Fearing a tougher-than-expected race for one of Texas’s two Senate seats, Republicans are trying to cast Democratic candidate James Talarico as a radical leftist out of step with voters.
They have resurfaced videos of Talarico’s past comments, including one in which the state representative declares that “God is nonbinary.” His two potential GOP opponents — who are headed to a bitter runoff in May — have shared sound bites of Talarico speaking on border security and attacked him for supporting trans rights.
National Republicans ratcheted up their attacks this week with a digital ad that shows an artificial-intelligence-generated Talarico reading similar, years-old social media posts about pronouns and “radicalized white men.”
A Presbyterian seminarian, Talarico won a bruising, closely watched primary against Rep. Jasmine Crockett this month by presenting himself as an effective missionary to the state’s moderates and independents. He quoted scripture and Bad Bunny on the campaign trail and vowed to break from an increasingly common style of scorched-earth politics.
The torrent of videos Republicans are resurfacing across social media points to how they will try to erode that image and paint Talarico as something very different: a liberal wolf in Christian sheep’s clothing.
“James Talarico thinks ‘God is nonbinary’ and wants to lay a welcome mat on our southern border,” said Samantha Cantrell, a spokeswoman for Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, which made the AI-generated ad and has shared other video clips. “He is radically out of touch with Texans, and they will not vote for this in November.”
Talarico has not directly addressed his past comments but instead said the attacks are part of a well-worn Republican playbook. In a Thursday appearance on MSNOW, he cast the effort as a way “to distract us with the same old culture wars” and divert attention away from foreign policy issues and the rising cost of living.
His campaign has noted that Republicans are taking some of his comments out of context. On immigration, for instance, Talarico’s full quote was: “Our southern border should be like our front porch. There should be a giant welcome mat out front and a lock on the door.”
In response to a request for comment, campaign spokesman JT Ennis pointed to a line in Talarico’s primary victory speech, in which the candidate appeared to anticipate the GOP attacks.
“They’re going to throw everything they have at us,” Talarico told the crowd in Austin the day after the primary. “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.”
His past comments present a challenge for Talarico, who will have to reconcile some of his more progressive policy stances with his outreach to disaffected moderate voters — without alienating the Democratic base.
While many Democrats expressed confidence that Talarico can overcome the attacks, they warned that leaving them unanswered could ultimately hurt his campaign. Republicans resurfaced past comments from Vice President Kamala Harris on trans issues during the 2024 presidential race and turned them into a television ad with the tagline: “Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you.”
The ads proved devastating for her campaign — particularly because Republicans used Harris’s own words against her — and Democrats later lamented that Harris’s decision not to respond cost her deeply with voters. As with Harris, the GOP is aiming to use Talarico’s words to paint him as extreme, rather than leveling blanket attacks.
“If you let people fill the vacuum, they will. Regardless of the frame of the question or the attack, Talarico has to respond,” said Tré Easton, a Democratic strategist.
Easton argued that Talarico, who is relatively unknown to voters, can draw on his strength as a communicator to respond. The state lawmaker entered the national conversation by appearing on right-wing influencer Joe Rogan’s podcast. Rogan was so impressed that he told Talarico he should one day run for president.
“The ‘how’ matters,” Easton said. “If he comes out tomorrow and says, ‘I disavow the LGBT community,’ that’s going to be a problem. But if he comes out and says, ‘I said it this way, I wouldn’t say it the same way again,’ that’s a different set of considerations.”
Democrats have not won statewide in Texas in decades, but the party is eyeing the state’s Senate race as an opportunity to pick up a seat in its long-shot bid to retake control of the chamber.
Democrats and Republicans alike have largely viewed Talarico as a more formidable general-election opponent than Crockett, who is well-known for viral clips of her attacks on Trump and congressional Republicans. The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) openly boosted Crockett’s candidacy, believing she would be easier to beat in November than Talarico.
Ross Hunt, a GOP pollster in Dallas, said that Talarico’s past comments on social issues will help define him to the independent voters he has made a point of trying to court. That small pool of Texans may see these more liberal views as anathema to their beliefs, Hunt said.
Republicans also hope the comments could help them overcome Democratic enthusiasm by energizing the kinds of GOP voters who do not always turn out to vote.
“[Republicans need] to have someone who’s worth going out to vote against. And that’s part of how they’re going to use the Talarico clips: as a driver for turnout,” Hunt said.
The general-election dynamics will depend on the results of the GOP’s May 26 runoff election, which will pit Sen. John Cornyn, who previously served as the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, against Ken Paxton, the state’s firebrand, scandal-plagued attorney general.
Cornyn, a longtime GOP stalwart, is a prolific fundraiser whose large coffers and more traditional conservative politics could prove harder for Talarico to beat. About $69 million was spent on ads supporting Cornyn ahead of the Republican primary, compared with just over $22 million for Talarico, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact.
Yet Paxton’s seemingly unshakable support from the MAGA base has proved difficult for Cornyn to overcome, even as President Donald Trump is expected to endorse the incumbent senator. Strategists in both parties have said Talarico’s message could be even more resonant against Paxton’s bombast.
Brendan Steinhauser, a GOP strategist in the Austin area who managed Cornyn’s 2014 campaign, said Talarico’s progressive legislative record offers plenty of material to tap. But his youth, dynamism and self-awareness could enable him to find a smart way to respond and engage with the videos Republicans are spreading online.
“He can’t escape his past,” Steinhauser said. “The way he counteracts it is what he says going forward.”
It’s not clear how that might play out in the context of a general election. Democrats’ last great hope for flipping Texas was former congressman Beto O’Rourke, who ran for the Senate in 2018 and then for governor in 2022. He faced similar attacks for comments he made after a deadly shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, his hometown, in 2019: “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15,” he said, proposing a mandatory buyback program.
Chuck Rocha, a Democratic strategist and adviser to the Talarico campaign, said the candidate’s honesty and authenticity are part of his broad appeal in Texas.
About 28,000 people signed up to volunteer with Talarico’s campaign during the primary contest, Rocha said, in part drawn to a message that rejects the kind of bitter attacks being leveled against him now.
For now, Talarico appears to be embracing some of his past remarks. This week, the NRSC posted a 17-second clip of Talarico standing in a church, tying Jesus Christ to several liberal social causes.
“Christ is the immigrant deported without due process,” he says in the video. “Christ is the senior deprived of their Social Security benefits. Christ is the protester kidnapped in an unmarked vehicle by plainclothes officers.”
Talarico reshared the video on X, writing: “I approve this message.”
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