Dem
47
GOP
53
How are super PACs that support the adulterous, criminal and impeached Ken Paxton going to campaign against seminarian James Talarico in the Texas U.S. Senate race? We are starting to get an idea. One group has already made an AI ad that many people consider shocking and disgusting. Here it is.
To get an idea of where we are going, we do recommend watching it. The first 28 seconds are two reporters from The Hill talking about the ad. You can watch them or skip to the 0:28 mark to see the ad. The ad itself is only 15 seconds. If you can't spare 43 seconds, it shows Talarico in a dress singing about transgender children. Here is the text:
Boys in white dresses with blue satin sashes
Girls dosed with hormones til they grow mustaches
Changing the gender of all your offspring
These are a few of my favorite things
In the ad above, there is a red banner showing that the ad is AI generated, but The Hill put that banner in. The actual ad does not have any such banner.
Sarah Longwell of The Bulwark, who runs focus groups and talks to voters all the time, says older voters who don't know much about AI will believe it is real and be appalled. Many Democrats and independents think AI-generated totally fake ads should either be banned or required to have a big banner on top saying that the ad is AI-generated and completely fake.
Democrats don't quite know how to respond to the ad. Longwell's colleague, Tim Miller, said a possible response is either to mock Paxton South Park-style or make an ultra realistic "hidden camera" AI ad where Paxton is bragging to a friend about his dozens of extramarital conquests and how he believes marital fidelity is for suckers. Actually, what we would advise is for the Democrats to make the exact same ad, mimicking it as closely as possible, except with Paxton in the dress and singing the song. That would do a pretty good job of showing that anyone can make any ad with any content, and that it's often not real. In any event, only when Republicans come to realize that not only can Democrats play the same game, but are fully prepared to do so, might there be a truce.
At the same time, Maine Republicans are going to attack Graham Platner for being a tough guy who isn't sweet and kind to his girlfriends. So Talarico isn't enough of a man and Platner is too much of a man. The Supreme Court may soon rule on "What is a woman?" (that is, who can play on women's sports teams). A number of campaigns may be about "What is a man?" We expect this year's campaigns to be exceptionally brutal because so much is at stake.
But while the ad above may fool some older voters, there are other ways to analyze the Texas Senate election. For example, by the numbers. G. Elliott Morris takes a deep dive in Texas voting patterns and concludes, based on history, that the race depends on three parameters: the PVI of the state in November, the turnout advantage, and what percentage of Republicans vote for Talarico. The Cook PVI is based on the votes in the past two presidential elections, but Morris is concerned with the PVI in the November electorate, which could well have moved from where it was in 2020 and 2024. In simple terms, how many Democrats vote and how many Republicans vote. The second parameter is self explanatory. His results can be summarized in this graphic:
The graph on the left assumes a PVI of R+5 (the 2020-2024 average). Depending on which party is better at turnout and what percentage of Republicans vote for Talarico, you can see who wins. The other two show PVIs of R+2 and EVEN, respectively.
The bottom line is that with the expected data and turnouts, Talarico needs to win something like 8% of Republicans to win. In 2024, 4% of Republicans voted for Kamala Harris, so Talarico has to do twice as well as Harris to win. Nevertheless, 8% is not a big number and in a bad economy with voters very unhappy with the economy and looking for a way to express that, maybe 8% is achievable.
In a way, Talarico is an outlier these days. He is careful, calm, gentle, and very respectful, qualities that used to be considered desirable in politicians. Now he is being mocked for it. On the other hand, for dude-bro candidates, accusations of marital infidelity, using racial slurs, publicly brawling, picking fights, or being general-purpose a**holes seem to help them more than hurt them. Think: Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), Spencer Pratt, Brandon "The AK Guy" Herrera, Ken Paxton, and Graham Platner. These are people straight out of the manosphere and their target is young working-class men, especially those who are infrequent voters. Whether that works depends considerably on the PVI of the state or district. In deep-blue or deep-red places, the partisan lean may be enough to carry the day, but in places that swing, it could matter whether the candidate pulls in enough disaffected young men to offset the likely loss among women. (V)