Dems Struggle to Make Their Moderates Go Viral
Searching for a candidate who can be Mamdani in the streets and Manchin in the seats.
AS DEMOCRATS EARLIER THIS YEAR began mapping out their narrow path to a Senate majority, a group of moderate-minded members of the party looked at the field of expected candidates for the Texas Senate seat and were unimpressed.
There was nothing glaringly objectionable about Colin Allred, a former NFL player who outperformed Kamala Harris in his 2024 race against Sen. Ted Cruz. But they worried that he had already run and lost once. There was a lot of buzz about state Rep. James Talarico, but they believed he was too liberal to win statewide. They thought that Democrats would be better off with someone more conservative who came from outside the political arena and had more of an anti-establishment flair. With the possibility of MAGA extremist Ken Paxton winning the GOP nomination, and the Democrats’ hopes to flip the Senate hinging on states like Texas, the stakes were incredibly high.
And so, they took a hard look at