Steve Bannon Warns Texas Senate Race Is 'Totally in Play' as Early Voting Surges
On War Room, Steve Bannon told Republicans the Texas Senate race will come down to turnout, and consultant Luke Macias said Ken Paxton could lose to James Talarico if the current early-vote pace holds — a warning built on Tarrant County numbers and a tied Fox News poll.
Steve Bannon told his War Room audience on Friday that the Texas Senate race is "totally in play," urging Republicans to turn out as early voting surges across the state, according to PolitiKool's report of the broadcast, published Saturday. Texas Republican consultant Luke Macias, appearing on the show, went further, saying Democratic state Representative James Talarico could beat Attorney General Ken Paxton for the open seat. "I think if Republicans keep showing up at the current rate, Texas will stay red, but Ken Paxton could lose," Macias said, as reported by PolitiKool.
Macias built his case on Tarrant County, the state's biggest swing county, which Donald Trump carried with 51.82 percent in 2024 after Joe Biden carried it in 2020. By Macias's count, Democrats out-voted Republicans by 6,000 votes on the first day of early voting, then by 3,000 and 1,000 on the next two days — a 10,000-vote lead — before Republicans won the fourth day by about 1,000. Texas does not register voters by party, so tallies like his sort voters by primary history. The turnout itself is not in dispute: Tarrant County cast 50,409 ballots on day one, up from 29,197 in 2022, and by Friday more than 2.2 million Texans had voted early, figures PolitiKool carried from NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth and KRLD reporting.
The polls point the same way. A Fox News poll of 1,398 likely voters conducted October 15-19 found Talarico and Paxton tied at 49 percent, while PolitiKool's polling average puts Talarico at 48 percent and Paxton at 43.6 percent. In a CNN clip aired on the show, the network's chief data analyst Harry Enten noted that Republican Senate candidates in states Trump won have outperformed their final poll averages by 4.1 points in the Trump era — the counterweight both men acknowledged. Macias said Democrats will probably win Sunday's vote because of church get-out-the-vote drives, and that Republicans have to make it up over the last five days of early voting, which closes Friday, October 30, ahead of Election Day on November 3. In Bexar County, Sunday's polls are open from noon to 6 p.m. at regular early-voting sites.
