A new New York Times poll today has some surprising findings in close Senate races: South Carolina is basically a tie at 48 percent for Sen. Darline Graham and the same for Annie Andrews.
asserted
Carolina → have → Andrews
Democrats’ main hope for next week’s elections is to win enough seats to put a check on Donald Trump.
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hope → win → Trump
But in Texas, James Talarico is trying to create a Democratic template for another problem: How to deal with Elon Musk.
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Talarico → try → Musk
There is no preexisting playbook for dealing with Musk, because Musk is something new in American political life.
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Musk → be → life
It’s not just that he’s the richest man in the world and the biggest individual donor in American history.
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he → ’ → history
(Musk’s political expenditures since 2024 have already surpassed George Soros’s campaign contributions over his entire lifetime.)
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expenditures → surpass → lifetime
It’s also his extraordinary level of engagement.
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It → ’ → engagement
If Musk decides he wants a Democrat gone, he doesn’t just throw a bunch of money behind that Democrat’s opponent—he makes it his personal mission to stamp him out.
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it → decide → him
This cycle, Musk has trained his sights on Talarico.
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Musk → train → Talarico
Of the astonishing $446 million he has plowed into the midterms, around $180 billion has gone to the Texas Senate race—financial life support that Talarico’s opponent Ken Paxton has desperately needed.
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opponent → plow → that
Most billionaire political donors would be content to throw their lucre into a PAC to buy up a bunch of ad time and call it a day.
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donors → throw → it
Musk goes further.
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Musk → go → ?
Some of the dirtiest tricks of the cycle seem to be connected to his spending.
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Some → seem → spending
Last week, I wrote about a Wyoming group calling itself the Texas Transgender Student Union (TTSU) and its apparent attempt to gin up a new trans panic by impersonating a genuine Texas trans-rights group, the Transgender Education Network of Texas (TENT), and sending inflammatory mailers to Texas Republican voters.
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I → write → voters
TENT sued, and yesterday, Texas reporter Steven Monacelli reported that TTSU had retained an interesting lawyer: Chris Hilton, who defended Ken Paxton during his impeachment and represents Musk in a defamation lawsuit against the organization Media Matters.
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who → sue → organization
The trillionaire has other megaphones.
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trillionaire → have → megaphones
On X, where he has 240 million followers and owns the algorithms that ensure everyone sees his posts, he has tweeted, retweeted, or replied to tweets attacking Talarico more than forty times in the last 20 days.
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he → have → days
That number doesn’t include all the attacks Musk’s shared without mentioning the candidate.
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number → include → candidate
Talarico “hates Texas and America.”
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Talarico → hat → Texas
There is something “deeply wrong” with “the creep” Talarico who “supports voting fraud” and “wants to trans your kids and destroy the border.”
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who → be → border
This last is a recurring theme: Musk has repeatedly claimed that Talarico “will vote to take away your children and transition them.”
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Talarico → recur → them
Democrats have wealthy donors of their own, of course.
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Democrats → have → course
But there’s nothing they can do to match Musk in raw wealth and raw rage.
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they → ’ → wealth
Democrats have only one hope: to poison his donations by turning his involvement in their races into a major liability for the Republicans he supports.
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he → have → Republicans
That’s exactly what Talarico has been trying to do lately.
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Talarico → ’ → what
In his stump speeches and campaign ads over the last week, the Texas Democrat has gone hard after Musk’s enormous investments in Texas, casting him as a shadowy figure single-handedly propping up Paxton’s campaign for his own ends.
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Democrat → go → ends
“In all likelihood, if you’ve seen an attack ad on your screen, that was Elon.
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that → see → screen
If you’ve gotten lies in your mailbox, that was Elon.
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that → get → mailbox
If you’ve received a text message saying scary things about me, that was Elon too,” Talarico has been saying on the stump.
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Talarico → receive → stump
“Elon Musk wants our land.
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Musk → want → land
He wants our water.
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He → want → water
He wants our taxpayer dollars.
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He → want → dollars
He wants his very own personal United States senator.
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He → want → senator
He is trying to buy Texas.
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He → try → Texas
But on Nov. 3, we are going to send a very clear message to the world’s first trillionaire: Texas is not for sale.
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we → go → sale
These sorts of messages can resonate.
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sorts → resonate → messages
Think of the success Republicans have had railing against Soros over the years, or the success many Democrats found in primaries just months ago castigating donations from AIPAC.
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Democrats → think → AIPAC
Nobody really likes to think about the way money shapes our politics—and Musk, the hard-right tech mogul who has tied himself so tightly to MAGA, is a more contemptible target than most.
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who → like → most
Last year, his heavy spending in a Wisconsin Supreme Court contest turned the backwater race into a referendum on Musk himself—a referendum he lost when the race’s liberal judge won.
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judge → turn → Musk
Talarico had better hope he can do the same thing again.
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he → do → thing
…and 58 more, not listed.
The Aporia
