Transcript: Trump Blurts Out Surprise Midterm Admission as GOP Panics

However, the idea that it’s also some kind of pipe dream or fantasy, and that it can’t happen—Texas is Texas, blah, blah, blah—I think is clearly wrong and has been disproven, as you wrote, by the success—not the victory, but the success—of the O’Rourke campaign a few years ago.

I remember when Trump endorsed Paxton, which was really on the eve of the election, there was a lot of reporting about how Republican strategists in the state and in Washington were furious, already almost not writing off the race, but really concerned about the impact that this was going to have. And I think they’re looking at the same polling—more polling than we are. They have their own internal polling and they realize that this is going to be, I think, disastrous.

And James Talarico, I think, as you wrote, is someone who has several layers of credibility. He has the angle of his faith, which is something that we haven’t necessarily seen a Democrat successfully exploit in a race like this. And I think there’s something interesting about him, which is that so far what we’ve seen is that he is very willing and able to attempt to welcome moderates and independents, while at the same time he’s not doing the kind of bipartisan kumbaya thing of, “my opponent is a good man, this is a contest of ideas,” yada yada.