Kristi Noem picked a fight with Kacey Musgraves over the Texas Senate race this week, and it took Musgraves one sentence to end it. “I don’t think you have a dog in this fight but if you did you would have shot it,” the singer wrote on X on Monday.
The line was a reference to Noem’s admission, in her 2024 memoir, that she shot and killed her own 14-month-old dog. The reply drew millions of views. Noem hadn’t responded, Newsweek reported.
What did Kristi Noem say about Kacey Musgraves?
It started at Musgraves’ back-to-back shows at Dallas’ American Airlines Center over the weekend. James Talarico, the Democrat running for U.S. Senate in Texas, sat front row, and Musgraves took a selfie with him from the stage. “Thank you for having me last night, Kacey Musgraves!” Talarico posted afterward, The Hollywood Reporter reported.
Noem, the former South Dakota governor whom President Trump fired as Homeland Security secretary earlier this year, reposted his photos with a jab. “I’ll take [Ella Langley] over Kacey Musgraves any day,” she wrote. “And if I’m choosin’ Texas, I’ll take Ken Paxton over James Talarico.” That was a nod to Ella Langley’s hit “Choosin’ Texas” and an endorsement of Paxton, the Republican nominee.
Musgraves, who was born and raised in Texas, answered Monday afternoon. Then Langley’s account appeared to untag itself from Noem’s post, which one widely shared post called the best part of the whole thing. It isn’t clear whether Langley removed the tag herself. Talarico followed up Monday night with a photo of himself and Musgraves and three words: “Don’t mess with Texas.”
Why did Kristi Noem shoot her dog?
In “No Going Back,” published in 2024, Noem wrote that she shot Cricket, a wirehaired pointer, after deciding the dog was “untrainable” and “dangerous.” The story set off a national backlash, including from Republicans, at a time when she was being talked about as Trump’s running mate. She defended it, and Trump later made her his Homeland Security secretary anyway.
Who’s winning the Texas Senate race?
It’s close, and Talarico has a slight edge. The RealClearPolitics average of polls from Sept. 18 to Oct. 8 has him at 48.1% to Paxton’s 45.3%, Newsweek reported. A New York Times/Siena poll and a YouGov poll each had him up six points in early October, and the Republican-leaning Trafalgar Group had him up 47% to 44%. Texas hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1988.
The BeezLoop Take
Noem started this. She went after a Texas-born singer, uninvited, for letting a candidate sit in the front row of her concert, and she did it as a South Dakotan with a famous story about a dog. Anyone could’ve seen the reply coming.
The dog story keeps sticking to Noem for a reason. It wasn’t a smear; she wrote it herself, as a point of pride. Voters remember what a politician tells them about her own judgment, and Musgraves didn’t have to add a word to it.
The open question: in a Senate race this close, does a viral celebrity moment move any votes, or just fire up people who’d already decided?
Also on BeezLoop: how Ken Paxton survived impeachment by his own party to become the Senate nominee, and Kristi Noem’s divorce filing after 34 years.
Sources: The Hollywood Reporter · Newsweek · MeidasTouch via Yahoo News · Kacey Musgraves on X
