"Yellow dog" voters are back big-time.

Who?

In the run-up to the 1892 presidential election, journalist C. H. J. Taylor used the term to refer to western Republicans who, he wrote in The American Citizen, "would vote for a yellow dog out there if he was named Republican."

In a 1956 voter survey, an Arkansan told Life Magazine, "We're pretty much yellow-dog Democrats here," explaining his state would vote for a Democratic "yellow dog" rather than any Republican on the ballot.

Now in 2026, it appears Texas Republicans are ready to vote for the state's attorney general in the Senate race despite a record of fraud and corruption. The Republican nominee, Ken Paxton, was indicted on felony securities fraud charges but avoided trial by agreeing to community service, ethics courses and a restitution payment of over a quarter million dollars. He was impeached by the Republican-led Texas House for bribery and abuse of office. Although acquitted by the Texas Senate, the sordid details were clear. The state of Texas paid over $6 million to settle a whistleblower retaliation suit against him. Last summer his wife filed for divorce on "biblical grounds," widely understood to mean adultery, but in the wake of Paxton's primary victory, a potentially messy public trial was abruptly canceled.

Former Rep. Joe Barton, who represented a North Texas district for over 30 years, will be supporting Paxton, saying, "There is no way on God's green earth I'm going to turn around and vote for the Democratic candidate." He is not alone. A recent poll shows Paxton running neck-and-neck with James Talarico, the Democratic nominee and the holder of a master of divinity degree from the Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

Holy mackerel! Paxton is a reincarnated yellow dog if ever there was one.

Self-righteous Democrats ought not be patting themselves on the back. As sure as there are plenty of yellow dog Republican voters in the South, there are plenty of yellow dog Democrats in the North.

Marine Corps veteran Graham Platner is the certain Democratic nominee for a race against longtime Maine Sen. Susan Collins. In social media posts between 2013 and 2021, he labeled himself a "communist" and wrote that all cops are bastards. Recently, The New York Times and Wall Street Journal reported Platner sent sexual messages to multiple women even after his marriage in 2023.

Perhaps most damning was the disclosure last October that Platner had a tattoo of the Totenkopf, death head emblem of the Nazi SS, emblazoned on his chest. Notwithstanding his protestations that he didn't know its symbolism, CNN reported Platner had previously defended the Nazi symbol on social media where he discussed the Totenkopf by name. His former political director disclosed that Platner had known it was a liability, and an acquaintance claimed Platner was not only aware of the tattoo's meaning but had previously called it "my Totenkopf."

Former Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders doubled down on Platner this month, confirming he still backed him. "Of course," he said. "Why would I not?" Also this month, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer reminded reporters he had already endorsed Platner and said, "We're going to beat Susan Collins and take back the Senate."

Not every Democratic officeholder is a yellow dog Democrat, however. At least one rising star in the party has drawn a line.

In January, conservative columnist George Will wrote that the Democratic Party's future "should be based on candidates who understand that U.S. politics, when healthy, takes place between the 40-yard lines, contesting the center of the field." He pointed to Jake Auchincloss, a 38-year-old Marine veteran who now represents a Massachusetts district as a Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Auchincloss finds "Platner's Nazi tattoo and his commentary about it... disqualifying" for membership in the U.S. Senate. "Values and principles always come before party," he says. "We saw Republicans forget that lesson with Donald Trump in 2016 and how much damage it's done to the country." He will not endorse the Republican, Collins, whom he calls a "rubber stamp for the worst admin in history," but he cannot support Platner either.

What's remarkable is that a Democratic member of Congress such as Auchincloss believes there's a price too high to win a majority for his party in Congress. If the price to win that majority in the Senate is embracing Nazi symbols, he believes it's not worth it.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt said, "We must remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred, is a wedge designed to attack our civilization." President John F. Kennedy won a Pulitzer Prize for his book titled "Profiles in Courage." Whether symbols or words, whether explicit or implicit, support for Nazism, violence, antisemitism, racism and Islamophobia is not what the party of FDR and JFK should stand for. Winning at any price is a price too high.

My father fought in the U.S. Army against the Nazis in World War II. He'd be the first to say embracing Nazi symbols is not the way to support the Republic he fought for. Jake Auchincloss was a Marine fighting against the Taliban in Afghanistan. He stands with my dad.

There's a red line Auchincloss won't cross. Yellow dogs have no such lines.

A renaissance man, Keith Raffel has served as the senior counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee, started a successful internet software company, and had six books published including five novels and a collection of his columns. He currently spends the academic year as a resident scholar at Harvard. You can learn more about him at keithraffel.com. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at creators.com.

DIST. BY CREATORS

Photo credit: Conner Darnell at Unsplash