Republicans are running scared. They can run. But they can’t hide. My post today for SETX Impact.
Running on empty.
Isn’t that how America is feeling right now about its gas tank?
Running blind.
Did our president see what he looked like before endorsing?
Running into the sun.
Maybe that explains the blindness? (In late June 2026, when a noted adulterer American politician visited, there were 20 to 22 hours of direct daylight per day in Reykjavík.)
But I’m running behind.
No, you don’t have to be Oedipus to solve this riddle.
Trump may be unpredictable. He may be impossible to pin down. He’s an ever-evolving political chameleon. But there’s one thing about the man that everyone knows and can count on: nothing pains him more than being branded a loser. And that’s what’s going to happen when his blue-ribbon hog Paxton gets his ass whoopin’ in early November 2026.
Poll after poll is showing Talarico leading his Republican opponent (by up to six points).
Trump is running so scared (and he’s not even running) that he’s been to Texas twice in recent weeks.
As Susan Glasser reports in the New Yorker, he’s been telling his supporters that Talarico is a vegan larping as a carnivore. According to the President of the United States, the seminary student feigns pleasure while eating meat dishes. He does so to appeal to red-blooded, meat-eatin’ Texans. But then he excuses himself and discreetly regurgitates his meal where no one can discover his dark secret.
“What they don’t show you,” says the Donald, “is that, after every barbecue, he walks to the back of a tent and he throws up all over the place… He’s a vegan, and you can’t get elected as a vegan in Oklahoma or in Texas.”
Is that the best the prez can come up with?
As Glasser notes, “the Dumocrats are coming for Trump, and all he can do is call them names.”
And there’s no place where the Blue Wave — no, Tsunami! — is coming for Trump like Texas.
There are currently 13 U.S. Senate battleground states. Four of those are Democrat. Nine are Republican. And it’s not just Ruby Red Texas that might be changing its colors. That’s astonishing by nearly any measure. Kansas, Nebraska, Ohio…. Did you ever dream that the Republicans would be running on fumes in historic Republican strongholds?
Locally, I can report that our household was block-walked by paid canvassers for both Paxton and Abbott. In the 12 years I’ve lived in my southwest Houston neighborhood, I’ve never been canvassed by a Republican agent.
Even more incredible are the reports of paid canvassers in Houston’s historically Black Third Ward. As the locally based activist and influencer Black Girls Who Brunch recently noted, that’s practically unheard of (unless, perhaps, in the multiverse).
Trump and Paxon can certainly take a run for their money. Their PACs, unfortunately, have opened the taps.
But right now, it seems that they are running for cover. Even Abbott was too scared of complicity to show up in San Antonio last week for the latest save-Paxton’s-ship rally.
Unfortunately for them, when it comes to the Dumocrats chasing ‘em down, they can run. But they can’t hide.
