On the one hand, Texas Democrats claiming they're going to "Turn Texas Blue" again has become almost but not quite a running perennial gag.
On the other hand, gag or no gag, Democrats are putting a lot of money and effort into it, and Ken Paxton doesn't inspire a lot of confidence in this non-Texan.
Suffice to say they'll have to run a nearly perfect campaign to make a dent in Texas. No unforced errors.
At least until the morning after they take a majority.
Democrats in purple states have learned to keep their real stances on gun control under wraps until they get into power. It's not a mystery.
Colorado Democrats said little or nothing before getting into office, but sprung some of the worst gun control in the country once they got into office.
When he represented a rural Minnesota district in Congress, Tim Walz flaunted an NRA "A" rating - which he stuffed under an oncoming bus the moment he needed to cuddle up with the far left to win the primary, and then the governor's race. The Minnesota DFL has been stymied only by the fact that Minnesota has a large and well-organized gun rights movement.
Which didn't save Virginia. Abby Spanberger ran as a moderate on many issues, guns not the least of them - and promptly jammed down regulations draconian enough to make Illinois say "dial back the crazy, lady".
Texas Democrats have learned the hard way that they can't let the mask of respect for the Constitution slip quite as fast as "Beto" O'Rourke did during his presidential run in 2019:
Presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke reiterated his support for a mandatory gun-buyback program of assault-style rifles on Thursday and said, “Hell, yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47.”
“We’re not going to allow it to be used against our fellow Americans anymore,” the former Texas congressman said during the third Democratic presidential debate, hosted by ABC News.
That had something to do with Texas not "turning blue" back then...
On the one hand, according to our friends at Texas Gun Rights, they're at least making noises that sound like they may have learned a lesson or two:
Texas Democrats just showed gun owners the next phase of their plan to flip Texas. The money is already flowing from George Soros and coastal elites. The targeted races have already been identified by state and national Democrat interests. Now, they’re trying to sell the same radical agenda with a softer label.
At their recent state convention in Corpus Christi, Texas Democrats left confident, organized, and openly focused on breaking Republicans’ three-decade hold on statewide offices. And while party leaders tried to dress it all up as “kitchen table” politics, gun owners shouldn’t be fooled.
The Left’s new message is simple: stop talking about the radical agenda and start pretending this election is only about affordability, schools, health care, and corruption. They even claimed the “culture wars are tired.”
After the examples of Virginia, Colorado, Minnesota and others, pro-gun Democrats (yes, they exist, although goodness only knows why) should be feeling like Charlie Brown hearing Lucy propose just one more place-kick.
The local gun rights crowd urges voters not to be fooled:
“The Texas Democratic convention made one thing clear: the Left believes Texas can be flipped, and they are building the machine to do it,” said Chris McNutt, President of Texas Gun Rights.
“They can call it ‘kitchen table’ politics all they want, but the candidates they are pushing support the same red flag laws, gun registration schemes, AR-15 bans, and attacks on Constitutional Carry that gun owners have rejected for years. Texas Gun Rights is going to make sure voters see the record behind the rebrand.
So on the one hand, it sounds like Texas Democrats are mobilizing money and message.
On the other hand, they - in this case, their Senate candidate James Talarico - may not be off to the best possible start:
🚨 James Talarico is Clown World Texas: Hires “Cocks Not Glocks” Sex Toy Activist to Write His Gun Control Bills 🚨
— Reverend Jordan Wells (@WellsJorda89710) July 9, 2026
This guy literally brought in the woman behind the infamous campus stunt handing out thousands of dildos to protest guns on campus… and put her in charge of… pic.twitter.com/j8qZurQBjC
I mean, as fake as he comes across on everything else, you'd think he'd at least pretend to be moderate on the issue...
