By Ollie Mintz
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A plain-English guide to the three names on your Senate ballot: who they are, what they've done, and what they say they'll do.
If you live in Texas, you've probably seen more ads for this race than you can count. Total spending has blown past half a billion dollars. Most of those ads are telling you what's wrong with the other guy. Very few tell you much about the candidate paying for them.
That's what this piece is for. There are three candidates on the ballot for U.S. Senate: Republican Ken Paxton, Democrat James Talarico, and Libertarian Ted Brown. The race is about as close as Texas Senate races get, with most recent polls showing Talarico slightly ahead and the major forecasters calling it a toss-up. It could decide which party controls the Senate.
I'm not going to tell you who to vote for. I'll lay out each candidate's background, record, and platform, along with the strongest case their supporters make and the biggest knocks against them. What you do with it is up to you.
Ken Paxton (Republican)
Ken Paxton is 63 and has spent more than two decades in Texas politics. He was born on an Air Force base in North Dakota, grew up moving with his father's military assignments, and graduated from high school in Lawton, Oklahoma. He went to Baylor, where he was student body president, earned a law degree from the University of Virginia, and practiced estate planning and real estate law in Collin County before winning a Texas House seat in 2002. He moved up to the Texas Senate in 2013 and has been Texas attorney general since 2015.
As attorney general, Paxton turned the office into one of the most aggressive litigation shops in the country, mostly aimed at Washington. His office sued the Biden administration more than 100 times, largely over immigration, energy, and federal rules on health care and education. He led the multistate fight against Obama's DAPA program, the suit to strike down the Affordable Care Act, and the 2020 Supreme Court challenge to the presidential results in four states, which the Court dismissed for lack of standing. To his supporters, that record is the whole point: a fighter who used every legal tool he had to push back on Democratic administrations.
His campaign is built around border security and affordability. He wants to finish the border wall and carry out large-scale deportations, and he has promised to bring Trump's agenda to the Senate. On costs, his "Protecting the Texas Promise" plan would double the child tax credit from $2,200 to $4,400 per child, make the new "Trump Accounts" for kids permanent, and create new federal deductions for things like home down payments, medical costs, and health and fitness expenses. Trump endorsed him a week before the May runoff, and he beat Sen. John Cornyn by roughly 28 points.
The knocks against Paxton are mostly about conduct. He was indicted on state securities fraud charges in 2015 and resolved them in 2024 through a pretrial diversion deal that required about $271,000 in restitution, with no admission of guilt. The Texas House impeached him in 2023 on 20 articles, including bribery and abuse of office; the Senate acquitted him on all of them. A Travis County judge later entered a $6.6 million judgment against his office for firing whistleblowers who reported him to the FBI, and he dropped his appeal. The Justice Department investigated and declined to bring charges. His wife of 38 years, state Sen. Angela Paxton, filed for divorce in 2025 citing adultery, which he denies. In October, reporting from the Associated Press, ProPublica, and The Texas Tribune detailed hundreds of out-of-state trips and millions in taxpayer-funded security costs, which his office says don't reflect his actual workload. He has also not agreed to a debate with Talarico, though he has said he's willing to do one somewhere other than CNN.
His supporters see all of that as the price of being a target for both Democrats and establishment Republicans, and they point out that he has never been convicted of anything. His critics see a pattern. Either way, if you're voting for or against Paxton, that record is part of the decision.
James Talarico (Democrat)
James Talarico is 37 and grew up in Round Rock, Texas. He went to the University of Texas, joined Teach for America, and taught middle school English in San Antonio before earning a master's in education policy from Harvard and running an education nonprofit. In 2018, at 29, he flipped a Republican-held Williamson County House seat by a few thousand votes and became the youngest member of the Legislature. He has served four terms since, now representing an Austin-area district, and finished a Master of Divinity at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary while in office. His faith is a big part of how he talks about politics.
In the Legislature, his best-known work is on schools and health care. He co-authored House Bill 3, the 2019 school finance law that put more money into classrooms, teacher pay, and full-day pre-K. He's a type 1 diabetic, and he helped pass the law capping insulin copays at $25 a month in Texas. He was a vocal opponent of Abbott's voucher plan and of the bill requiring the Ten Commandments in classrooms, and he took part in the Democratic quorum breaks over voting legislation in 2021 and redistricting in 2025. He won the Democratic Senate primary in March over U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett with about 53% of the vote, after picking up endorsements from the Houston Chronicle, Dallas Morning News, Austin American-Statesman, and Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
His campaign is built on one central argument: that the cost of living is high because the political system works for billionaires instead of regular people. His top promise is an anti-corruption package that would ban super PACs and corporate PACs, ban members of Congress from trading stocks, set term limits for Congress and the Supreme Court, end broad presidential pardon power, and ban partisan gerrymandering nationwide. On the economy, he wants a $15 federal minimum wage, a bigger child tax credit and earned income tax credit, higher taxes on corporations and the very wealthy, and repeal of Trump's tariffs. On health care, he backs a public insurance option, extending ACA premium subsidies, regulating pharmacy middlemen, and codifying Roe v. Wade.
The knocks against Talarico are mostly about his politics and some past comments. Republicans call him a democratic socialist and argue his health care and spending plans would add to the federal debt. They've hammered a 2021 House floor exchange in which he said modern science recognizes more than two sexes, which is where the "Six-Gender Jimmy" nickname comes from, and they've attacked comments he made about Christianity, including an edited clip Paxton's campaign shared. Talarico has said there are past statements he regrets. He also stepped off the campaign trail for about two weeks in early October with what his campaign said was the flu, which Paxton and Trump turned into an attack line.
His supporters see a young, faith-driven reformer who can win over voters Democrats usually lose. His critics see a progressive whose views don't match most of Texas. He'd be the first Democrat to win a Texas Senate race since 1988.
Ted Brown (Libertarian)
Ted Brown is the name a lot of voters will see on the ballot and not recognize. He's 65, originally from Steubenville, Ohio, and has a political science degree from UCLA. He spent his career as an insurance claims adjuster and is now retired, living in Austin with his wife and daughter. He's a longtime Libertarian Party activist: a former chair of the Libertarian Party of California, now vice chair of the Travis County party and a member of the state party's executive committee. He has run for Congress and the Texas House before, and he was the Libertarian nominee for this same Senate seat in 2024, when he got more than 267,000 votes, about 2.4%. That was a record for a Libertarian Senate candidate in Texas.
Brown's platform is classic libertarian. He wants a much smaller federal government, real spending cuts, more personal and economic freedom, and a foreign policy that keeps the U.S. out of other countries' wars. He's pitching himself to fiscal conservatives who think the Republican Party has become just another big-government party that does whatever Trump tells it to.
He's also openly courting Republicans who voted for Cornyn and can't bring themselves to vote for Paxton or for a Democrat. That's why he matters this year. In 2024 his share was nowhere near Ted Cruz's margin of victory, but this race is close enough that a few points for Brown could decide it. He rejects the spoiler label, arguing that you can't spoil something that was rotten to begin with and that Republicans have spent years trying to keep Libertarians off the Texas ballot.
The knock on Brown is the obvious one: his odds of winning are very long. He has never held office, and his campaigns have run on very little money. Many people will see a vote for him as a protest vote, and depending on who you ask, it either sends a needed message or quietly helps the candidate you like least.
Where They Actually Differ
Polls say the cost of living is the issue Texans care about most, and both major candidates know it. Their answers point in opposite directions. Paxton wants to put money back in people's pockets through the tax code: a doubled child tax credit and new deductions for buying a home, medical bills, and staying healthy. Talarico wants to raise wages and expand credits for working families, and pay for it by raising taxes on corporations and the very wealthy. Brown's answer is to cut federal spending and get government out of the way. Critics on both sides note that Paxton's and Talarico's plans would both add to the deficit unless Congress finds the money elsewhere.
On health care, Talarico is the candidate proposing the biggest changes: a public insurance option, extended ACA subsidies, and new rules for drug middlemen. Paxton's approach runs through tax deductions for medical expenses rather than changes to the insurance system. On abortion, the gap is about as wide as it gets. Talarico wants to codify Roe v. Wade. Paxton has spent years as attorney general defending and enforcing Texas' abortion ban in court.
On immigration, Paxton wants the border wall finished and mass deportations carried out, and his supporters point to his years of suing the federal government over border policy. Talarico has called for more Border Patrol agents, more immigration judges, and more surveillance technology at the border. Polling shows voters who rank immigration as their top issue lean heavily toward Paxton.
Then there's the question hanging over the whole race: character and corruption. Talarico has made it his central theme, calling Paxton the most corrupt politician in the country and promising an anti-corruption package as his first priority. Paxton calls those attacks political, notes that he was acquitted and never convicted, and argues Talarico's real problem is that his views are too far left for Texas. Brown's pitch is that neither party deserves your trust.
On the bigger picture, the difference is simple. A Paxton win almost certainly helps Republicans hold the Senate and gives Trump a reliable vote. A Talarico win could help flip control of the chamber to Democrats. A strong Brown showing could decide which of those happens.
Before You Vote
Election Day is Tuesday, November 3. For your polling place, hours, and what to bring, check VoteTexas.gov or your county elections office before you head out.
Whatever you think of these three, this is one of the most consequential races on any ballot in the country this year, and it could come down to a very small number of votes. Know who you're voting for. Then go vote.