Texas Democrat James Talarico is under scrutiny for a nine-day disappearance from the campaign trail weeks before the Senate vote — bad for his credibility, though polls still favor him over Ken Paxton.

• Talarico says he was out with the flu, but gave two different accounts of where he was treated — urgent care in one telling, his own doctor in another.
• A former Secret Service interrogator's read of the interview flags the shifting story, stiff posture, odd smiling, and repeated use of "we" as classic stress signals, while stopping short of calling it a lie.
• An unverified claim circulated that he was at an Ohio mental health facility; the center says he was never treated there, though a lawyer notes the wording could be technically true and still incomplete.
• No receipt or medical record has been produced to back up either version of the flu story.
• The timing is the real problem — an unexplained absence in October, days before voting, in the third-biggest race of the midterms.

Outlook: The race is decided November 3, and Talarico is still the favorite — committed supporters are unlikely to be moved by the inconsistency.