 |
| State Senator Paul Bettencourt and Karl Rove at Baytown event on October 1 |
GOP Senator Sounds Blue Wave Warning
as Talarico Unleashes Army of Volunteers
Texas General Election Polls
General Election Rankings
Capitol Inside
October 2, 2026
GOP State Senator Paul Bettencourt echoed a prediction that Capitol Inside has been making for months when he warned on Thursday that the political winds are blowing harder in the face of the Republicans in Texas than they were before President Donald Trump's first midterm election in 2018.
"They're absolutely worse," the powerful Houston lawmaker observed on his podcast. "There's never been a year like this in my adult life."
Bettencourt, who's one of Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick's closest allies, hit the alarm switch on an oncoming blue wave the same day that U.S. Senate hopeful Ken Paxton attended an event in Denton with the president after saying Trump set him back with a midterm convention last month in Dallas.
Bettencourt - the architect of property tax breaks for homeowners as the first and only chairman of the Local Government Committee - ran the risk of offending Governor Greg Abbott with the podcast analysis when he blamed a communication breakdown between the Department of Public Safety and the Secretary of State's office for a massive voter registration backlog in Harris County. Abbott oversees both agencies as the leader of the state's executive branch.
"The state should have done better on this," Bettencourt said.
While Texas Republicans scrambled frantically to batten down the hatches as they headed into the final month before the November vote, Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico aired two new ads attacking Paxton on Friday before unveiling the most extensive ground-game initiative in the history of politics in the Lone Star State.
Talarico, who led Paxton by almost 3 points on average in polls on the Senate race in September, said in an email that his so-called Knocktober campaign for the weekend included plans for 300 events in 85 Texas towns and cities with 60,000 volunteers. Talarico said his campaign had organized more than 1,500 "voter mobilization events" around the state while reaching out to voters in all of the state's 254 counties since he launched the bid in September last year.
“Big money is powerful, but it’s nothing compared to people power," Talarico said. "The only way to take on this broken, corrupt political system is by speaking directly to working Texans about the system that’s screwing all of us over.
"With the help of 60,000 neighbors, we’re building a movement that welcomes all Texans — Democrats, independents, Republicans, and people who are tired of the corruption that makes life more expensive,” Talarico added,
As Talarico's probability of victory reached a new high on the prediction market Kalshi at 64 percent on Friday, Paxton released an ad that features a testimonial from his daughter, whose mother is divorcing him. Paxton's campaign also repost an AI video that shows Paxton and Talarico driving around and eating meals as part of a manhood test that the Democrat flunks at ever turn. The 40-second video appears designed to offset assertions by Talarico and Democratic gubernatorial challenger Gina Hinojosa that Paxton and Abbott would have the guts to debate them if they were real men.
Talarico goes on the defensive in a new television spot - portraying Paxton's AI commercials as packs of lies that he seeks to refute - telling voters that he is not a member of the Chinese Communist Party and that he never supported trans surgeries for children. These are two of the more egregious claims that Republicans have packed into a Talarico narrative that's been widely discredited as fantasy for the most part.
Talarico turned back to biting humor with a second ad that he rolled out today with a Ken Paxton corruption hotline for voters to call to learn about the Republican Senate candidate.
"Are you a data center company looking to take over rural Texas?" a narrator says at the start.
A group of men and women chime in: "Call Ken Paxton."
"Are you a crime-loving millionaire looking to throw the FBI off your scent?" the narrator asks.
"Call Ken Paxton," the people respond.
"Are you an admitted child predator looking to get out of jail after just 1 day?" the ad wants to know.
Then it advises voters to "call 844-WHOS-KEN to hear what Ken Paxton can do for you!"
But Paxton appeared to be reveling in the afterglow of Trump's latest Texas visit on Thursday with a pitch for his campaign. "What an incredible night!," the Texas AG said in a post on X on Friday. "There’s nothing like a rally with President Trump. It was an honor to welcome @POTUS to Texas.
"Hardworking Texans know he’s fighting for them every single day," Paxton said. "If we lose Texas, we lose America. We won’t let that happen."
Paxton showed no signs of fear that Trump could have hurt his campaign at the event in Denton like he claimed the president had done with the novel midterm convention that he had the GOP stage for him in Dallas last month. Paxton made the candid admission behind closed doors in a meeting in Washington D.C. with lobbyists and contributors last week.
Trump has made it a habit to insult Paxton whenever he praises him. The president said several times at the convention that he didn't like the way Paxton looked or talked at the same time he thinks he's better at his job than anyone who's ever had the role of state lawyer. Trump was at it again in Denton - calling Paxton the greatest AG in the history of the country even though he can be a "pain in the ass" at times.
more to come ...
| 
