Well, howdy there, internet people. It's Bell again.

So today, we're going to talk about Tala Rico leading the poll in Texas.

So, shortly after the candidates were finalized for the Texas Senate race, a new poll from Texas Public Opinion Research shows Democratic candidate state

representative James Talariko, beating the scandal-plagued state attorney general.

The poll shows Talariko beating Paxton 47% to 44%. The survey of 1,670 likely voters was conducted on May 27th and May 28th.

It's worth noting that that puts the race within the poll's margin of error.

But this is nowhere near the outcome Trump believed would be the case when he pointed to the

landslide Republican primary in favor of Paxton as a sign of things to come. It certainly seems

like maybe Cornyn would have been the better pick. What's more troubling for Put Down the Pen

Paxton is that the poll shows Talariko

maintaining a healthy lead, with 64% of independence and 72% of moderates. Maybe even more troubling

than that for the Republican Party as a whole is that the poll shows that Trump backed

Paxton is turning off Republican voters. It shows a majority of Cornyn voters will either vote

for Tala Rico, are undecided, or will not vote. 30% of Cornyn voters said they would cross party lines to vote for

Tala Rico. 23% are either undecided or would not vote. And an additional 3% said they would

vote for libertarian Ted Brown. That leaves just 44% of people who voted for Republican Senator Cornyn, willing to stick it out with the nominee.

In a state that gerrymandered the House districts, the idea of a large percentage of Republican primary voters simply not voting is probably setting off alarms in Republican circles. If there's

low Republican voter turnout because of Trump's meddling to put his guy as the nominee,

that's not just endangering the Senate seat. It's endangering the House seats. Another thing the polls did was ask the respondents what the most important issues were.

The top five in order were affordability and the cost of living, democracy and voting rights, immigration, health care access and costs, and economic growth and job creation.

This isn't a list that is favorable to the Republican Party, bro.

The party is responsible for increased costs due to Trump's tariffs and elective war,

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