Not to be confused with Texas Pete, the hot sauce though not to be unconfused by it either. I know people will talk about Beto, but Pete is I’d argue more charismatic and better able to connect with Texas’s unique culture and politics.
>James Talarico is young, well spoken, and eager to talk with Republicans—exactly what some Democratic dreamers think they need to finally turn the state blue.
> Like the leaves of a Texas ash in autumn, the Democrats running to win the state are always vibrant and impressive, right up until they fall. By now, this is common knowledge. Yet for some optimistic Democrats, there’s something different about James Talarico.
> You might recognize the 36-year-old state lawmaker from any number of viral social-media clips—calmly arguing with Fox News hosts, for example, or discussing his faith on Joe Rogan’s podcast in May. The four-term Democrat and Presbyterian seminarian this morning announced that he’s joining the primary race for the Senate seat held by the Republican John Cornyn. In so doing, Talarico has cemented himself as his party’s newest, shiniest 2026 contender.
>Talarico stands out for his relative youth but also for his particular brand of long-winded eloquence. He can sound, in some ways, like a southern-style Barack Obama or a Texas Pete Buttigieg. Two years ago, a video made the rounds of Talarico arguing against legislation that would require public-school teachers to hang the Ten Commandments in their classroom. “This bill to me is not only unconstitutional; it’s not only un-American; I think it is also deeply un-Christian,” he told his Republican colleagues in a committee hearing. “And I say that because I believe this bill is idolatrous. I believe it is exclusionary. And I believe that it is arrogant—and those three things, in my reading of the Gospel, are diametrically opposed to the teachings of Jesus.”
> Democrats hope his emphasis on faith will help Talarico reach across the aisle—something he seems eager to do. In an interview, Talarico told me that wooing voters is like navigating a school cafeteria. “You sit at the table where people want you to sit,” he said, and “it’s our job as elected leaders” to show voters that they’re wanted.
>This, Talarico says, is why he spent two hours talking with Rogan, who endorsed Donald Trump in 2024. “You need to run for president,” Rogan told him by the end of the show. “We need someone who’s actually a good person.”
>National Democrats see promise, too. Party leaders, including former White House adviser David Axelrod and California Governor Gavin Newsom, have shared videos of Talarico speaking on the Texas House floor. Even Obama himself reportedly called Talarico to praise him for his leadership when Democratic state lawmakers in Texas broke quorum in August. Talarico has “the ‘it’ factor,” the Texan Democratic strategist Chuck Rocha told me. When it comes to persuading Trump-curious voters to reconsider, Talarico “brings lots of weapons to the arsenal.”
> Talarico is comfortable criticizing his own party. On Rogan’s show, he said that Joe Biden’s biggest problem wasn’t his age; it was his “ego” and “inability to step aside and let someone else do the job.” But age is definitely a factor in Talarico’s own appeal; on TikTok, the Millennial lawmaker has amassed 1.2 million followers, and clips of his floor speeches, rally remarks, and sermons regularly receive millions of views and likes.
>When I asked Talarico how Democrats can best move forward after the party’s major losses last November, he chided me gently. “We should embrace this time in the wilderness,” he said. “It’s where new leaders and new movements come forth.”
>Talarico clearly hopes to be one of those new leaders. It helps that he has a good backstory. Raised by a single mother in Round Rock, Texas, near Austin, Talarico attended the University of Texas at Austin and got a master’s degree at Harvard. He spent two years as a middle-school English teacher in a poor school district in San Antonio before leaving to lead a Texas nonprofit focused on math education. (In addition to his duties in the state house, Talarico works at an Austin-based education consultancy.) His teaching experience was his main motivation for entering politics, Talarico told me, and in 2018, at age 29, he flipped a district that had been held by Republicans since 2002 to become the youngest politician in the legislature.
> He won the seat, north of Austin, first in a special election and then in a general one, with his victory resulting from a 13-point swing toward Democrats. “I ran a different kind of race” than other Democrats who’d tried the same, he told me. Long before Zohran Mamdani walked the length of Manhattan, Talarico walked 25 miles across the district (and, after almost falling into a coma, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes). He held on to the seat again in 2020, before Republican gerrymandering spurred him to run in a safer Democratic district nearby in 2022. Still, Talarico said, “I know how to win a tough area.”
>Talarico has been a reliable progressive in the state legislature; he introduced legislation to cap insulin co-pays, and he helped draft a major overhaul of Texas school spending, both of which were signed into law. He also left the state during two quorum breaks, including last month, when he and dozens of state Democrats flew to Chicago in an (ultimately unsuccessful) attempt to derail Republican gerrymandering plans. Like his former colleague Representative Jasmine Crockett in 2021, Talarico became the unofficial spokesperson of the moment. “My party has never gerrymandered in the middle of a decade at the request of the president of the United States, nor would we,” he told the Fox News host Will Cain in a clip that was widely shared on X.
>Later, Talarico asked, “If Republican policies are so popular, why would they need to redraw these maps?” Cain abruptly ended the conversation.
> Sometimes, Talarico can sound like a progressive populist in the vein of Bernie Sanders. In interviews—with me, with Rogan—he likes to say that he thinks of politics as “top versus bottom” rather than “left versus right.” Like Sanders, he also tends to rail against the influence of billionaires in politics. But other times, Talarico scans as more ideologically ambiguous. In our first interview, Talarico didn’t mention the president until 30 minutes in, and only after I’d asked directly. “I get why people voted for Trump,” he told me. They find his straightforwardness refreshing, he said, “and I find it refreshing at times.” But Trump promised his supporters two things: lower prices and less corruption, Talarico told me. “Obviously he’s done the exact opposite,” he said, and now, voters might be looking for those things elsewhere.
> This is where Talarico sees an opening for his candidacy—as well as a line of attack that has been available to Democrats but that, at least so far, many have struggled to pursue.
brak_obama on
Can’t wait to vote enthusiastically for this guy and see him lose 45-55
He seems like an excellent candidate for 2010, and maybe 2050. I don’t know what the best prescription is for today, but triangulating among known quantities (religion, economic populism, demographics…) doesn’t feel like it. Authenticity, yes, but an authenticity that calls out from a place that is truly different. My hunch is that socialist candidates are gaining prominence not because so many voters want socialism, but because they want to get away from what is and has been.
4 Comments
Not to be confused with Texas Pete, the hot sauce though not to be unconfused by it either. I know people will talk about Beto, but Pete is I’d argue more charismatic and better able to connect with Texas’s unique culture and politics.
>James Talarico is young, well spoken, and eager to talk with Republicans—exactly what some Democratic dreamers think they need to finally turn the state blue.
> Like the leaves of a Texas ash in autumn, the Democrats running to win the state are always vibrant and impressive, right up until they fall. By now, this is common knowledge. Yet for some optimistic Democrats, there’s something different about James Talarico.
> You might recognize the 36-year-old state lawmaker from any number of viral social-media clips—calmly arguing with Fox News hosts, for example, or discussing his faith on Joe Rogan’s podcast in May. The four-term Democrat and Presbyterian seminarian this morning announced that he’s joining the primary race for the Senate seat held by the Republican John Cornyn. In so doing, Talarico has cemented himself as his party’s newest, shiniest 2026 contender.
>Talarico stands out for his relative youth but also for his particular brand of long-winded eloquence. He can sound, in some ways, like a southern-style Barack Obama or a Texas Pete Buttigieg. Two years ago, a video made the rounds of Talarico arguing against legislation that would require public-school teachers to hang the Ten Commandments in their classroom. “This bill to me is not only unconstitutional; it’s not only un-American; I think it is also deeply un-Christian,” he told his Republican colleagues in a committee hearing. “And I say that because I believe this bill is idolatrous. I believe it is exclusionary. And I believe that it is arrogant—and those three things, in my reading of the Gospel, are diametrically opposed to the teachings of Jesus.”
> Democrats hope his emphasis on faith will help Talarico reach across the aisle—something he seems eager to do. In an interview, Talarico told me that wooing voters is like navigating a school cafeteria. “You sit at the table where people want you to sit,” he said, and “it’s our job as elected leaders” to show voters that they’re wanted.
>This, Talarico says, is why he spent two hours talking with Rogan, who endorsed Donald Trump in 2024. “You need to run for president,” Rogan told him by the end of the show. “We need someone who’s actually a good person.”
>National Democrats see promise, too. Party leaders, including former White House adviser David Axelrod and California Governor Gavin Newsom, have shared videos of Talarico speaking on the Texas House floor. Even Obama himself reportedly called Talarico to praise him for his leadership when Democratic state lawmakers in Texas broke quorum in August. Talarico has “the ‘it’ factor,” the Texan Democratic strategist Chuck Rocha told me. When it comes to persuading Trump-curious voters to reconsider, Talarico “brings lots of weapons to the arsenal.”
> Talarico is comfortable criticizing his own party. On Rogan’s show, he said that Joe Biden’s biggest problem wasn’t his age; it was his “ego” and “inability to step aside and let someone else do the job.” But age is definitely a factor in Talarico’s own appeal; on TikTok, the Millennial lawmaker has amassed 1.2 million followers, and clips of his floor speeches, rally remarks, and sermons regularly receive millions of views and likes.
>When I asked Talarico how Democrats can best move forward after the party’s major losses last November, he chided me gently. “We should embrace this time in the wilderness,” he said. “It’s where new leaders and new movements come forth.”
>Talarico clearly hopes to be one of those new leaders. It helps that he has a good backstory. Raised by a single mother in Round Rock, Texas, near Austin, Talarico attended the University of Texas at Austin and got a master’s degree at Harvard. He spent two years as a middle-school English teacher in a poor school district in San Antonio before leaving to lead a Texas nonprofit focused on math education. (In addition to his duties in the state house, Talarico works at an Austin-based education consultancy.) His teaching experience was his main motivation for entering politics, Talarico told me, and in 2018, at age 29, he flipped a district that had been held by Republicans since 2002 to become the youngest politician in the legislature.
> He won the seat, north of Austin, first in a special election and then in a general one, with his victory resulting from a 13-point swing toward Democrats. “I ran a different kind of race” than other Democrats who’d tried the same, he told me. Long before Zohran Mamdani walked the length of Manhattan, Talarico walked 25 miles across the district (and, after almost falling into a coma, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes). He held on to the seat again in 2020, before Republican gerrymandering spurred him to run in a safer Democratic district nearby in 2022. Still, Talarico said, “I know how to win a tough area.”
>Talarico has been a reliable progressive in the state legislature; he introduced legislation to cap insulin co-pays, and he helped draft a major overhaul of Texas school spending, both of which were signed into law. He also left the state during two quorum breaks, including last month, when he and dozens of state Democrats flew to Chicago in an (ultimately unsuccessful) attempt to derail Republican gerrymandering plans. Like his former colleague Representative Jasmine Crockett in 2021, Talarico became the unofficial spokesperson of the moment. “My party has never gerrymandered in the middle of a decade at the request of the president of the United States, nor would we,” he told the Fox News host Will Cain in a clip that was widely shared on X.
>Later, Talarico asked, “If Republican policies are so popular, why would they need to redraw these maps?” Cain abruptly ended the conversation.
> Sometimes, Talarico can sound like a progressive populist in the vein of Bernie Sanders. In interviews—with me, with Rogan—he likes to say that he thinks of politics as “top versus bottom” rather than “left versus right.” Like Sanders, he also tends to rail against the influence of billionaires in politics. But other times, Talarico scans as more ideologically ambiguous. In our first interview, Talarico didn’t mention the president until 30 minutes in, and only after I’d asked directly. “I get why people voted for Trump,” he told me. They find his straightforwardness refreshing, he said, “and I find it refreshing at times.” But Trump promised his supporters two things: lower prices and less corruption, Talarico told me. “Obviously he’s done the exact opposite,” he said, and now, voters might be looking for those things elsewhere.
> This is where Talarico sees an opening for his candidacy—as well as a line of attack that has been available to Democrats but that, at least so far, many have struggled to pursue.
Can’t wait to vote enthusiastically for this guy and see him lose 45-55
https://preview.redd.it/qca1gvaazqof1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=0b42d236a1dbe3ab283549ed613300e40b9fd62f
He seems like an excellent candidate for 2010, and maybe 2050. I don’t know what the best prescription is for today, but triangulating among known quantities (religion, economic populism, demographics…) doesn’t feel like it. Authenticity, yes, but an authenticity that calls out from a place that is truly different. My hunch is that socialist candidates are gaining prominence not because so many voters want socialism, but because they want to get away from what is and has been.