Paxton and Talarico are in a cage match for a Senate seat. Suburban Collin County is a battleground

From KERA News:

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico came back to North Texas Monday, stopping in West Dallas to volunteer at a food pantry and at a coffee shop in Oak Lawn to chat with a Type 1 diabetic who said her healthcare costs increased after cuts to the Affordable Care Act.

It was Talarico’s second North Texas trip in a month, and with Republicans holding a midterm convention in Dallas in September, the candidate told reporters Monday they’d be seeing more of him here in the near future.

“I’m basically gonna be living here in North Texas over the course of this campaign because we have to win here,” he said. “We have got to listen to the people of North Texas.”

But bright-blue Dallas isn’t Talarico’s only North Texas campaign spot these days.

Less than an hour north of the city, at a rally that drew thousands of attendees last month, he spoke to voters in Collin County — a historically red county known for being the place where his opponent, Ken Paxton, launched his political career.

On a steamy Monday evening in June, thousands of people filled the auditorium at the Plano Event Center to hear Talarico speak. Every seat was filled. The air was stuffy with the heat of sweaty bodies as people who couldn’t get a seat crowded together against the walls, while others opted to sit cross-legged on the floor.

“I was expecting a big crowd,” he told reporters at a press conference the following day. “I was not expecting 4,000 people to show up, and I think it proves that even in Ken Paxton’s own backyard, Texans across the political spectrum are hungry for change.”

A Texas Democrat campaigning for Senate in the deep red suburbs and drawing a large crowd is unusual. Suburban Texas is where Republicans built the voter base to turn Texas from solid blue into a reliably red state. Bedroom communities in Texas became the last place where you’d see a yard sign for a Democrat on the manicured front lawns. But those same suburbs have become the main political battleground for the state again — and Paxton’s home base of Collin County is at the center.

KERA reached out to Paxton’s campaign for an interview but didn’t hear back. In his runoff victory speech after defeating Sen. John Cornyn, Paxton warned his supporters that Democrats will be focused on Texas.

“Texas will be the radical left’s number one target in November,” he said. “But if there’s one thing I know about Texans, it’s that we’re not going to let them take it.”

A recent Texas Politics Project poll has Paxton and Talarico in a close race. And experts say suburban areas like Collin County, one of the fastest growing regions in the nation according to the U.S. Census Bureau, could play a significant role in the election.

Suburban shifts

Collin County has a long-held reputation as a conservative stronghold. It sent Paxton to the statehouse and state senate, priming him to become State Attorney General and the Republican U.S. Senate nominee. The county has also sent staunch Republicans like Rep. Jeff Leach to the statehouse, who’s known for championing the state’s open-carry law, and Rep. Keith Self to the U.S. House of Representatives, who cofounded the Sharia Free America caucus in Congress with another Texas Congressman, Chip Roy.

Republicans still have a strong foothold in the region, said Joshua Blank, the research director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. But, he said, the county isn’t the same as it was 10 or 20 years ago.

“For those of us who’ve been following Texas politics for a long time, it’s really easy to think of Collin County as a bastion of the conservative movement and the home, in some places, of many of the state’s conservative stars,” Blank said. “It’s also the case that it’s one of the counties that we’re looking at when we’re thinking about political competition in the state.”

The county encompasses cities like Plano, Frisco and McKinney, suburbs that are becoming cities in their own right. The county’s rapid growth has changed the population, Blank said. The region is becoming more diverse, younger and more educated, he said — and that’s creating a different political dynamic. Voters there elected Rep. Mihaela Plesa in 2022, the first Collin County Democrat in the Texas House in thirty years.

The fact that Collin County can elect both Plesa and Republicans like State Senator Angela Paxton shows the area’s politics are in flux, said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston.

“It reflects the county’s political transition,” Rottinghaus said. “Republicans still have the advantage countywide, but the electorate is much more diverse and much better educated, and so the county politics are much more competitive than they were a generation ago.”

Campaign battleground

Plesa, whose statehouse district includes parts of Plano, said Collin County is the place to for Texas Democrats to build statewide momentum.

“Collin County is the tip of the blue backbone, and we see that,” she said. “And so that’s why you’re going to start seeing up and down candidates from all over the ballot starting to campaign in Collin because the fight for Texas is right here in our backyards.”

Plesa’s district was redrawn during 2020 redistricting after two Collin County statehouse Republicans came close to losing their seats. Before it was a purple district in Plano, Texas House District 70 was a reliably Republican district that included a large part of McKinney. It was the same seat that launched Paxton’s political career.

Talarico’s campaign stops in North Texas have focused on affordability. About a third of Texans listed economic concerns as the most important issue facing the state according to the Texas Politics Project poll, with 64% of Democrats and 43% of independents saying they expect the economy to be worse in the future.

Collin County is known for its wealth. The median household income is $124,316, about 1.5 times higher than the state’s average according to the U.S. Census. Companies and sports teams are relocating to the region, with AT&T and the Dallas Stars hockey team both moving to Plano from Dallas this year.

Companies and residents are drawn to Collin County because its conservative economic policies drive prosperity, said Gary Cary, the president of the Collin County Conservative Republicans.

“They don’t want to be in California,” Cary said. “They don’t want to be in New Jersey. They don’t want be in these states with what I think are increasingly being seen as failed policies.”

Family values, he said, are another reason people are attracted to Collin County, which is known for its quality public schools and safe communities. Talarico, Cary said, doesn’t represent those values. He pointed to Talarico’s previous statements on transgender issues, comments the Democratic Senate candidate has walked back in recent interviews.

“I don’t know any of the policies he’s for that I could jump on,” Cary said.

Conservative legacy

Paxton is running on his conservative record, pointing to his history of suing Texas doctors who provided gender affirming care to minors. He has also accused Talarico of following a vegan diet, which Talarico’s campaign has denied.

The Attorney General earned a decisive win in the GOP runoff for the Senate nomination against the incumbent, U.S. Senator John Cornyn, after a last-minute endorsement from President Donald Trump. The primary between Cornyn and Paxton was divisive, with Cornyn frequently pointing to Paxton’s past scandals.

Still, Cary, who supported Cornyn in the runoff, said he’s confident Republicans can come together to support Paxton in the general election.

“I think we’re going to be successful in mending those bridges,” he said. “And I think people will realize that this is an important vote, that we should not take anything for granted and get to work and get people out to vote for Ken Paxton.”

Republicans did well in Collin County in 2024 — President Trump earned 54% of the county’s vote that year, about 3% more than what he won in 2020. Shelby Williams, who was the chair of the Collin County Republican party that year, said the party focused on promoting its values, which he said resonated with voters.

“We managed to drive the highest voter turnout out of any large county in the state,” Williams said. “And we got redder doing so.”

But the former party chair, who has since stepped down to run for Collin County commissioner, warned Republicans in Collin County shouldn’t become complacent.

Talarico, he said, has developed a following similar to Beto O’Rourke, the Democratic Senate nominee in 2018 who came close to unseating Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican incumbent.

“I keep telling Republicans, from a partisan perspective, take that seriously,” he said. “He’s got cross-party appeal. Don’t just take it for granted that we’re red and we’re always going to be red.”

Collin County used to be deep blue. Flipping Texas back to a blue state — or swing state — would start in places like Collin County, Rottinghaus said.

“There’s a long path ahead for Democrats, but that path runs through suburban Texas,” he said.

The path forward

Many Democrats see Paxton as the easier candidate to beat due to his history of political scandals. But voters have reelected Paxton multiple times despite his controversies, including securities fraud charges that were later dropped and corruption allegations that led to a failed impeachment.

Talarico, Blank said, hasn’t run for election statewide.

“Paxton has won statewide many times now,” he said. “He has comfortably campaigned under ethical clouds. And I think what many people fail to appreciate is what a remarkably successful politician he has been.”

During his runoff victory speech, Paxton warned the outcome of the Senate race in Texas will have national implications.

“Every Democrat, and I would say every Republican, knows that if we lose this state, if Republicans lose this State, we lose the country,” he said.

A Democrat winning a statewide election in Texas for the first time in decades would signal a major shift. And suburban areas like Collin County are the battleground for that change — or maintaining the status quo.

As a large red county, Collin County turning blue — or purple — would be symbolic, Williams said.

“It’s going to be a rallying cry for Democrats across the state that Collin’s fallen,” he said.

The entire county flipping from red to blue in one election cycle isn’t likely, Rottinghaus said. Despite recent growth and political shifts, Collin County is still reliably Republican.

“The question isn’t whether Democrats can win Collin County, it’s whether Republicans can still produce the large margins they once did,” he said. “To win statewide, Republicans need to have big numbers out of these suburban counties, and increasingly, that’s becoming harder and harder to get.”

A wider Democratic margin in a historically red county could be difficult to achieve. But Plesa said she has faith it can happen.

“I was looking up at the blue moon last night thinking about how people say, oh, you know, these things are impossible,” she said. “And I think our win in ‘22, our win again in ‘24, and our win November is going to show that things are possible when people say they’re not.”

With polls showing a tight race, places like Collin County could decide the outcome of the election, something that will have a ripple effect beyond Texas.

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