HOUSTON—Showing the importance of the U.S. Senate race in Texas, AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler declared Democratic nominee James Talarico “is one of us” to a packed crowd of Machinists on Oct.21.
Shuler led a parade of Texas union leaders to the podium that night to urge the crowd to work for Talarico, a state legislator, one-time seminarian, and former middle school teacher. He’s walked picket lines, among other things, Shuler said.
Talarico has a slim lead in polls against scandal-scarred state Attorney General Ken Paxton, a far-right Trumpite who split his own party by beating incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in the GOP primary. Paxton even got impeached by the overwhelmingly Republican Texas House, Shuler noted.
“You cannot make this up,” Shuler said of Paxton.
The race between Talarico and Paxton is important to workers as they and their allies strive to wrest Senate control from President Donald Trump and the anti-worker GOP. Republicans hold 53 Senate seats to the Democrats’ 45, with two independents who caucus with the Democrats. So workers and their allies must flip four GOP-held seats, and retain all of their own, to take control of the Senate. Texas is one of their main targets.
Talarico also faces millions of dollars from the 1% supporting Paxton, and especially from trillionaire Elon Musk, a Trump confidante—a point Shuler mentioned, too. If Talarico wins the Senate seat, he’d be the first Democrat elected senator from Texas since 1988.
“Working people want a change, and they want someone who will fight for them and that’s exactly what James Talarico will do because he is one of us,” Shuler declared. “He was a middle school teacher, an eighth-generation Texan who shows up at the picket line.”
But ”Elon Musk and the rest of the billionaires” have thrown some $200 million into the race on Paxton’s side, she noted. “That’s what we’re up against.
“Well, Elon can buy Twitter, he can buy his little rocket ships, but he cannot buy our democracy, and we are not going to let him try. Let him spend another $200 million, let him put up those TV ads, let him try to mislead people.
“But you know what? We’re going to do what we do best: And that is talking to the people that we work with, the guys and the women on the 3rd shift, the neighbors we’ve known for 20 years. And when we talk to them about what’s at stake, they actually listen to us, because they trust us. We have a relationship with working people.
“And we’re going to get people out early. We can’t wait until Nov. 3,. folks, so let’s get those votes out now. Because then nobody can take them away from us–no matter how hard this White House tries.”
Machinists President Brian Bryant emphasized his union chose between the two on the basis of their issue stands.
“We are willing to support any candidate…willing to stand up who will be the voice for working people, for our union members and for our IAM members. And that’s what James Talarico is. He has shown he’s willing to stand up for all working people, all union people, for IAM members and to bring their voice to Washington, D.C.”
In another speech in Houston, Talarico said of the Republicans and their corporate allies that “in the final days, they’re coming at us with everything they’ve got” because “they’re scared.”
He said his campaign has recruited 60,000 people to phone-bank and door-knock and that it’s raised more money from individual contributors than any senatorial campaign in U.S. history. Talarico doesn’t take corporate campaign contributions.
Talarico also saw what would happen when state aid to schools was cut, as the Trump-GOP “Big Beautiful Bill,” enacted last year, does. Texas cut $5 billion, and classes sizes soared. Kids were sitting atop the air conditioning units, he said.
Talarico also cited the defecting Republicans who are voting for him.
“I can’t tell you the number of people who have come up to me” after rallies “and are whispering ‘I’m not a Democrat,’” but are voting for him. “Or the number of young people who say ‘This is my first-ever political event.’”
Other GOP defectors to Talarico now include a prominent Texas attorney—who had contributed to Paxton’s defeat of Cornyn—and former GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, now a Texas resident. Kinzinger was one of the two Republicans on the special House committee that investigated the attempted Trump coup of Jan, 6, 2021.
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