At an intersection near our house in Dallas, one home has a large Talarico sign in the front yard. The home directly across the street has a large Paxton sign. That’s what it’s like down here one month before Election Day. The candidates are neck-and-neck. Votes are split across streets and among families.

The latest poll by Texas Public Opinion Research has Democrat James Talarico leading Republican Ken Paxton by five points. It’s a smaller lead than in late summer, but it’s a lead — and it’s outside the margin of error.

Money has poured in; Talarico demolished fundraising records early and Senate Republicans just committed $100 million in ad buys for Paxton. We’re getting weekly Paxton flyers in the mailbox featuring “Tax Man Talarico,” who never met a tax he didn’t like. My kids are getting sick of the commercials interrupting baseball games. One that’s particularly hard to explain is a pro-Talarico ad about Paxton offering a sweetheart plea deal to a child sex predator.

Voters interested in watching the two men debate are out of luck. Apparently, Paxton won’t even debate Talarico on Fox News. That’s what candidates do when they are already ahead and all they can do is lose, you might say.

It’s also what people do if they think their performance will send voters on the fence to the other side’s greener pastures. Paxton is a lawyer and the state’s attorney general; not normally shy about an argument. At the GOP’s Dallas convention last month, President Donald Trump said he didn’t care for how Paxton dressed, talked, or looked. Maybe Paxton’s team worries that voters will agree.

Not that it may matter. A few anecdotes from people in Texas with their minds made up:

One is a middle-aged Republican dad who runs a home building company. He’ll vote for Paxton to keep Texas red and the Democrats out of power in the Senate. The only bad press about Paxton that he’s heard is that the AG allegedly cheated on his wife.

Another is a middle-aged Republican private equity partner. He’ll vote Republican down the ballot, but leave the Paxton-Talarico boxes blank. There has to be a line that candidates don’t cross, and in his mind, Paxton crossed it when he was impeached by Texas House Republicans for a laundry list of violations, including bribery, false statements, abuse of public trust, misallocation of public resources and more.

Interestingly, it’s the women I know — the mothers — who are switching from Republican to vote Democratic, some down the ballot. This is everyone from suburban moms to wealthy grandmothers. I must say, they seem positively giddy at the prospect. There’s something about it that feels like an act of defiance. In this race, for the first time in a long time, their non-Republican vote might actually count in Texas.

The Bush-era Republicans I speak to think that Paxton will eke it out anyway. A lot of them don’t plan to vote for him, but they believe the state is still Republican — despite the pollsters who mark the race as a toss-up.

Many of those Republicans still pine for outgoing Senator John Cornyn. And indeed, polling conducted before the primary ended suggested that Cornyn would have performed better against Talarico than Paxton. This sentiment was recently echoed by Karl Rove at the 2026 Texas Tribune Festival.

As a conservative, I like very few, if any, of Talarico’s policies. His rhetoric is centrist and refreshing, but his policy agenda is decidedly left, even if he’s moderated somewhat. When it comes to his economic policy, I agree with him on getting rid of the Trump tariffs, although that will be hard considering it wasn’t an act of Congress that instated them. That’s about it.

But I also think that character matters. The temptation of our polarized age — that the other side is always worse — will take us to dark places. I can’t help but think of Trump’s iconic statement from his first campaign, that he would still have support if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue. That’s what the Paxton campaign feels like. You can do bad things and get elected to higher and higher office because the other side will transition your children and raise your taxes.

It’s Pollyannaish to think that compromised candidates are one-offs — and that afterwards, the party will go back to upstanding behavior. The opposite is more likely. The less character matters in our politics, the more our politics will attract flawed public leaders.

The only way the spiral to the bottom stops is if one of the political parties stops it. But there aren’t party gatekeepers anymore — so it’s up to the voters.

And in Texas, one month out from midterms, we’re deeply split about it.

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This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Abby McCloskey is a columnist, podcast host, and consultant. She directed domestic policy on two presidential campaigns and was director of economic policy at the American Enterprise Institute.

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