ABC’s The View co-host Sunny Hostin declared Texas will go blue and Democrat James Talarico will win his Senate race, even as late polls showed a dead heat and his campaign went quiet.
Breitbart reported that Hostin cited September polling on air and told viewers Talarico is headed for victory against Republican Ken Paxton in the Texas U.S. Senate contest.
Hostin did not hedge. She framed the race as a coming Democratic breakthrough in a state Republicans have held for years.
“I think we will see Texas go blue,” Hostin said.
"I think we will see Texas go blue,"
She added that Talarico “is going to win this race.”
"is going to win this race."
That confidence landed while an end-of-September poll had Talarico and Paxton sitting at 48 percent each.
Not every panelist shared Hostin’s certainty. Whoopi Goldberg pushed back on the idea of a locked-in win and pointed to past election shocks.
“We’ve seen this before,” Goldberg said.
"We’ve seen this before,"
She added that a surprise figure can still upend the story: “And suddenly some weird number comes out and we say, ‘What happened?'”
"And suddenly some weird number comes out and we say, ‘What happened?'"
Ana Navarro sided with the caution and tied it to 2016, when Donald Trump’s win over Hillary Clinton stunned many Democrats.
“You’re not kidding. 2016 left me scarred,” Navarro said.
"You’re not kidding. 2016 left me scarred."
Navarro told viewers hope is not a substitute for turnout. “People should have hope, but hope alone won’t win an election. People gotta turn hope into votes.”
"People should have hope, but hope alone won’t win an election. People gotta turn hope into votes."
She also warned against leaning on surveys and sitting out the work. “Relying on polls and kind of sitting back and getting complacent is something that nobody can afford to do if they want to see change.”
Former Democratic governor Rod Blagojevich took the opposite line from Hostin’s optimism. In an X post, he said voters should ignore the numbers and reject talk of a Democratic wave.
“Don’t believe the polls. There will be no blue wave. Once again, fake polling, designed, not to inform but to persuade & suppress turnout, are misleading voters,” Blagojevich wrote.
"Don’t believe the polls. There will be no blue wave. Once again, fake polling, designed, not to inform but to persuade & suppress turnout, are misleading voters,"
He cited his own record. “I know what I’m talking about. As a twice elected Dem governor and 3 time elected Dem Congressman, I never lost an election.”
The clash matters because Hostin’s on-air prediction treated soft September leads as destiny, while the dead-heat poll and Blagojevich’s warning pointed the other way. Texas voters still decide Senate seats at the ballot box, not on daytime television.
While The View talked up a blue Texas, Talarico’s campaign hit a different note on the ground. With only a few weeks left in the race, he cancelled several events on a Thursday and left the trail with no new stops scheduled.
His campaign said he had “the flue” and was taking time off to recover. The explanation did little to quiet critics who wanted him answering questions in public, a theme that also runs through coverage of Paxton pressing Talarico for proof of life after a long stretch off the trail.
Paxton’s side turned the disappearance into a jab, circulating a “missing” poster about Talarico’s sudden exit from campaign events. That mockery fits a wider Republican push that includes moments when Trump and Paxton called out Talarico for vanishing from voters’ view.
A candidate selling a historic statewide flip usually stays visible. Cancelling stops and offering a flu claim, while national TV hosts project a blue Texas, hands the GOP a simple contrast: talk in the studio versus absence on the trail.
Hostin’s September numbers, as she described them on air, had Talarico ahead in several ways. The end-of-September survey that put both men at 48 percent undercut any claim of a runaway race.
Tied races reward turnout machines, message discipline, and candidates who show up. They punish campaigns that go dark and allies who treat early leads as finished business. Navarro’s own warning about complacency underlines that point, even if she still wants Democrats to convert hope into votes.
Talarico also carries progressive baggage that has already forced course-corrections, including when he admitted he missed the mark on gender, theology, and taxes as the contest heated up. In a 48, 48 race, those stumbles stay live issues rather than footnotes.
Republican validators have hammered trust and fitness for office as well. That includes high-profile backing such as when a Cowboys Hall of Famer backed Paxton and said Talarico cannot be trusted.
Paxton has faced his own campaign turbulence, including fretting over outside players, as noted when he worried he lost grip as old D.C. foes stepped in. Even so, a tied poll and an opponent off the trail are not the raw materials of a Democratic coronation.
The View segment offered viewers a familiar pattern: a co-host elevates a progressive favorite, projects a map-changing win, and treats favorable survey chatter as proof. Goldberg and Navarro at least remembered 2016. Hostin’s closer, Texas going blue, Talarico winning, did not.
Texas remains a large, diverse electorate with a long Republican run in statewide federal races. Declaring a flip from a studio couch does not move rural counties, suburban ticket-splitters, or conservatives who still back Paxton’s law-and-order record.
Blagojevich’s charge that some polling aims to persuade and suppress turnout is a claim, not a proven finding in the available material. What the record does show is simpler. One co-host promised a blue Texas. A late poll showed a tie. The Democratic nominee cancelled events and left the trail while his opponent turned the absence into a punch line.
Daytime TV can crown a winner early. Texas voters still get the final say, and they tend to notice who shows up.
