Ken Paxton turned down the invitation. James Talarico accepted it.
That decision left the Texas Democrat on his own Wednesday night for a 90-minute forum run by CNN and Jubilee, where voters sat directly across from him and challenged his positions one by one.
CNN moderator Erin Burnett told the audience that Paxton, the Republican Senate candidate, had declined to take part.
The questions covered a wide range.
Participants asked Talarico about voter identification laws, the growing national debt, transgender medical procedures involving minors and the role of religion in public policy.
Abortion produced the sharpest exchange of the night.
Talarico, a Democratic state lawmaker and Christian seminarian, opened that discussion himself.
He told the room that “the Bible is silent on the issue of abortion.” He said his faith leaves him free to support legal access to the procedure.
He also pointed to “certain policy levers,” naming contraception access and sex education. Talarico said those measures could lower the number of abortions without legal restrictions.
Jody Hunt answered next. A Catholic voter, Hunt described herself as a single-issue voter.
“I just want to add that the Bible is not silent on abortion. There is the 10 Commandments: ‘Thou shall not kill,’” Hunt said.
She kept going. “And as Catholics, we take great insult, I guess sometimes, when it’s described that way.”
Hunt made clear that Catholics who oppose abortion do not automatically share his reading of Scripture.
She then took on his policy proposals, including what Talarico called “age-appropriate sex education.”
Hunt described those ideas as a “very trying thing” for Catholics, especially if government policy cuts into the role parents play in their children’s education.
“We believe the parents are the primary educators of our children, and so, one of the things that we really struggle with is having any government interference with how we educate our children,” she said.
Hunt closed on a note of partial agreement.
“So I know we’re going to agree to disagree on that, but I do appreciate your comments on tending to the life from the womb to the tomb, and I think that’s one common ground we can come to.”
Talarico held his position. “If I believed that [abortion] was murder, that it violated the 10 Commandments, then I wouldn’t support it,” he said.
He moved from there to Texas law. Talarico argued that the state’s abortion restrictions have put women with pregnancy complications in danger.
He said the ban has led to “women dying in emergency room parking lots.” The report on the forum did not include specific cases backing that claim.
“And so, if we are authentically pro-life, I think we should be disturbed by the outcomes of this extreme abortion ban,” Talarico said.
Faith has run through Talarico’s political career. He has regularly cited religious teachings when defending progressive policies.
The race itself is tight. The RealClearPolitics polling average cited in the report shows Talarico ahead of Paxton by 2.6 percentage points.
History stands in his way. No Democrat has won a U.S. Senate election in Texas since 1988.
