electable candidate in Texas has to be White.

Shane, I have to imagine that Talarico and his campaign are watching Jasmine Crockett's polling numbers and recognizing that They need to potentially adjust and make sure that the Democratic electorate sees him as some a fighter as well.

That would be my political logic. Yeah. I don't want to overstate that he's exclusively been a healer from the start. He has identified a villain, and the villain is billionaires. He has 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. 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 Crockett in a way that her campaign has been pretty open about attacking him. Look, she has looked like the front runner in this race. Then in recent weeks, there's been a twist. In a race full of steroids. In a race full of steroids. We've got more rocket fuel. We're going to go the outer space metaphor to the end here.

This one is Stephen Colbert.

This is Stephen Colbert. Talrico is 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. 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. The surest way to get people to see something is to tell them that they aren't supposed to see it in the first place.

Do you mean to cause trouble?

I think that Donald Trump is worried that we're about to flip Texas. This is a huge viral moment for Talrico. 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. The specifics of this, not as clear as maybe that storytelling, but if you're going to tell a story, it's a perfect story for the Talariko campaign. He raises tons of money that day, gets lots of views, and The actions of the Trump administration and the Talariko telling shows that they're really afraid of him.

In this confrontation, at this point, is it basically a dead heat, a true identity crisis primary?

Yeah, 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 reach for swing voters? Can you do both? I mean, 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 a moment to a theoretical general election. Our conversation will run before we know the winners. We may not know the winner's on the Republican side for quite some time, if there is, as we expect, a runoff. Just conjure what this race might look like, and is it a foregone conclusion that Democrats can't win this race?

In a year where Donald Trump is increasingly unpopular and losing support on the key issue of the economy, I don't think it's fair to say any state is going to be entirely off the table, especially with Ken Paxton, who the Republican Party is saying in words and money, they're afraid could lose. Look, James Talarico entered this race in the first place. He has said this because he liked the contrast that he would present with Ken Paxton.

That's the scenario that intrigues people it feels like the most, the general election in which James Talarico 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 Crockett. You don't have to believe me or what all the strategists are saying on the record or off the record. Their actions show that is the matchup they've been trying to avoid here.

Of course, everyone has and can be, again, wrong in American politics. It could turn out that Jasmine Crockett 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. I do want to just bring back Texas and why 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. This is an important test for the party. Can you find a candidate, a message, a style to make Texas competitive?

Hoshin, thank you very much.

Thank you.

The voting in Texas begins at 07: 00 AM and ends at 07: 00 PM. 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. We'll be right 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 Hezbollah fired 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. You're safe. You're safe.

Everything good? Thank you for helping us.

Can you take everything five minutes? Finally, in the United States, military leaders said they would send more troops and fighter jets to the region. President Trump said that the American Israeli assault could last even longer than originally planned. Right from the beginning, we projected 4-5 weeks, but we have capability to go far longer than that. We'll do it whatever. Somebody said today, they said, Oh, well, if the President wants to do it really quickly. After that, he'll get bored. I don't get bored. There's nothing boring about this. Today's episode was produced by Mujdj Zady, Claire Tenesketter, and Carlos Prieto, with help from Mustava Mirza and Christina Avalos. It was edited by Rachel Quester. Contains music by Marion Lozano, Dan Powell, and Diane Wong. Our theme song is by Wunderly. This episode was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.