Cross-Party Endorsements: Midterm Candidates Seek Bipartisan Support

Midterm candidates in multiple states are promoting support from opponents of their own party in the final stretch of the election.

Democratic candidates in Alaska, Kansas, and Texas have publicized endorsements from Republican officials. In Alaska, Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski endorsed Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins on Tuesday. In Kansas, former Republican governors Bill Graves and Mike Hayden backed Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Adam Hamilton in September and October. The campaign for Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico in Texas reported that more than 24 former GOP officials have joined his support.

Kel Seliger, a former GOP state senator in Texas, added his endorsement to Talarico this week. Seliger chose Talarico over Republican candidate Ken Paxton, the current Attorney General. “I’ve served with both people,” Seliger said. “James Talarico is not some wild-eyed socialist and he may believe in a lot of things that Democratic Party believes in that I don’t. But I think he’s going to be honest. And I think he’s going to be frank and direct. I think that the things that he does are going to be what is best for Texas. Not what’s best for Elon Musk.”

Republican officials also expect voters to cross party lines. Natalie Baldassarre, national press secretary for the Republican National Committee, pointed to races in Michigan and Texas where candidates from both parties are seeking independent or opposing party voters. She cited the “Democrats for Mike Rogers” coalition as an example of this trend. Baldassarre noted that this cycle sees more cross-party engagement in contests such as Mike Rogers against Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan and Ken Paxton against James Talarico in Texas.

Joshua Blank, research director for the Texas Politics Project, said cross-party voting usually affects only a small slice of the electorate. “We’re not talking about a large group of Republicans crossing party lines to vote for Democrats, or a large group of Democrats possibly crossing party lines to vote for Republicans,” Blank said. “We’re ultimately talking about what are kind of idiosyncratic behaviors they’re going to take place among a small, small share of the electorate.”

Blank added that these individual choices could matter if races are close. Recent polling indicates that several midterm contests have narrowed to statistically tied margins in the final days before the November vote.