Cato favors free markets, free trade, civil liberties, criminal-justice reform, drug-policy reform, dovish foreign policy, executive-power skepticism, and pro-legal (often near-open) immigration. Paxton wins on tax cuts, deregulation, Second Amendment, school choice, and anti-ESG; loses on drug-war enforcement (Cato has been clear: prohibition fails), forum-shopping abuse of AG power, Trump tariffs, and DACA lawsuits. Talarico wins on marijuana legalization, criminal-justice reform, immigration reform, anti-corruption, free-trade restoration, civil liberties, and church-state separation. He loses on minimum-wage hikes, Medicare buy-in, billionaire tax frameworks, and repealing Citizens United (Cato generally opposes campaign-finance restrictions on speech grounds). Genuine split, narrow edge to Talarico on liberty-of-the-person issues.
Sources
- Ken Paxton for U.S. Senate, official campaign issues page, accessed May 2026. (full list)
- Talarico for Texas, official campaign issues pages (taxes, education, healthcare, immigration, social media/AI, freedom-family-faith, public-safety-justice, corruption-democracy, labor-business), accessed May 2026. (full list)
- Texas Attorney General, 'Attorney General Ken Paxton Sues Five Cities Over Marijuana Policies,' Jan. 2024; lawsuit against Dallas Proposition R, Nov. 2024. (full list)