He is a freak. Perhaps he is gay. Maybe he is even a vegan. Was he genuinely recovering from flu, or had he entered a mental health facility in another state?
Texas Republicans have raised all of those questions — and many more — about Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico.
Their campaign has saturated the state with advertising, spending an eye-watering $175 million along the way. The attacks have been relentless, and any one of the insinuations — despite every claim being entirely false — might have been enough to derail Mr Talarico. The vegan accusation, in particular, seemed designed to strike a nerve: Texans love beef and are famously suspicious of vegetables as a food group.
So why is he still leading in the polls? Why does the Democratic candidate in rural, heavily pro-Trump Kansas also appear to be performing strongly? In Iowa, where Trump won by 13 points two years ago — the largest margin recorded by any presidential candidate since 1972 — the Senate contest is now rated a close race.
The list goes on. What a reversal. I was in Washington, DC, during the exhilarating early days of Trump’s second presidency, when he appeared unstoppable. He was amusing, disciplined and seemingly incapable of sleep, dismissing officials in the middle of the night and signing executive orders with a Sharpie before tossing it into an adoring crowd.
Even Democratic friends in the capital seemed oddly relieved. Their own party, they felt, might finally receive a much-needed shock. And if Trump could stop illegal immigration, bring inflation down and take on what they saw as woke universities, perhaps his presidency would not be entirely negative.
Republicans, including some in Texas, may be quietly backing Democrats in the midterms (Pictured: US President Donald Trump after casting his ballot in the 2026 midterm elections)
Racial minorities, groups often championed by white Democrats, also appeared receptive to Trump. Latinos, in particular, backed him in record numbers.
But, as Texans might put it, he turned out to be all hat and no cattle. It is true that he has effectively closed the border, but that achievement was followed by an unpopular and sometimes violent crackdown on immigrants living blamelessly inside the United States. He has failed to bring down inflation and, amid the war with Iran, his record on fuel prices has been especially disastrous.
Latino voters have cooled toward Trump. So have many rural Americans, including former supporters who rely on diesel trucks. In communities built around big vehicles and hard work, the cost of diesel and gasoline is more than an inconvenience. It shapes how families feel about their lives.
Raise fuel prices high enough and a voter might even support a candidate accused of being a vegan.
Donald Trump has endured extraordinary political crises, including the prospect of imprisonment. Yet this may be the greatest challenge of his career.
Early voting is already under way, with election day scheduled for a week on Tuesday. The prospect that Trump could lose control of both chambers of Congress is now looming.
But there is a warning for Democrats. During the 2022 midterms, I told some surprised BBC interviewers that the result — far better for Joe Biden’s Democrats than expected — could ultimately prove disastrous for the party.
A strong showing might persuade the ageing president to seek a second term. I was right about that. I still believe that had the Democrats performed poorly, they would have replaced him with a much stronger candidate and might have defeated Trump in 2024.
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Several Republicans have acknowledged voting for Democrat James Talarico in his bid to represent Texas in the US Senate
Once again, victory could quickly turn into defeat. Imagine the Democrats winning both houses of Congress. Not only would moderate candidate James Talarico prevail in Texas, but Abdul El-Sayed could also win in Michigan. El-Sayed is a firebrand left-wing campaigner in the mould of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Unlike Mamdani, however, he would become a national party figure rather than remaining primarily associated with one city. That would do little to help Democrats shed their reputation for being obsessively woke.
To be clear, El-Sayed is a capable politician with particularly strong support among younger voters. But he and those around him would be tempted to out-Trump Trump, seeking to destroy him with the same intensity he has used against his political opponents.
They would pursue another impeachment attempt. That would mean congressional hearings, prolonged investigations and time spent tracking down evidence of alleged wrongdoing. In the
Senate, however, two-thirds of members would have to vote to convict and remove him from office — a threshold the effort would almost certainly fail to reach.
That will not stop them raking over wrongdoing that many Americans might want to put behind them. It would become a sore when the country is looking for balm. And the Democrats would become a party of past grievances rather than forward-looking optimism.
And then El-Sayed and his friends would press for a radical presidential candidate in the 2028 campaign and all that new-found support the party has in places like Kansas and Iowa might fade rather fast.
Better perhaps to lose this time round or maybe take the lower House of Representatives but not the Senate. Better to face disappointment now, forcing the party to have a serious conversation about its appeal to all of America. Left leaning, even socialist in places. But centrist too, and with a candidate who can knit it all together. Just as Bill Clinton did in the 1990s and Barack Obama in this century.
Talking of presidential candidates: that process of selection (yes, it’s crazy) starts within hours of the results. Here it gets complicated and highly unpredictable. The Democrats might, as I suggest, live to regret winning big in 2026 if that is what happens.
But not just because such a victory persuades their own party to adopt positions that are electorally unviable. It might also persuade the Republicans to double down on Trumpism. Or to claim that it has never been properly tried!
In those circumstances it seems at least possible that this is the moment fringe people on the Right outside the party come out against him and try to seize the wheel.
This might not be pretty. How about a presidential run from Tucker Carlson, the Right-wing influencer who clashed recently with the former Conservative cabinet minister Jacob Rees- Mogg, who accused Carlson of getting dangerously close to defending Adolf Hitler.
There are others too who might be willing to shake up the Republicans and thrust aside their ageing president – who’ll be something of a lame duck if Congress blocks or delays his domestic agenda – and the obvious candidates to replace him in 2028, the Vice-President JD Vance and the Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Of course, all of this suggests that we have an actual result. But if it is close it is entirely possible the President tries to overturn it and we are in for weeks of dangerous and divisive squabbling.
All American elections matter because America matters. This one might just matter a little bit more than normal.