The political arm of the Congressional Black Caucus on Friday endorsed James Talarico, a Democrat whose primary win over a Black candidate left him facing headwinds with voters of color, in a Texas race that could determine control of the Senate.
Mr. Talarico faces Ken Paxton, the Republican state attorney general, in the November midterm election. Democrats have not won a Senate seat in Texas since 1988, and President Trump carried the state by nearly 14 percentage points in the 2024 election.
But Democrats see a potential opening in Mr. Paxton’s history of scandal, including a criminal indictment on securities fraud and impeachment in the Texas Legislature, and growing public disapproval of the president. Black and Latino voters would be critical for Mr. Talarico’s attempt to capture the state.
“Black Texans deserve a senator who will show up, listen and fight for their communities — and James Talarico will be that,” Representative Gregory Meeks, Democrat of New York and chairman of the caucus’s political action committee, said in a statement.
While campaigning in Houston in July, Mr. Talarico pledged that his campaign would spend $25 million on outreach to Black voters. In a statement on Friday, he said that if elected, he would support a bill to restore federal oversight of state election laws under the 1965 Voting Rights Act, reversing Trump-era restrictions enacted by Republican states.
The legislation is named for John Lewis, the civil rights leader who served for more than three decades in the House until his death in 2020.
Mr. Talarico also said he would champion funding for historically Black colleges and universities, or H.B.C.U.s, address higher-than-average mortality rates for Black women giving birth, and promote investments supporting Black-owned businesses.
“Texas has the largest Black population of any state in the union, so it’s time we elected statewide leaders committed to working for and investing in Black communities,” Mr. Talarico said in the statement.
The Paxton campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday. Black and Latino groups have accused him of trying to suppress nonwhite voter turnout as attorney general, including by opposing emergency extensions of polling hours in cities and spreading Mr. Trump’s falsehoods about voter fraud.
In 2020, Mr. Paxton played a central role in the unsuccessful legal effort by Mr. Trump to overturn his election defeat to Joseph R. Biden Jr.
Mr. Talarico defeated Representative Jasmine Crockett, who is Black, in the Democratic primary in March. But broad support among voters of color eluded him. Ms. Crockett endorsed Mr. Talarico but has not campaigned for him and did not appear at the party’s state convention. A New York Times/Siena poll in June showed Mr. Talarico was winning 80 percent of Black voters, but one warning sign was that 12 percent of Black voters still had a very unfavorable view of him.
Earlier this year, Mr. Talarico, a state representative and seminarian who is white, had also been accused of disparaging another Black politician, former Representative Colin Allred.
A Dallas-area content creator said that Mr. Talarico had referred to Mr. Allred as a “mediocre Black man.” Mr. Talarico disputed the account and said that his remarks were taken out of context. He had been referring to Mr. Allred’s method of campaigning, he said.
While Ms. Crockett called for Democrats to unite behind Mr. Talarico after conceding to him, she has not committed to joining him on the campaign trail. She has said that she would focus campaigning on down-ballot races.
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