President Blumph

I want to stress that this is early voting only, not a projection of the final result. Texas Early Voting as of 10/30: 🔵Dems - 40.39% ⚪️Swing - 22.59% 🔴GOP - 37.03% >🔵D+3.36% On this day in 2024: 🔵Dems - 35.75% ⚪️Swing - 23.55% 🔴GOP - 40.69% >🔴R+4.94% On this day in 2022: 🔵Dems - 38.68% ⚪️Swing - 15.96% 🔴GOP - 45.36% >🔴R+6.68% On this day in 2020: 🔵Dems - 38.44% ⚪️Swing - 21.52% 🔴GOP - 40.04% >🔴R+1.59% On this day in 2018: 🔵Dems - 40.57% ⚪️Swing - 15.29% 🔴GOP - 44.14% >🔴R+3.57% "But wait, Trump ultimately did far better in 2024 than he did in 2020 or even compared to Abbott in 2022!" Yes he did. His landslide victory was driven by swing voters who broke overwhelmingly for him. And fortunately for us, we have the benefit of hindsight as to how swing voters broke in the past. How Swing Voters Broke in 2024 🔴 GOP - 67.78% 🔵 Dems - 32.22% >🔴R+35.56!!! How Swing Voters Broke in 2022 🔴 GOP - 56.08% 🔵 Dems - 43.92% >🔴R+12.17 How Swing Voters Broke in 2020 🔴 GOP - 54.08% 🔵 Dems - 45.92% >🔴R+8.16 How Swing Voters Broke in 2018 🔴 GOP - 47.31% 🔵 Dems - 52.69% >🔵D+5.39 This is why Texas now looks competitive this cycle. Trump crushed Harris with swing voters in 2024, and those voters are now necessarily dedicated Republicans. They're GOP-leaning (remember, Texas is a Red state!), but if they really sour on the GOP, they can end up producing mediocre margins for the Republican nominee, or even occasionally desert him as they did narrowly against Cruz in 2018. This means that if Paxton does as poorly with swing voters as Cruz did in 2018, or even as poorly as Trump did in 2020, he's cooked and the polls will end up off in favor of the Democrats. Talarico will win by something like 1.5-4.5 points. But if Paxton matches Abbott's performance with swing voters, it becomes a 50/50 toss-up where Talarico leads by 0.6%, but that could easily be overcome with election-day voters. And if Paxton somehow matched even Cruz's coattails in 2024, when he won swing voters by 19 points off the back of Trump's victory, he wins by just over 1% (likely more like 1.5-2%, as election day will help him out too). This is why the polls and betting markets give Talarico the lead right now. Paxton can win, but he must overcome a historical early-voting deficit that neither Trump in 2020 nor Cruz in 2018 faced, and win swing voters by a margin that at least approaches Greg Abbott's performance in 2022.