Ken Paxton‘s former personal lawyer is bucking his high-profile client to endorse Democratic candidate James Talarico for Texas’s U.S. Senate seat.
After Paxton’s GOP runoff victory against incumbent Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), Texas solidified the long-awaited matchup between Trump-endorsed Paxton and vocal Christian Democrat Talarico in late May. The Lone Star State’s 2026 Senate race has drawn national attention and donations, as Democrats aim to flip the state blue with Talarico and Republicans aim to send MAGA-hardliner Paxton to Washington, D.C.
In a race where endorsements have been central, Houston defense attorney Dan Cogdell’s backing of Talarico, which was reported by NOTUS but confirmed to the Washington Examiner, comes as a bit of a surprise, as he defended Paxton in his 2023 impeachment trial and has donated to his campaign, according to Federal Election Commission data. NOTUS reported that Cogdell, who has made statements denouncing Trump, said Paxton “has lost sight of his core mission, which is to represent the people of Texas.”
“Unlike Ken, I believe to my core that James Talarico believes in unity over division and that he knows how to assemble not only Democrats, but Independents and Republicans, and we need that right now,” Cogdell told NOTUS.
The Washington Examiner has reached out to the Paxton and Talarico campaigns for comment.
The race, which has already broken records for the amount of funding spent in the primaries alone, is set to be one of the most expensive and dramatic races of the 2026 election cycle as Talarico and Paxton duke it out for the seat after Cornyn fell in the GOP runoff.
THE GOP’S ‘LOW-T’ STRATEGY AGAINST TALARICO IN TEXAS
Paxton is hitting Talarico hard for comments he has made about transgender people and meat-eating, while Talarico is coming right back with a focus on Paxton’s legal scandals and impeachment. Each is pitting the other as too radical for Texas.
The polling on the general election matchup so far has been within single digits, swinging the favor between the two candidates.