Q: What strategy should James Talarico employ to defeat Ken Paxton in the Senate race in Texas?
Thought process: If you draw this question, and you don’t eat Barbeque and listen to country music, don’t panic; Ken Paxton has done half the prep for you. The challenge is not finding material on jokes (i.e. the Montblanc pen incident), but rather deciding which scandals, attacks, or Texas-sized political controversies fits into seven minutes. Jokes aside (literally), the Texas Senate race is vitally important for the 2026 midterms because it gives Democrats a real chance to expand the map and potentially flip Congress. That matters because once you understand the stakes, along with the current framing of the race as young progressive Democrats challenging a MAGA stronghold, you already have most of your background ready.
To answer this question, we ask ourselves the following questions:
– What is Talarico good at?
– What is Paxton bad at? (a lot of things)
– What do moderate voters in Texas want to hear? (those are rare)
To answer these questions, we examine Talarico’s current campaign and Ken Paxton’s shortfalls.
Specifically, the Associated Press corroborated on May 27th, 2026, that: If the race becomes “progressive Democrat vs. Texas Republican,” Paxton has the advantage. If it becomes “normal Texan vs. scandal-plagued politician,” Talarico has a real shot, especially because Paxton is already carrying major ethics baggage and Talarico is framing the race as “The People vs. Ken Paxton.”
Therefore we have the answer, Talarico should make his race about trust.
Now our three methods,
1: Keeping Paxton trapped in controversy
Although some (a lot) Texans are die hard MAGAs, a lot of them are also moderates and even traditional conservatives that prefer “clean” candidates. But even for those people that like candidates with 34 felonies, many of them want better livelihoods. Therefore, Talarico should constantly connect Paxton’s scandals to everyday Texans’ problems: high costs, broken schools, health care, property taxes, and government distrust, because these are the problems that these voters face in their everyday life. The message, in summary, should be: Paxton didn’t fight for you because he was too busy fighting for himself.
2. Pivot from the culture war
Republicans are already attacking Talarico with culture-war claims (he’s Vegan, ugly, and more), so he needs to answer quickly but staunchly, and pivot back to economics and ethics. Although it seems like Texans are all about culture, the brutal Iran War and tariffs have battered its economy recently. Reuters articulated on June 3rd, 2026, that Republicans are trying to paint him as out of step with Texas values, while his campaign is focusing on unity and economic issues. He must stray away from these attacks while promoting a strong economy, because he can’t win a culture war against the Republicans.
3. Put Texas as the TOP “priority”
Talarico needs to sound less like “national Democrat” and more like “Texas teacher, Christian progressive, anti-corruption reformer.” Since Cook Political Report still rates Texas as Likely Republican with an R+6 lean, he cannot win by only exciting Democrats. The second problem is that the democrats have inherently always lost Texas in the past few decades because they seem to be close to DC/big corporations rather than having Texan roots.
https://www.cookpolitical.com/senate/race/488686
He has to reach suburban and rural voters, independents, young voters, and anti-Paxton Republicans. Therefore, he must build trust, and that can be accomplished in the 3 ways I have listed. Although this was a rough sketch of what this speech could be, hopefully, you’ll extend it into an actual speech! Have fun extemping!