The polls are getting louder. Senate candidate James Talarico might very well be the first Democrat elected to Texas statewide office in more than 30 years. An Oct. 3 New York Times/Siena College poll puts Talarico ahead of state Attorney General Ken Paxton by 6 percentage points.

That’s not the only poll declaring the Democratic state legislator the front-runner in the race for a U.S. Senate seat. In September, eight pollsters had Talarico ahead of Republican Paxton in the Nov. 3 midterm elections by various degrees.

Whether these polls come true remains to be seen. As we have learned time and again, polls aren’t always trustworthy. But one thing is clear: Talarico is moving the needle in a state known as a GOP stronghold. Even if we don’t know the outcome yet, it’s clear that he’s making Republicans sweat in a state they normally wouldn’t worry about.

It’s not hard to understand why people like Talarico. The seminarian and member of the state House of Representatives is delivering a message of hope and progress, one that Texas Democrats have longed to hear for years now.

“Talarico is a good campaigner,” Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston, told me. “He is efficient on the stump, he is disciplined when it comes to messaging, and he’s got just enough of a fresh approach that people are........

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