I believe the tl;dr is: while the Glorious Geezer’s popularity ratings in the country as a whole sucks, his cult still is a driving force in the GOP.
MAGA showed up to vote Paxton. The rest of the GOP base, such as it is, decided not to show up at all. If that holds in the general Paxton is toast. If GOP voters who skipped the primary hold their nose and vote for Paxton we might get yet another bat shit crazy and exceedingly corrupt Senator from the MAGA party.
If you had told me a year ago that the Texas Senate race would be competitive, I would have thought you were crazy. But:
In the 2020 and 2024 TX Senate elections combined, the Democratic candidate led in a poll only once, by 1 point in September 2024, with another poll conducted at the exact same time having Cruz up 3. Talarico has led Paxton in 6 of the 7 polls taken so far, the one exception being a tie. To be fair, only 1 of those 7 was conducted after the primary, but that is far better than the previous candidates.
In terms of messaging, Paxton has so far called Talarico a vegan (he’s not) and low-T. Trump has called him trans. Talarico, on the other hand, has run ads talking about Paxton’s 3 indictments, his impeachment (including 60 Republican votes to impeach), his use of government resources to help his mistress, etc. I have to think one of those has more staying power, and also think the vegan, Tofu Talarico type of attacks require a personality like Trump’s to pull off, and Paxton doesn’t have that.
Texas feels like Lucy and Charlie Brown with the football, but maybe this time it will be different.