The Democratic National Committee didn’t reach for a policy argument when White House senior adviser Stephen Miller deliberately misgendered Texas Senate nominee James Talarico on Wednesday. They went straight for the jugular.
After the DNC posted a photo of Talarico — a cisgender man — declaring it was “time to take back Texas,” Miller fired back with a false claim: “The Democrats made history in Texas by nominating their first transgender senate candidate.”
The DNC’s response was five words: “shut up you ugly f—.”
Miller’s post was no accident. It’s the latest escalation in a coordinated Republican effort to paint the Democratic nominee as outside the mainstream — and it comes as the GOP appears increasingly rattled by the state of the race.
Polling shows Talarico leading Paxton by as much as 8 points, while Paxton’s net favorability sits 9 points underwater compared to Talarico’s +10. Talarico has raised more than $27 million in the first three months of 2026, dwarfing Paxton’s $2.2 million haul during the same period.
Republicans have responded with a kitchen-sink assault.
The NRSC launched a deepfake attack ad depicting an AI-generated version of Talarico reading his own social media posts, with the committee branding him “the most radical, woke Democrat Texas voters have ever seen.” Paxton debuted a string of nicknames at a victory rally — “Tofu Talarico,” “Six-gender James,” and “Tala-freak-o” — seizing on a resurfaced 2021 legislative statement in which Talarico argued that modern science recognizes more than two biological sexes.
Political journalist David Weigel noted the subtext of the GOP attacks has rapidly become text — that Republican messaging has consistently sought to cast Talarico as effeminate or queer.
Talarico has pushed back, accusing Paxton of “intentionally clipping my cringey comments to distract from his career of corruption.” Even Karl Rove has warned that with Paxton as the nominee, Democrats have a real shot.
Miller’s post drew immediate corrections across social media, including from Rowan Fornow, a digital organizer for a Utah congressional campaign, who noted that the first transgender Senate candidate was actually Misty Snow of Utah, who ran in 2016.
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