Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico declined to identify himself as the “frontrunner” when CBS Texas asked Friday about his sustained lead in both fundraising and polls in the race against GOP Attorney General Ken Paxton: <\/p>\n
JACK FINK, CBS NEWS: You’ve raised a lot of money for your campaign. You’ve been out advertising all summer on the airwaves. Paxton’s not been on the airwaves. The RealClearPolitics average of polls shows you leading<\/a> by an average of nearly two percentage points over Paxton in a Republican state. Are you the front-runner? And what is your biggest concern going forward about your campaign? JAMES TALARICO, DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE FOR U.S. SENATE: We are going to be the underdogs until the last vote is counted. FINK: Why? TALARICO: Because we are fighting for working people. We’re going up against some of the biggest special interests, some of the biggest billionaire mega-donors in the country, and we’re always going to be the underdog if we’re fighting for working people against those entrenched special interests. And so, yes, we have momentum. Yes, we are building a true movement. Yes, we’ve had thousands of people showing up at our events. We have 59,000 volunteers. And that’s great. It’s why I’m so confident that we’ll be successful in the end. But we are still the underdogs, and we’re going to keep campaigning like we’re five points behind, because if we’re going to go up against those at the top, we’ve got to be ready for that fight.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Here is Talarico’s full interview, where he also discusses the name Paxton has given him, “Tala-freak-o,” and the RNC midterm convention happening this week in Dallas.