Texas state Rep. James Talarico has “stupid” Republicans to thank for boosting his Democratic primary campaign and helping secure him a spot in the November election for the Senate, Joe Scarborough said.
Rising star Talarico prevailed against Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett in Tuesday’s closely watched Texas primary, which was a toss-up until the very end as the pair alternated between leading in the polls.
Talarico, however, benefitted from Republicans trying to “game the system,” as they tried to suppress a late-night interview featuring Talarico, and unleashed massive voter confusion with county rule changes.
“I swear, I just wish these Republicans weren’t so stupid,” Scarborough said. “The very person they were trying to defeat, the very person whose message scared them, is the very person who they helped win this race. It just keeps happening over and over.”
The Late Show host Stephen Colbert interviewed Talarico last month, but lawyers at the newly MAGA-friendly CBS said the segment could only air online because under President Donald Trump, the FCC has begun enforcing its “equal-time rule” for political candidates.
As a result, the interview has been seen more than 9 million times on YouTube, with many commenters saying they were drawn to the clip precisely because of the controversy, and Talarico raised about $2.5 million worth of donations in just one day.
Crockett herself has acknowledged that Talarico benefitted from the controversy, Scarborough added.
“They think they can game the system,” he said. “They think that, somehow, they’re going to be able to win in the end. Voters have the final say.”
The Republican candidates are headed to an expensive run-off after neither of the top two candidates—incumbent Sen. John Cornyn and the scandal-plagued state Attorney General Ken Paxton—secured more than 50 percent of the vote.
Democrats are hoping Paxton wins, potentially setting up the most competitive Senate race in Texas in decades.
Scarborough warned, though, that the confusion Republicans unleashed on Democratic voters in the Texas primary was a “test run” for the midterms.
“They’re going to try time and time again to confuse Democratic voters, to try to do whatever they can to stop them from voting,” he said.
