In “James Talarico has an obligation to win. Ken Paxton is a terrible candidate, but don’t take anything for granted,” Matthew Yglesias writes at slowboring.com: “Ken Paxton defeated incumbent John Cornyn last week to become the G.O.P. nominee for a Texas U.S. Senate seat…This was one of those races where I wasn’t sure which outcome I was hoping for. Operatives at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and Senate Majority PAC could hardly contain their enthusiasm for the Paxton win since he is clearly the weaker candidate…On the other hand, the two candidates are really not the same on the merits…Cornyn is a conservative Republican. I don’t agree with him on public policy issues and I would not vote for him. But Texas is a conservative state, and it is what it is. Paxton, by contrast, is an election denier who tried to help Donald Trump stay in office after he lost in 2020. Beyond that, Paxton is an actual criminal. He simultaneously claimed three different homes as a primary residence on mortgage documents and, as we’ll see below, that’s not even the main financial scandal that got him in trouble. He’s the kind of Bible thumper who ended up in a messy divorce after it came out that he was cheating on his wife…But the real scandal there wasn’t the affair so much as the fact that Paxton got his affair partner a job working for a guy named Nate Paul so that she could move to Austin. Paul and Paxton also jointly had a secret Uber account that was used for Paxton’s assignations. ” More here.

Dustin Guastella’s “If Democrats are to win Texas, James Talarico must win blue-collar voters” at The Guardian puts the big Texas race in perspective. As Guastella writes, “Texas could become the hottest battleground state in the country, if the results of both Republican and Democratic primaries are anything to go by…Democrat James Talarico, a progressive Presbyterian seminarian, will face off against Trump’s favored candidate, the scandal-plagued attorney general, Ken Paxton. The matchup has liberals salivating. Paxton, dogged by corruption charges, impeachment hearings and an affair that left his marriage in tatters, is considered by some in his own party as “the worst possible top-of-the-ticket” candidate. Meanwhile, Talarico, a fresh-faced, clean-cut millennial, who quotes scripture to justify his progressive beliefs, seems like the perfect foil, at least according to Democratic party leaders…No wonder, then, that Talarico pulled in a massive fundraising haul immediately after Paxton won his party’s nomination. This combined with his already impressive war-chest of about $27m is a good indication that Democratic donors are betting big on Talarico to turn Texas blue. But the reality is that blue-collar voters, not blue-blooded donors, will decide the outcome of the race. And Talarico has a lot of work to do to win over working-class Texans…It’s true that a bevy of early polls show Talarico slightly ahead. But if you dig into the results you’ll notice that these surveys skew toward highly engaged and highly educated voters. Consider a recent poll from Public Policy Polling that has Talarico leading Paxton by seven points; only 22% of voters sampled have less than a college education. Or a recent University of Texas poll which has Talarico up eight points; only 27% of respondents lack a degree. Polls like these could be giving Democrats a false sense of confidence by overrepresenting college-educated voters who increasingly skew liberal.” More here.

Marc Caputo reports at Axios that the “Trump admin plans to drop “weaponization” fund“: “The Trump administration plans to drop its controversial $1.8 billion “weaponization” fund the president sought to compensate alleged victims of prosecutorial conduct under his predecessor, two senior administration officials told Axios…”It’s dead for now,” one of the sources said…Why it matters: Bashed as a political slush fund that could be tapped by those convicted in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, Trump’s proposal has drawn bipartisan pushback in the GOP-led House and Senate…Zoom in: The plan for the fund came about as part of a settlement between Trump and the Internal Revenue Service…Trump and his business had sued the IRS for $10 billion over the leak of his 2019 and 2020 tax returns by a former contractor…Last month, they reached a settlement in which Trump dropped the lawsuit in exchange for a $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund for government abuse claims for his administration to use with virtually no oversight…The settlement also included broad immunity for Trump from IRS audits…The plan was widely criticized on Capitol Hill, drawing backlash even from some Republicans loyal to the president. House Speaker Mike Johnson planned to raise the issue of the fund in a White House meeting with Trump, two sources said…Driving the news: The White House’s discussions about dropping the fund came after two federal judges weighed in against the fund on Friday…U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema of the Eastern District of Virginia halted the disbursement of money from it…U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams in the Southern District of Florida announcedshe would launch an inquiry…Williams was the judge in charge of the original lawsuit Trump and the Trump Organization brought against the IRS for the unauthorized disclosure of tax information.” More here.

In “How can Dems win the White House in 2028? This think tank says move to the middle. Forget Mamdani, Bernie and AOC. A recent conference in Nevada embraced the controversial hypothesis that centrism — and not progressivism — will win the day,” Kate Reynolds and Isabella Aldrete report on the centrist confab at The Nevada Independent, and write: “The presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) got a jolt of energy in 2020 from its early win in Nevada’s Democratic presidential caucus…The caucus system was phased out the following year, replaced with the primary system used by most states. That means 2028 will be the Democrats’ first competitive presidential primary in Nevada since the 1980s, when caucuses were introduced, besides an easy primary win in 2024 for former President Joe Biden… But a group of moderate Democratic strategists who hope to retake the White House in 2028 say Sanders’ win was a one-off and that voters in swingy Nevada want pragmatism, not progressivism…That was one of the key themes at a daylong event hosted earlier this month in Las Vegas by the moderate Democratic think tank Third Way. The group was in Nevada urging Democrats to shed unpopular policies on cultural issues and focus on economic woes as the party seeks to reconnect with working-class voters…”One of the reasons we wanted to do this in Vegas was, you’re in a whole new world now. This is a completely different ball game,” said Matt Bennett, Third Way’s executive vice president of public affairs, in an interview with The Nevada Independent…Third Way is speaking to voters, strategists and candidates in key swing states as it seeks to empower the centrist wing of the Democratic Party. Formed in 2005, many of the group’s leaders are alums of the administrations of former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, both Democrats.” More here.