BRYAN, Texas (KBTX) – Early voting for the Texas Primary Runoff begins Monday, May 18, with voters set to decide key races from the local to the federal level.
The upcoming election means political ads will once again dominate the airwaves and social media feeds, trying to prop up one candidate — usually by cutting down another.
It’s not an unusual strategy when it’s one party against the other, but when it’s the same side, it can make a difficult decision for voters even harder.
“John Cornyn, I think, for a long time before the runoff, was really focused on pro-John Cornyn ads that emphasized his Senate record and emphasized the number of times he voted with President Trump and his agenda,” Texas A&M Political Scientist Soren Jordan said. “Since then, though, it’s been a lot of negativity, especially about both candidates’ characters, but really in particular from John Cornyn messaging about Ken Paxton’s transgressions in the past, specifically out of office with respect to his character.”
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick weighed in on the race in April, hoping Republicans would rally behind whatever candidate wins the runoff.
Jordan points out that, unlike a general election, voter turnout is much more limited.
“[It] tends to be concentrated amongst a very small slice of the electorate who cares a bunch about policy-related issues. So there’s not a whole lot of space between these two candidates to try and convince that electorate that one of them is more conservative than the other one.”
While the negativity could prove to sway voters in the primary, the nominee will still need to be the Democratic nominee, James Talarico. Jordan believes the strategy of running negative ads among the Republicans will benefit Talarico when it comes to November.
“One of his key campaign planks has really been about overcoming political negativity. With every single time that people are exposed to one of these ads, you can see it in two ways: that’s one more addition to the pool of things that Talarico is trying to argue people are maybe tired of in terms of modern polarized politics, but it’s also another negative thing about his eventual opponent that he doesn’t have to say himself out loud.”
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