The Chuck ToddCast
Interview Only w/ Chris Cillizza - Does Talarico’s Win Put Texas In Play For Democrats?
05 Mar 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Chapter 2: What does Talarico's victory mean for Texas Democrats?
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Chapter 3: How did Kamala Harris's endorsement impact Crockett's campaign?
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Those of you that may not know this, and maybe some of you don't know, I appear weekly on your Behind the Paywall podcast. You're an elite network influencer. It's a boutique offering. You have a velvet rope behind our conversations. I'm a man of the people, as you know. I know you are.
Chapter 4: How does the perception of the economy affect midterm elections?
We're getting rid of the velvet rope just for this. When I heard, when I got the email that I was being asked to be on the Chuck Todd cast, I immediately told my wife, I've made it. I thought Chuck was blackballing me off of the Chuck Todd cast. Apparently not. He must be hard up for guests. Somebody canceled. No, I bucked Ken Burns for you. Boom!
Chapter 5: What are the implications of the Paxton-Cornyn race?
Take that, Burns! How about that? You know, America's 250th birthday and the American Revolution. We can wait a few days on that.
Chapter 6: What does the national map look like for the 2026 elections?
Can Ken Burns and I trade bank accounts now?
Chapter 7: How are independent candidates influencing the political landscape?
Well, that's, there you go. Look, we did a live stream on Tuesday night. But in many cases, you have the immediate moments when you deal and then you get a day, you get a night, you get to sort of see this. And since we last saw you as a pair, Jasmine Crockett has conceded quite quickly.
And I think there was some question about whether I think Tallarico's management of that was quite deft when he said, hey, we're not calling. We're not claiming victory until all the votes are counted in Dallas, which has made it harder for Crockett to have a grievance when her own opponent was willing to have her back there. And now it's, you know.
And now all the all the eyes are on the Republican side. By the way, we still don't have all the votes in. No, we still don't. It's like 95 percent. And I do think Cornyn will finish.
ahead marginally i mean it's it's basically going to effectively be a wash it's 897 184 to 871 670 so cornyn is had by 26 000 votes with 90 well more than 95 percent in here is the stat that uh moved me the most uh that i saw today and that is in counties that donald trump Won by 50 points or more in the deep red Texas counties. All right.
Paxton consistently led Cornyn by four to five points, 44 to 40 when you put all those together. So I look at that and you're just, you know, Cornyn. The question is, can Cornyn get to 50, right? Like, you know, this is, you start to look and I, it's, you know, it's fascinating. I'm gonna share an anecdote with you. I was running some errands on Wednesday morning
And, you know, you know, you live in your neighborhood. You have the same people you run into. And, you know, and these are people that are not political people, but they know what I do for a living. And, you know, I was you ran into one of these acquaintances and I said, yeah, I'm tired. I was covering the Texas primaries. You know, I'm just sort of groggy, sorry, or something like that.
And this person said, oh, those were last night. He goes, so what happened? And, you know, meaning, you know, and I said, and he said, who won that Democratic race? And I said, the young pastor did, Tallarico. He goes, oh, I'm relieved. He goes, you know, I just exhausted from the bomb throwers. And it was just, you know, we've been having this debate, Chris, right?
Which is where is the Democratic primary electorate? Is it in fight mode or is it an exhaustion mode? And in 2018, it felt exhaustion, right? They were in 2020, 2018 and 2020, it was less fight back and more like, this is crazy. Let's have a reset. And they're all the messaging was sort of around that. All the candidates sort of leaned into that, whether you're Alyssa Slotkin.
And yet this first year of Trump's second term, we've seen the fighters, whether it's Gavin Newsom in the presidential stakes or frankly, it was Jasmine Crockett who jumped out sort of tortoise and hare type of mindset. She jumped out early and was doing better than I think a lot of us expected. And we thought, oh, boy, this this fighter mentality, it may be getting, you know,
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