'Very scary': Diehard Republicans flirt with the unthinkable in Trump country

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State Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin, greets attendees at his election watch party just after midnight on March 4, 2026.

GRAPEVINE — Jill Tate has spent 30 years building and maintaining the Republican majority in Texas.

In all that time, she’s never been more worried about an election.

“This is truly the first time I’ve felt in my bones we could lose the Texas House, and we could lose a statewide seat,” Tate said. “And that’s very scary.”

Now president of Texas Federation of Republican Women, Tate organizes over 10,000 women who do the hard work behind the party’s dominant grassroots operation — calling and texting voters, block walking, producing voter guides and sending postcards.

If her fears come to pass, it could be Tate’s backyard — the fast-growing, diverse suburbs of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex — that delivers Texas to the Democrats.

Long associated with the country club types who formed a backbone of red Texas, the area is in the midst of enormous change driven by rapid population growth, corporate relocations and shifting political views in the Trump era.

The change makes suburban voters — and suburban women in particular — a key swing bloc that U.S. Senate candidates Ken Paxton and James Talarico are chasing this November.

But with the election less than six weeks away, Republicans worry the region’s typically reliable voters, disenchanted by Paxton’s political baggage, could sit out the Senate race, a hesitancy that also could endanger GOP candidates for the Legislature, county commission and justices of the peace.

In interviews with over a dozen people in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, many Republicans said they were struggling with how to vote in the Senate contest or knew friends and neighbors who were.

Jayne Howell, who chaired the Denton County GOP from 2018 to 2022, said that six months ago, she was leaning toward not voting in the Senate race. Now, she’s decided to vote for Paxton — but she knows not everyone has had the same evolution.

“I felt like he was going to vote for more conservative policies than his opponent,” Howell said at a coffee shop in Lewisville, a suburb about 25 miles north of Dallas. “So I’m going to vote for Paxton. It goes against my personal beliefs, but I don’t want Talarico to win. But I think there’s a lot of people that aren’t going to even come out to vote. That’s going to affect the down-ballot races.”

Some, describing their hesitation or opposition as faith-based, cited accusations of extramarital affairs by Paxton. His wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, cited adultery in her 2025 divorce petition.

Some voters lumped Paxton in with a GOP they have soured on during President Donald Trump’s second term. Others were turned off by allegations of corruption stemming from a 2015 indictment for felony securities fraud (charges were dropped in 2024 after Paxton, who didn’t admit guilt, agreed to 100 hours of community service, 15 hours of ethics training and $271,000 in restitution) and 2023 articles of impeachment accusing him of misusing his office to benefit a friend and political donor (the Texas Senate voted to acquit him after a two-week trial).

Dan Pence, a 68-year-old in Rowlett, has voted Republican in nearly every election in his life. After voting for Trump in 2024, he’s found himself frustrated with the direction of the party. He still believes he will stick with Republicans for most statewide races, but he’s undecided in the Senate contest — and leaning toward Talarico, whom he thinks he could “hold my nose” and vote for. Paxton, he said, is a bridge too far.

“I can’t verbalize how much I dislike that guy,” Pence said. “I wouldn’t even want to be in the same room as him. He exudes slimy.”

In the 2024 presidential election, nearly one in four Texas votes came from the region’s core four counties — Dallas, Tarrant, Collin and Denton — making them enormously important to both candidates’ hopes for success. The suburban area was a Republican stronghold before 2016 but has trended more blue in recent election cycles.

Democrats flipped Tarrant County in the 2018 U.S. Senate race and narrowly won the county in the 2024 Senate race even as the state lurched right. Collin County, home to Plano and Frisco, has remained narrowly red despite statewide shifts, with Beto O’Rourke, Joe Biden and Colin Allred receiving 46% to 47% of the vote despite running in wildly different cycles. Even Denton County, traditionally the most Republican of the bunch, has seen slippage in GOP support after Trump won by 20 points in 2016 and 13.1 points in 2024.

To succeed in these counties, the Republican turnout operation will need to convert the hesitant.

The Texas Federation of Republican Women this fall will host weekends of mass action in Tarrant, Williamson and Collin counties — all with significant suburban populations — to promote state-level and down-ballot Republican candidates and encourage voters to support the entire ticket.

In addition, numerous GOP candidates and organizers said they are emphasizing to friends and neighbors the old adage that a vote is a chess move rather than a valentine.

“I have tried to say to some of our ladies who are not especially enthusiastic about voting for [Paxton] — and it’s not just him, there’s some other candidates [who are] not their favorite — we may not have perfect candidates, because we’re all human,” Tate said. “We all make mistakes. But we have perfect ideals.”

Kronda Thimesch, a former Republican state representative from Denton County who voted to impeach Paxton and then lost a GOP primary, is president of her local Republican women’s club. She said friends from church with deeply held biblical values are struggling with how to vote this November, and in some cases are so put off by Paxton that they’re planning to skip the election entirely.

“There are a lot of people that I’ve been having conversations with, [telling them] if you can’t vote for one Republican, please continue to go down ballot and vote for the rest,” said Thimesch, who lost her 2024 primary to Paxton impeachment attorney Mitch Little. “But unfortunately, a lot of people, they don’t even want to walk into the polling location and vote — which is disheartening.”

Despite hesitation from some voters, Paxton can still expect to get hundreds of thousands of votes out of these counties. Trump, as Paxton has noted, has been dogged by some of the same ethical baggage yet won Tarrant, Collin and Denton counties in 2024 en route to a blowout in the state.

His campaign believes it has a compelling story to tell suburban women. One pro-Paxton ad focuses on a sex trafficking case that his office prosecuted. And the campaign plans to emphasize the attorney general’s record pursuing consumer protection lawsuits on issues suburban women care about.

“Suburban moms want someone who will actually fight the people putting their kids in harm’s way: Big Food, Big Pharma, and Big Tech,” Paxton spokesperson Madison Cercy said in a statement, citing the attorney general’s lawsuits targeting misleading food labeling, forever chemicals and social media platforms that create addiction among kids.

“They’re not looking for someone who treats their kids upbringing as a social experiment and views public safety as optional,” Cercy said. “Ken Paxton is the fighter they have already trusted and the one they need, and that is the message our campaign will be bringing to them.”

Polling suggests Paxton still has work to do to consolidate the Republican base — work that the various groups making up the Republican ground game are undertaking as get-out-the-vote efforts ramp up. Down-ballot candidates also are working their territories across the region, well aware of the stakes the Senate race could pose.

Shelby Williams, a former Collin County GOP chair now running for county commission in a purple district in the west of the county, said he leads with local policy — infrastructure, property taxes, water — rather than his partisan allegiance. He has heard people “here and there” say they’re planning to skip the Senate race. Like Tate, he wants voters to see that the election is a binary choice and encourages them to look at both candidates’ records.

“Especially amongst the Christian right — and I am a devout Christian — there’s a tendency to look at the stains and say, well I can’t get behind so-and-so,” Williams said. “Well, OK, you have to inspect the alternative — even if the alternative is an undervote. You’re going to vote for something, even if it’s by your inaction.”

The Paxton campaign is emphasizing the dangers of an undervote as well.

“The stakes are clear: if voters stay home in the suburbs, they are not sitting out a personality contest. They are leaving their kids’ food, phones, schools, and streets to the politician who has proven he will not fight those fights,” Cercy said.

Ross Hunt, a GOP operative in Dallas, said the Republican base rapidly consolidated behind Paxton after he secured the nomination in May, but the pace and intensity has not been uniform across regions.

Hunt said he is more concerned about Republicans skipping the Senate race in North Texas than in other parts of the state.

“Consolidation has been stronger — not universally — but it’s been stronger in other areas of the state than it has been in D-FW,” Hunt said. “And some of that has to do with the fact that we just have more George Bush-style Republicans up here. That’s part of it. Some of it I think has to do with the fact that we have a lot of voters up here who are economically motivated, and are not really culture warriors at all, and are looking for someone who’s focused on those issues.”

What’s troubling the suburbs

Laura Hill, the Republican mayor of Southlake from 2015 to 2021, hasn’t missed an election since Gerald Ford was president.

Hill runs in a wide circle of women in the Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs — women she described as successful, well-educated and politically engaged. But this cycle, many of them have told her they’re planning to skip the Senate race on their ballots. Hill intends to do the same — and feels like the GOP political culture in Tarrant County has left her feeling increasingly unwelcome, particularly after losing a 2022 Texas House primary that she said included personal attacks on her businesses, employees and parents.

“I think we’ve created monsters — and that’s what my friends are saying,” Hill said. “We’ve all done things that we’ve had to ask for forgiveness, and that is between us and our Lord. But at some point, you no longer speak for the Lord when you continue to have to ask for forgiveness and you have a chosen lifestyle. Live it! But don’t tell me that I need to vote for you just because you are a Republican.”

Hill said among the skeptical Republican women she’s talked to, about 40 percent plan to vote for Talarico.

Dorothy Burton, the former Republican mayor pro tem of Duncanville, left the GOP in 2019 and now considers herself partyless. A member of Republicans for Talarico, Burton believes there’s a quiet network of Republicans planning to pull the lever for the Democrat while continuing to vote with the GOP in other races.

Being a Republican, she said, is about more than a party — it’s an identity. But she believes the willingness by some in the GOP to criticize Paxton will let more Bush-aligned Republicans vote for Talarico — or skip the race — without feeling like they’re compromising that identity.

“Now that some have given permission that it is OK to vote for Talarico, it’s like, I can do that and still be Republican,” Burton said.

John Huffman, a Republican who followed Hill as Southlake mayor and finished third in the initial special election for Senate District 9 in the Fort Worth area, has been a vocal critic of his party’s direction and the political doom he believes it could bring in November.

“I especially think suburban women — but maybe just your average suburban professional in Tarrant County and elsewhere — looks at Paxton, and looks at the personal and the professional and political baggage he comes with, and starts to think: is this the best we have?” Huffman said. “Is this really the best we can do as Republicans?”

A good portion of the more establishment wing of the party will likely come home for Paxton. Republican advertising has gone hard on Talarico, criticizing his record on taxes and comments supporting transgender Texans, to drive home the point that a Talarico victory would be anathema to their values.

Darlene Stanaland, a 79-year-old in Frisco, voted for Paxton in the primary and plans to vote for him again in the general election.

Stanaland first met Paxton, a longtime fixture in Collin County politics, years ago at a Tea Party protest outside Frisco City Hall. She appreciated that Paxton was active in filing legal challenges against the Biden administration.

“He at least fights for Texas,” Stanaland said. “That’s more than most of them do.”

Stanaland, a lifelong Republican who never misses an election, said her social circle is also firmly behind Paxton.

“Everybody’s got a past and everybody’s got a personal life, and that’s not what this is about,” she said. “This is about conserving our state, and I think he does that.”

But Huffman, who said he cannot vote for Paxton and likely will skip the Senate race, believes the Republican Party will leave votes on the table — support it potentially cannot afford to lose.

“As a candidate, you're trying to sell yourself — and you sell on trust,” Huffman said. “And there are so many issues with Paxton. He has broken trust with many, many people. I think for him particularly, you are testing the outer limits of the average general election voter's ability to be loyal to the concept of lesser of two evils.”

Several lifelong Republican voters from the Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs echoed Huffman’s sentiment.

Kelly Sayre, a 75-year-old in Corinth, was once the Denton County GOP vice chair. But he became disillusioned with the GOP after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol; in 2024, he voted for Kamala Harris for president and Ted Cruz for Senate.

Sayre said he thinks he’ll vote for Talarico this November — both as an opportunity to vote against Trump and Paxton (“I just don’t believe he’s a good person”) and because he sees something positive in the Democratic seminarian.

“After 10 or 12 years of name-calling and outright cruelty, I don’t see that coming from him,” Sayre said. “People feel differently about this, but for me, it’s important in that I see him to be a practicing Christian that’s far closer to living like we’re supposed to live than the alternative.”

Betty Graham, an 82-year-old in Plano, is a lifelong Republican who voted for Trump two years ago. A native of West Texas, she recalled meeting George H.W. Bush at a fundraiser in Abilene in the 1980s and working on a Republican campaign in Nolan County. But she’s been disappointed by the president’s second term — especially over the Iran war and the administration’s pursuit of border infrastructure in Big Bend National Park and surrounding areas.

Graham has come to regret her Trump vote and finds herself heartbroken by the direction of the party. She could have voted for Cornyn, she said, but refuses to vote for Paxton. Now, she considers herself an independent — and she’s planning to skip the race or vote Libertarian. Voting for a Democrat is out of the question.

“I can’t, in good conscience, vote on any of the Republicans,” Graham said. “And I certainly am not going to vote on the Democrat, because I don’t believe their ideology at all.”

Democrats see an opportunity

Voters like Graham represent the potential and the pitfalls for Talarico.

Every Republican voter who skips the contest helps the Democrat, but to win, Talarico also needs to pick up crossover and independent support. Republicans are now spending tens of millions to emphasize Talarico’s negatives in the hope of moving unsure or unmotivated Republicans into Paxton’s camp.

This is not the first statewide race where Democrats have looked to the suburbs for an edge — and in the past, they’ve ultimately been disappointed. In 2018, O’Rourke posted the best results Democrats had seen in decades in Tarrant, Collin and Denton counties but still lost to Cruz by 2.6 percentage points. In 2020, Biden saw record high Democratic vote totals and similar percentages to O’Rourke but lost the state by 5 points. And even as Allred achieved similar results in Tarrant, Collin and Denton counties as his Democratic predecessors, he lost to Cruz by a larger margin in 2024 as his party underperformed in the urban cores and in South Texas.

The results beg the question: Are there enough untapped suburban votes for Talarico and Democrats to capitalize on?

State Sen. Taylor Rehmet, a Garland mechanic and union leader, represents the bullish case for Democrats. In a district Trump won by 17 points in 2024, Rehmet emerged from a January special election with a 14-point victory in a Tarrant County district that contains a portion of Fort Worth and its northern suburbs. Special elections, with smaller totals, can produce unusual results — but Rehmet’s victory in Senate District 9 inspired enormous Democratic enthusiasm.

Democrats see opportunity beyond dissatisfied Republicans — enthusiasm driving increased turnout by their voters and swings away from the GOP in the suburban Hispanic population. Rehmet relied on both in his shocking special election victory in Tarrant County.

“People are targeting the working class folks,” said Allison Campolo, chair of the Tarrant County Democratic Party. “We are a county with a huge amount of working class people, but also a lot of union people — Lockheed Martin, Bell Helicopter, a bunch of others. And so making sure that these working-class union voters know who's standing up for workers' rights, affordability and good jobs is a really big deal.”

Majority-Hispanic precincts shifted by an average of 34 percentage points toward Rehmet relative to the 2022 race for the Senate district. Jason Villalba, a former Republican state representative from Dallas who runs the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation, said even with the usual caveats about low turnout in special elections, the size of the Hispanic vote swing toward Rehmet was too large to be dismissed.

He suspects the swing is not limited to Fort Worth.

“You’re seeing similar effects, at least anecdotally, in all of the major suburbs,” Villalba said. “Plano is largely Hispanic … we’re seeing the same trends. Arlington, Grand Prairie, Cedar Hill, Mansfield — all of it showing the same trends.”

Democrats also believe a bevy of newer issues — frustration with data centers and Flock cameras among them — will drive voters toward the party. Numerous Democrats also said the state’s ban on several hemp-derived THC products is an issue they’re hearing a surprising amount about as they campaign door to door.

Delia Parker-Mims, chair of the Denton County Democratic Party, said THC could be a sleeper issue for suburban women and younger voters. There are smoke shops, she said, in the more middle class and well-to-do suburbs, and middle-age women are increasingly using THC products for health reasons.

“[Housewives] are into THC, and now you’re taking that away,” Parker-Mims said. “I do think that is pissing a lot of people off.”

Some Republicans agree that this cycle is different from past ones. Many emphasized that in 2018, when Republicans narrowly held onto victory, Cruz had the Republican Party unified behind him.

But in the Metroplex, some no longer see that enthusiasm. Several GOP voters who plan to leave the Senate race blank or vote for Talarico also stressed they would’ve had no trouble voting for Cornyn.

Hill consistently voted for Cornyn and Cruz, saying they “carry themselves in a manner that is important to our party.”

“I think because we have so much power and we think Republicans are untouchable in Texas, we’ve decided that we can put up anybody,” she said.

This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.

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