Sunny Hostin predicted on “The View” that James Talarico will flip Texas blue, citing polls putting him ahead of Ken Paxton, a claim Republicans brushed aside.
Fox News reported that the ABC talk show’s co-hosts spent Thursday weighing the Texas U.S. Senate race and whether Democrats can finally break a long Republican hold on statewide office.
Hostin said voters will send Democrat James Talarico to the Senate over Republican Ken Paxton and turn the Lone Star State blue in November. She pointed to September polling that, in her telling, already showed a clear opening.
A Democrat has not won statewide office in Texas in 30 years. That history framed the entire exchange, even as Hostin insisted the numbers now favor her side.
Hostin did not hedge. She told the panel Texas would change hands and Talarico would win.
"I think we will. I think we will see Texas go blue, actually. I really do,"
She then walked through the figures she said backed that call.
"In September, not only one, but eight pollsters had Talarico ahead 51-45%. That is so significant given that a Democrat hasn't won statewide office in 30 years."
Hostin added that the same survey showed Talarico leading among women 56% to 40%, among voters 18 to 29 by 66% to 22%, and among Hispanics 62% to 30%. “We’re talking about Texas. He’s going to win this race,” she said.
Co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin tied the competitive map to voter frustration with current leadership and called the moment “a mess of the president’s own making.” She still said the race could go either way, while arguing Sen. John Cornyn would have been a stronger Republican nominee than Paxton.
"I mean, the fact that Texas is in play speaks to the moment right now that people are so frustrated with the current leadership,"
Griffin continued that a Democrat has not won statewide in Texas in over 30 years, yet described a “perfect storm” that left the seat unsettled.
Not everyone on the set shared Hostin’s certainty. Whoopi Goldberg and Ana Navarro cast doubt on how much weight to give the favorable Democratic numbers.
Navarro recalled the shock of 2016 and urged Democrats to convert hope into actual votes rather than relax.
"I have hope. People should have hope, but hope alone won't win an election. People got to turn hope into vote. And I don't think they, you know, relying on polls and just kind of sitting back and getting complacent is something that nobody can afford to do if they want to see change."
Navarro’s caution underscored a basic point the panel could not escape: Texas has stayed red at the statewide level for three decades, and talk-show forecasts do not change ballots.
An October Fox News poll of likely Texas voters found Talarico ahead of Paxton 51% to 49%, a gap inside the margin of sampling error. The same survey gave Talarico a net positive personal rating of 8 points (52% favorable, 44% unfavorable). Paxton sat underwater by 18 points (40% favorable, 58% unfavorable).
Republicans in the poll were six times more likely to view Paxton unfavorably (32%) than Democrats were to view Talarico unfavorably (5%). Likely voters split almost evenly on which party should control the Senate, 49% preferred Democrats, 50% preferred Republicans. Eight percent of self-identified Republicans preferred Democratic control, while only 1% of Democrats crossed over to the GOP.
Those numbers explain why Hostin sounded confident and why Griffin called Texas “in play.” They also explain why any celebration remains premature. A two-point edge inside the error margin is not a mandate.
Talarico has already faced pressure to explain shifts in his own record, including moments when he admitted he missed the mark on gender, theology, and taxes while the race tightened.
President Donald Trump endorsed Paxton after the attorney general won the GOP primary. On Wednesday the two appeared together at Freeman Coliseum in San Antonio. Both pointed to Talarico’s absence from the trail during that stretch of the campaign.
Talarico’s campaign said he had been sick with the flu and expected to return this weekend. Paxton’s campaign did not immediately return a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
The missing days became another point of attack, with Trump and Paxton questioning the gap on the Texas Senate trail while they kept their own events moving.
Republican National Committee spokesman Zach Kraft answered the on-air predictions with a blunt dismissal of the messengers.
"Anyone taking seriously what Sunny Hostin and Alyssa Farah Griffin say about politics likely has a low enough IQ to qualify as a guest host on ‘The View,’"
Kraft’s statement drew a hard line between daytime television commentary and the voters who have kept Texas in Republican hands for a generation. Paxton enters the closing stretch as the Trump-endorsed nominee with a primary victory already behind him. Talarico enters it as the candidate Hostin insists can end that streak.
Outside endorsements have continued to line up behind the Republican. Cowboys Hall of Famer Randy White backed Ken Paxton and said Talarico cannot be trusted, adding another familiar Texas voice to the GOP side of the ledger.
Talarico has also spent recent weeks walking back earlier progressive stances as the contest hardened, a pattern tracked as the Democrat reversed years of progressive positions while trying to broaden his appeal.
Hostin treated September’s cluster of surveys and the demographic breakdowns as proof the dam is breaking. Griffin treated the mere fact of a close race as evidence of leadership failure in Washington. Navarro treated both the hope and the risk of complacency as reasons to keep organizing. The October Fox News survey left the horse race essentially tied and showed Paxton’s favorability lagging even as the partisan split on Senate control stayed even.
Texas voters, not morning-show panels, will settle whether three decades of statewide Republican wins end in November.
Daytime predictions make for lively television. They have never been a substitute for the judgment of Texas voters who still decide who represents them.
