The Texas nightmare: who is James Talarico, the Democrat who can make Donald Trump bitter
Five days before the midterm elections in the United States, the spotlight is on Texas, a state that is synonymous with the American right and that is today in doubt. The land of giant trucks, oil wells and ranches has not elected a Democratic senator since 1988, but this year the race is even, driven by discontent with Donald Trump’s economic and immigration policies and by the figure of an unexpected candidate like James Talarico, a 37-year-old former teacher and Presbyterian seminarian.
Who is James Talarico
Talarico was born in 1989 in Round Rock, a city near Austin. He introduces himself as an eighth-generation Texan. He studied Political Science at the University of Texas at Austin, earned a master’s degree in Educational Policy at Harvard, and studied at the Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary.
Before politics he was a teacher through the Teach For America program, he taught at a public school in one of the poorest and most Latino neighborhoods in San Antonio, an experience that he places at the center of his political identity.
In 2018, at the age of 28, he won a seat in the Texas House of Representatives in a Republican district that he went house to house. As a state legislator, he promoted initiatives on school funding, student mental health and access to medications. In March of this year, she won the Democratic primary against federal representative Jasmine Crockett, with around 53% of the votes, although polls showed her as the favorite.
The Bible as a political flag
His link with religion is what distinguishes him in the democratic world. James Talarico uses the Bible as his main political tool, something unusual in a party that in recent decades gave that terrain to the evangelical right. “Jesus stood up to the system,” he said in one of his sermons.
His target is Christian nationalism, which in a 2023 sermon he defined as “a cancer” within his religion. He accuses him of turning Jesus into an armed, intolerant and power-obsessed figure, when, according to him, the Gospel speaks much more about the forgiveness of debts and care for the poor and the sick than about abortion or same-sex marriage. He usually calls Jesus “the barefoot rabbi” and closes his speeches with a slogan taken from the episode of the merchants in the temple: it is time to “overturn the tables.”
Because of this position, Republicans show him as someone from the radical left, and cite him, for example, for a phrase from 2021: “God is both male and female and everything in between. God is non-binary.”
Top versus bottom: the message of James Talarico
Talarico accuses billionaires of financing politicians to function as their puppets and of using algorithms and the media to divide workers, while dismantling public schools, destroying the health system and lowering taxes. According to the southerner, politics is not divided between left and right.
His campaign has two axes: combat corruption in Washington and lower the cost of living. For the first, Talarico assures that he does not accept contributions from the political action committees (PAC) of companies and proposes limiting the influence of money in elections and making the functioning of the federal government transparent. She also defends abortion rights and the rights of LGBTQ people.
Talarico vs. Paxton, head to head in Texas
The Democrat is tied in the polls with Republican Ken Paxton, Attorney General of Texas, in a state of 30 million inhabitants that has voted for conservatives for president since 1980.
In the fight for governor, Republican Greg Abbott maintains a slight advantage over Democrat Gina Hinojosa.
What is at stake exceeds Texas, since a victory for Talarico could be key for the Democrats to take away the majority in the Senate from the Republicans, in an election that is read as a referendum on Trump’s management.
