Cornyn Camp Portrays Democrat Talarico
as Kook Who Claimed God is Non-Binary Newsweek: James Talarico Chances of Winning
Capitol Inside
September 9, 2025
State Rep. James Talarico entered the competition for U.S. Senator John Cornyn's seat on Tuesday in a move that the veteran Republican incumbent countered with a blistering attack that portrayed the Democratic legislator from Austin as an extremist who insinuated that God was not a man.
After concentrating on Attorney General Ken Paxton for months as the chief GOP primary rival, Cornyn shifted his sights to Talarico after the state lawmaker joined a field of Democrats that includes former congressional member Colin Allred as the party's nominee for a separate Senate seat last fall.
"We're underdogs in this fight," Talarico declared. "We're going up against those billionaire mega-donors and their puppet politicians. We're going up against a rigged system. And we're going up against a lot of money. But I'm a former middle school teacher, I don't scare easily. And Texans don't scare easily."
Cornyn's camp gave the distinct impression the senator views Talarico as the most serious threat to his Senate re-election bid among the Democrats who are running for the position at the top of the Texas ticket in 2026.
“James Talarico is another radical left-wing Democrat whose values do not align with Texans," Cornyn campaign adviser Matt Mackowiak said in an email on Tuesday. "He said ‘God is nonbinary’, claims to hate billionaires but celebrated meeting with George Soros, and in 2021 abandoned his Texas House district.
"His actions should have been investigated, but Crooked Ken Paxton declined despite being asked by the Republican Party of Texas and the local county party. Talarico is an opportunist carpetbagger, and just like Colin Allred and Beto O’Rourke before him, Talarico will find Texans are not interested in his brand of abortion-on-demand, open borders, anti-Texas politics.”
Paxton has been focused more on O'Rourke in the past week than the actual Democratic contenders for the U.S. Senate - having scored a tentative victory in an appeals court in a bid to block the former Senate and gubernatorial nominee from bankrolling Democrats who are breaking quorum in the future.
Allred ignored the new threat that Talarico poses on Monday when he took turn bashing Cornyn and Paxton on social media. "Here’s the thing folks: Ken is crooked and Cornyn is nothing more than a career politician," Allred said on X. "Different people, same scam — putting power and payoffs ahead of Texans. Texans don’t shill for anyone and these two have turned their backs on our state’s values. Enough is enough."
Talarico has been a rising star for the Democrats at the state and national levels - having won a seat in the House in Williamson County in 2018 before switching to a district in Travis County after the redistricting effort at the Capitol in 2021. Talarico is a former public school teacher who attended the seminary for the sake of becoming a Presbyterian minister.
But the Cornyn team sought to depict in an unholy light. "Talarico justifies his radical leftist politics with the facade of religion, claiming on the Texas House floor that “God is non-binary," Mackowiak asserted. "In clear contradiction of the scripture, Talarico claimed on the Joe Rogan podcast that the Bible justifies abortion."
more to come ...
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