Talarico became famous with viral videos. Can Republicans turn that against him?
James Talarico rode viral video fame to the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in Texas. Now Republicans want to turn years of candid on-camera musings against him.
Conservatives are digging through Talarico’s social media history and finding a trove of progressive commentary on hot-button cultural issues like race, gender, religion and immigration. They hope it will torpedo his candidacy in a red state like Texas that Democrats have spent decades struggling to turn blue.
Talarico was a state legislator barely known outside his district before he started building a national profile by making himself ubiquitous. He sat for lengthy podcast interviews and posted heavily on social media. The grandson of a Baptist preacher and a seminary student himself, Talarico often makes a Biblical case for progressive policies, using a gift of gab that many Democrats believe will help him connect with voters across Texas.
It’s also given his critics hours and hours of material to mine. And after he defeated Rep. Jasmine Crockett in the Democratic primary on Tuesday, conservatives started uploading an arsenal of video clips.
“God is nonbinary,” Talarico once said during a legislative floor speech. He later explained that he was being “a little provocative” to make the theological point that “God is beyond gender.”
“Our southern border should be like our front porch. There should be a giant welcome mat out front,” Talarico said in a clip that cuts off the rest of his sentence — “and a lock on the door.”
“Radicalized white men are the greatest domestic terrorist threat in our country,” Talarico wrote five years ago in a post lamenting mass shootings targeting Black, Hispanic and Asian Americans.
Republican consultant Chris LaCivita shared that post on social media and suggested it was “great ad copy” for his party. LaCivita is working for a super PAC supporting incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, who faces state Attorney General Ken Paxton in a runoff for the Republican nomination.
President Donald Trump even joined in, telling Politico in an interview that Talarico is “a terribly weak candidate” who is “more woke than even the very highly untalented Jasmine Crockett.” He predicted Talarico would be “much easier than her” to defeat in a general election.
“He is radically out of touch with Texans and they will not vote for this in November,” said Samantha Cantrell, a spokesperson for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
During a victory speech Wednesday, Talarico primed his supporters for the onslaught of criticism, which he blamed on billionaires and political elites desperate to hold onto power.
“They’re going to throw everything they have at us,” he said. “They’re going to call me a radical leftist. They’re going to call me a fake Christian. They’ll call our movement un-Texan, un-American. They’ll call us a threat.”
The criticism is coming, Talarico said, “because we’re a threat to their corrupt system.”
“Our campaign is building a movement poised to change the politics of this state and take power back for working people,” said Talarico spokesperson JT Ennis. “While they lob stale attacks to mislead Texans, we are uniting the people of Texas to win in November.”
Democrats are hoping that Republican runoff voters will favor Paxton, who has weathered allegations of corruption and infidelity and has his own history of controversial remarks.
Trump has promised to make an endorsement in the race, but he hasn’t said when he’ll announce a decision or who it will be. Republican leaders want him to line up behind Cornyn, who is seeking a fifth term.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s successful campaign provides a recent model of a Democrat who overcame intense scrutiny for progressive statements that became a political liability. Mandani went on Fox News and apologized to New York Police Department officers for past criticism, such as a calling to “defund this rogue agency” in 2020.
Still, New York and Texas are worlds apart politically. Trump won Texas by nearly 14 points and lost the state of New York by nearly as much.