Fox News host Sean Hannity flatly rejected his own network's polling data showing progressive Democrat James Talarico leading Republican Ken Paxton in the Texas Senate race, a moment that laid bare the tension between conservative media instincts and uncomfortable survey results.
The exchange happened Tuesday on Hannity's program, when former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio confronted the host with a Fox News poll published July 30. The survey of 1,006 registered Texas voters found Talarico, a former school teacher and state lawmaker, holding a 3-point lead over Paxton, the state's attorney general. De Blasio didn't let the number sit quietly.
"Did you read your own poll today where Talarico is beating Paxton?" de Blasio asked on air. Hannity's response was blunt: "I don't believe it for two seconds."
Rather than engage with the polling data, Hannity shifted to Talarico's ideology. He zeroed in on the Democrat's past claim that "God is nonbinary" and questioned whether a candidate with progressive views on gender could connect with moderate Texas voters. The pivot was telling, and it sidestepped numbers that should concern every Republican watching the race.
The Fox News survey is not an outlier. A New York Times/Siena College poll conducted in June found Talarico and Paxton deadlocked at 47 percent each. A separate July survey from the Barbara Jordan Public Policy and Research Center gave Talarico a narrow 2-point edge. Three different polling outfits, three results pointing the same direction: a competitive race in a state that should be safe Republican territory.
Fox News' own numbers carried details that cut deeper than the topline. Sixty-three percent of moderate voters surveyed said they were leaning toward Talarico over Paxton. Nearly 60 percent of all respondents said Paxton lacks the personal character to serve as a senator. And most of those polled found Talarico "not very" or "not at all" extreme, a direct rebuke to the framing Hannity tried to build during the segment.
De Blasio tried to redirect the conversation toward pocketbook issues, telling Hannity that voters aren't focused on ideology labels. "But Sean, that's not what people are voting on," de Blasio said. "They're voting on what's happening to their families, and they can't make ends meet."
Hannity, a close ally of President Donald Trump, wasn't buying it. Trump has endorsed Paxton and has sought to paint Talarico and other progressive Democrats as communists. But dismissing your own network's polling operation on live television is a different kind of move, one that trades in wish-casting over data.
Ken Paxton is not a generic Republican nominee. In 2023, Texas state lawmakers, members of his own party, impeached him on corruption charges, alleging he abused his office's power and misused public resources. He was later acquitted. But the political damage didn't end there. Roughly two years after the impeachment saga, his ex-wife Angela filed for divorce on what she described as "biblical grounds," a move that escalated long-held speculation about an extramarital affair.
That personal and political baggage is reflected in the polling. When nearly six in ten voters in your own state question whether you have the character to serve, the problem is not the pollster. It's the candidate.
Talarico, for his part, entered the national spotlight by preaching unity and change through the lens of what he calls his progressive Christian beliefs. He defeated incumbent Democrat Jasmine Crockett in the primary, a result that itself fractured the Texas Democratic establishment. He is not a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, though the source describes him as more progressive than the party's establishment wing.
His "God is nonbinary" remark, which Hannity highlighted during the segment, is the kind of statement that would sink most Democrats running statewide in Texas. That Talarico remains competitive despite it says less about his appeal and more about how much ground Paxton has lost with voters who should be his base.
Talarico has also drawn scrutiny for other remarks. He previously referred to women as "neighbors with a uterus" during his Senate launch, the sort of progressive jargon that typically alienates the middle of the electorate. And yet the polls keep showing him in the lead.
Hannity's instinct to dismiss the poll is understandable in one sense. Texas going blue in a Senate race would be a seismic event, and the idea that a progressive former teacher could beat a Trump-endorsed attorney general in the Lone Star State defies recent political gravity. But three separate polls from three separate organizations all showing the same trend is not a media conspiracy. It's a warning.
The broader pattern of intra-party fractures on the Democratic side, from John Fetterman's public breaks with his party's progressive wing to the kind of ugly infighting that has spilled into town halls, suggests Democrats have their own vulnerabilities. A stronger Republican nominee could exploit those cracks. The question is whether Paxton, weighed down by impeachment, divorce, and character concerns among his own voters, is that nominee.
Mediaite first reported on Hannity's on-air comments. The exchange was brief, but the underlying tension it exposed is not. Conservative media figures face a choice when their own network's data contradicts their preferred narrative: engage with the numbers honestly, or wave them away and hope the audience doesn't notice.
Hannity chose the wave. That might make for good television. It doesn't make for good strategy.
When the polls are the problem, you don't fix the race by arguing with the pollster, you fix the candidate.
