A Crockett no-show, an unresolved indictment, and ads nobody can prove a human made. Welcome to Friday. This is Texas Senate Race Daily. Today: who's actually paying for the AI ads showing up in Texas, and whether Crockett's convention snub means her Dallas voters follow Talarico — or stay home. Loreben Tuquero, writing in Poynter:
The ads present a lifelike Talarico, but the events were not real. They were generated with artificial intelligence. It’s part of a changing scene in political advertising, and experts worry about an inundated public trying to make sense of what’s real.
Citizens for Sanity is the name on these Talarico ads — the one with him in the Sound of Music dress has been viewed millions of times. And here's what I want nailed down: a conservative nonprofit means a 501(c)(4), which means we may never see a donor. So who funded the buy? And that wrinkle gets buried. Everyone wants to argue real-or-fake. I want to know where these landed — what markets, what micro-targets. Because AI production collapses the cost. Cutting a custom spot used to mean a studio and a budget. Now Citizens for Sanity can tailor a different version for Houston, for the Valley, for a Dallas suburb — for pennies. In the most expensive Senate media state in the country, that changes who can afford to play. Right, and the disclosure question grows with it. Did anything get filed with the FEC or the Texas Ethics Commission tied to these? Because if a group can flood Texas with millions of views and nothing shows up in a filing I can cross-reference, that's the dark-money story sitting underneath the deepfake story. I'd push back on one piece — don't let the shock of the dress ad distract from the targeting data. The viral one, we can all see. The quiet hyper-local versions? We can't — and that's where I'd want eyes. Here's Kayla Guo at The Texas Tribune:
A month since the U.S. Senate race in Texas was set, Paxton and Talarico’s most notable skeptics of late are still their primary opponents, who have publicly cast doubt on the coalitions behind the nominees — highlighting potential vulnerabilities the candidates face in shoring up their support ahead of November after deeply divisive primaries.
Crockett declined the headline invite, then told the Dallas Morning News she hadn't even listened to Talarico's message and called it an "afterthought." Hard to file that under scheduling conflict. She's signaling she may sit out the general. And here's the line that matters: she said she's focusing on down-ballot candidates and has "no idea" if she'll campaign for him. She lost the March primary, but her Dallas-area coalition is the exact block of voters Talarico needs in November. Right, and you can measure that. Did the voters who showed up for Crockett in the primary consolidate behind the nominee? Her convention no-show is the first hard data point that they might not. Mirror image on the GOP side — Cornyn says he won't campaign or raise a dollar for Paxton, still calling him corrupt and unfit. Both nominees enter the general missing the people they just beat. Though I'd weigh those differently. Cornyn's donors mostly come home eventually. Crockett's voters have to be turned out in person — that's the harder gap to close. Here's Houston Public Media:
"The reality is they can say the same thing about Donald Trump," Paxton said in a Fox News interview after winning the May 26 primary runoff against Texas' senior senator. "Accusations don't mean that the thing actually happened. They have to prove these things in our country. That they did not do with President Trump, and that they did not do with me."
Eleven years, felony securities indictment since 2015, an impeachment, a federal corruption probe — and Paxton's never lost. Cornyn just spent millions in the primary making that exact case and got beaten by double digits. So campaigns looking at Houston Public Media's rundown shouldn't treat the record like a slam dunk. The legal record's been priced in for years. Overplay it and you sound like Cornyn — who's now a former senator. Right, but I'd push on the framing itself. "Scandals have followed him" gives you mood, not posture. Where do the 2015 securities case and the federal probe stand today, in legal terms? Because "controversies follow him" doesn't give a voter much. "Felony charge, unresolved, eleven years later" gives them something they can weigh. And the general electorate isn't the primary electorate. The argument that bounced off GOP runoff voters in May lands very differently with November's turnout model. Same facts, different math. The Texas Tribune writes:
In what’s being billed as the largest gathering of Democrats in the country this year, Texas Democrats are looking to harness their momentum to seize perhaps their best chance since 2018 to establish Texas as a major battleground state that will be crucial for the national party to invest in as a means to retake the Senate and to maintain a long-term path to the White House.
The Tribune's billing it as the largest gathering of Democrats in the country this year, in Corpus Christi over two and a half days. Fine. But a convention should train turnout, and the number I want is this: does the Dallas coalition that broke for Crockett in the primary actually show up for Talarico in November? And we just hit the Cornyn-Crockett piece, so here's the concrete data point nobody's pressing on — Crockett skipped the convention invite entirely. That's something you can measure, not just a vibe. Right. Jordan Villarreal's out there saying constructive disagreements, move toward unity — which is what you say when consolidation hasn't happened yet. Texas Democrats keep reaching for 2018 as the comparison, per the Tribune — best shot since then. In 2018, they came within three points and still lost. I'd hold the rally talk until the Dallas-area turnout math actually transfers. If Texas Senate Race Daily helps you keep up with the campaign, consider subscribing and leaving a quick review wherever you're listening. It's a simple way to support the show and help other people find us.
You'll find links to every story we covered today in the show notes, so if one caught your ear, you can spend a little more time with the original reporting there.
That's Texas Senate Race Daily for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.