{"id":3242,"date":"2026-07-10T21:30:36","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T16:30:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=3242"},"modified":"2026-07-10T21:30:36","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T16:30:36","slug":"ted-cruz-makes-surprise-admission-about-james-talarico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=3242","title":{"rendered":"Ted Cruz Makes Surprise Admission About James Talarico"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"post-body\">\n<p>Sen. <strong>Ted Cruz<\/strong> (R-TX) gave a surprising take when asked\u00a0about the upcoming Texas Senate race between <strong>James Talarico<\/strong> (D) and Texas Attorney General <strong>Ken Paxton<\/strong> (R).<\/p>\n<p>Speaking Wednesday on <strong>Sean Hannity\u2019s<\/strong> radio program <em>The Sean Hannity Show<\/em> \u2014 guest-hosted by Texas Governor <strong>Gregg Abbott<\/strong> \u2014 Cruz admitted Talarico has a shot to defeat the controversial Paxton.<\/p>\n<p>Paxton <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/news\/breaking-trump-endorses-ken-paxton-in-texas-gop-primary\/\">earned President <strong>Donald Trump<\/strong>\u2018s endorsement<\/a> in May and went on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/news\/breaking-ken-paxton-steamrolls-john-cornyn-after-snagging-trump-endorsement\/\">to defeat longtime incumbent Sen. <strong>John Cornyn<\/strong> (R-TX)<\/a> in the primary.<\/p>\n<p>Cruz <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/atrupar\/status\/2075572920642879598\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">called the context between Talarico and Paxton<\/a> \u201ca real race\u201d:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>GREGG ABBOTT: Do you think that Jimmy Talarico really has a chance to win the race for the United States senate in the state of Texas?<\/p>\n<p>TED CRUZ: So, look, unfortunately, I do think he has a chance. I think this is a real race. I think it\u2019s going to be close. I think we\u2019re going to win. I think we\u2019re going to keep Texas red. But the polling right now shows this as a 1- or 2-point race.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The comments led <em>Washington Examiner<\/em> reporter <strong>David Drucker<\/strong>, appearing on MS NOW\u2019s <em>Morning Joe<\/em> on Friday, to tell co-host <strong>Jonathan Lemire<\/strong>\u00a0that the contest between Talarico and Paxton was \u201cPaxton\u2019s race to lose\u201d:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Look, this is a very good Democratic environment, right? Voters are unhappy with Washington. They\u2019re unhappy with the President and Texas, though very red, is not as blanket red as you might think when you look at a lot of the suburban metropolitan areas.<\/p>\n<p>And you look at the fact that you have a very well-funded Democratic nominee in James Talarico, who\u2019s very good at politicking and very good at parrying a lot of the attacks coming his way.<\/p>\n<p>And you know what we saw in 2018, which was, I think the best way to sort of compare this, is that even in a state that had not elected a Democrat statewide in many years, and that streak has continued \u2014 <strong>Beto O\u2019Rourke<\/strong> came within under three points of defeating senator Ted Cruz.<\/p>\n<p>Voters were unhappy with Washington. They were unhappy with Trump. They were not satisfied with Cruz as their nominee at that time, because Republicans were particularly down on him coming out of that 2016 convention.<\/p>\n<p>And here you have, again, a Republican nominee that people are not thrilled with. He\u2019s got a lot of baggage. He is beatable. I would still say this is Ken Paxton\u2019s race to lose, but it is tight and he can lose.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Watch above via MS NOW.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>New: The Mediaite One-Sheet &#8220;Newsletter of Newsletters&#8221;<\/strong><br \/>Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/subscribe\">Subscribe now!<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\n!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\nn.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;\nn.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\nt.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,\ndocument,'script','https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n<\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) gave a surprising take when asked\u00a0about the upcoming Texas Senate race between James Talarico (D) and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R). Speaking Wednesday on Sean Hannity\u2019s radio program The Sean Hannity Show \u2014 guest-hosted by Texas Governor Gregg Abbott \u2014 Cruz admitted Talarico has a shot to defeat the controversial&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3243,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Morning-Joe-8-45-39-am-2026-07-10-0.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsweek-trending"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}