DAVID MARCUS: In Dallas, voters weigh two Senate primaries and now, a war

David MarcusSun, March 1, 2026 at 3:32 PM UTC

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It was almost the perfect microcosm for current American politics when I met Lizbeth, a lovely young Latina woman who had spent 10 minutes chanting along at the wrong rally.

She thought she was attending an anti-Trump event that I had also come to cover. Instead there was a small group of mostly Iranians yelling, "No Mullahs, No Shahs!" in support of dissident leader Maryam Rajavi, and for a while, Lizbeth just joined in.

It was easy to sense in Dallas, just by talking to people, that our strikes on Iran were overshadowing what had been a pair of U.S. Senate primaries and capturing not just the imagination of Texas but of the nation.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton believed that he could beat longtime Sen. John Cornyn, even without President Donald Trump's endorsement. (Getty Images)

I met John and Jill, who have both worked for the same insurance company for over 20 years and are about to be empty nesters with a plan to move to the beach in Alabama. He is a Republican and she is a Democrat, a situation I find much more often than people might expect.

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Notably, before delving into Texas politics as we casually watched coverage of the NFL combine, the three of us toasted the death of Ayatollah Khamenei, with John tossing in, "Not a moment too soon."

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I’ll be honest, it took all of my banter and Irish charm to try to find out who they supported. In fact, Jill wouldn’t spill the beans at all, but John told me he voted for Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and expects him to win, though he looked a bit nervous when he said it.

"He’s steady, we all know him, I think he’ll pull it out," John said. But when I asked if he had friends frustrated by the moderate senator who were voting for the more MAGA-aligned Attorney General Ken Paxton, he smiled, nodded and said, "Yeah, for sure."

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Jill was more circumspect, as if she intuitively sensed that the division between supporters of Rep. Jasmine Crockett and state Rep. James Talarico made it dangerous to state an opinion.

"The main thing is to get someone in there who can fight Trump, someone who can turn Texas blue again," she said. When I pressed if that was the more apparently "moderate" Talarico, she just shot me a look that said, "You don’t get to know that."

State Rep. James Talarico shakes hands with Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett at a debate in Georgetown, Texas, on Jan. 24, 2026.

Chopping it up with John and Jill took me back to a conversation I had with Rajiv, one of the leaders of the anti-regime rally earlier that day, "We just want democracy in Iran," he told me. "There is just so much joy today with the ayatollah gone."

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It made me wonder if we sometimes hold our own democracy and freedoms a bit cheap.

Soon, John, Jill and I were joined in our conversation by Lari, a young woman in her 20s who is also in a politically divided relationship, this time between her, who voted for Talarico, and her boyfriend, who wasn’t present, who pulled the lever for Crockett.

"I just think he has the best chance to win," she told us, music to the ears of Stephen Colbert and every other left-wing haircut who thinks the Bible-quoting Beto O’Rourke 2.0 can pull it out. But she added, "I really love Crockett."

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Electability is a funny thing. Both the Talarico and Cornyn camps are counting on it to be the driving force that gets them over the top. But electability can also be a bit like a Greek tragedy, because sometimes it is the safe choice that leaves new potential voters on the sidelines.

It was plain to me that Lari had voted with her head, not her heart, and that might best describe the vibe of the Democratic contest. In such cases, I always tend to think the heart has the inside track.

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"I feel pretty stupid," Lizbeth told me, as we parted ways after her accidental moments as an anti-Iranian regime protester. I told her not to. "Hey," I said, "you took some time before work to try to make the world a better place. That’s nothing to be ashamed of."

Lizbeth nodded and smiled, "That’s true," she said, her handmade sign folded in her hands.

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"Oh, by the way," I called out, as she was walking away, "who are you voting for in the Senate race?"

She thought for a moment and told me, "I haven’t decided," which means over the next three days, every candidate still has work to do, and still has a chance to be celebrating on Tuesday night.

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