Who is James Talarico? A guide to the rising Democratic star who’s trying to turn Texas blue.

October 28, 2026 3oliver

Who is James Talarico? A guide to the rising Democratic star who’s trying to turn Texas blue.

Polls suggest the 37-year-old state lawmaker has a chance to become the first member of his party to win a statewide race in Texas in more than three decades.

Andrew Romano, Mike Bebernes

Updated Tue, October 27, 2026 at 10:39 PM UTC

7 min read

State Rep. James Talarico, a Democrat from Texas and U.S. Senate candidate, speaks during a Texas primary election night event in Austin. (Jordan Vonderhaar/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The words “competitive” and “Texas” don’t often show up side by side when it comes to big elections. No Democrat has won a statewide race in the Lone Star State since 1994, and most of the races within that timespan haven’t been particularly close.

But now, Democrats are pinning their hopes of ending their three-decade losing streak in Texas on James Talarico, a 37-year-old state lawmaker who has become one of the party’s breakout stars of the midterms.

Talarico first gained national attention in March, when he defeated U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett in a high-profile intraparty primary battle. His Republican opponent is Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who bested longtime incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in an often contentious Republican primary runoff.

By fusing progressive politics, a soft-spoken demeanor and unapologetic Christian faith, Talarico has built a broad base of support among Texas voters that has allowed him to maintain a steady — yet small — lead in the polls in the months leading up to Election Day. Forecasters list the race as a toss-up.

The outcome could have huge implications for American politics. Democrats’ hopes of seizing control of the Senate for the final two years of Trump’s presidency hinge on winning at least a couple of seats in historically deep red states like Texas. A victory for Talarico could also cement his position as a key figure in the Democratic Party’s next generation of leaders.

With all that in mind, here’s what to know about where Talarico came from, what he stands for and how strong his chances are of turning the Lone Star State blue.

The 2026 midterm election will be held Nov. 3

Where did Talarico come from?

Talarico was born in 1989 in Round Rock, Texas, a suburban city of roughly 120,000 people located about 20 miles north of Austin. His birth name was James Dell Causey.

Talarico’s mother, Tamara, left his birth father, whom she has described as an abusive alcoholic, when he was 7 weeks old. At first, the mother and son lived in an empty room at the residential hotel where she worked as a sales assistant.

It’s a story Talarico likes to tell in his stump speech. “My mom showed me that true love doesn’t tolerate abuse,” he says. Tamara later married a sales manager named Mark Talarico.

The younger Talarico has been devoted to Christianity since childhood. His grandfather was a Baptist preacher in South Texas, and he still goes to the same church — St. Andrew’s Presbyterian in Austin — where he attended Bible camp as a kid. In 2018, Talarico asked his pastor if he should run for office or join the ministry.

“If you go into the ministry, you’ll have clarity, but you won’t have power,” the pastor told him. “If you go into politics, you’ll have power but won’t have clarity. You’ll have to work a lot harder to distinguish good from evil.”

Talarico chose politics. He earned a degree in government from the University of Texas at Austin and another in education from Harvard, and worked briefly with Teach for America and an education technology nonprofit, before launching a campaign for the Texas House of Representatives. He won after walking the full length of his district — and discovering, in the process, that he has type 1 diabetes. (He was so woozy he spent five days in the ICU.)

Over his four terms in the Republican-dominated Texas House, Talarico has opposed GOP efforts to display the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms, restrict voting rights, redraw the state’s congressional map and extend its abortion ban. He has helped pass laws to import cheaper medications from Canada, cap the monthly cost of insulin and prevent police from working with reality shows.

He enrolled in seminary to deepen his knowledge of the Biblical stories at the base of his politics, graduating with a master’s degree in theological studies.

Talarico wasn’t Texas Democrats’ first choice for the U.S. Senate; the initial frontrunner was ex-congressman Colin Allred, a former NFL linebacker. But during a May 2025 planning meeting with other leading Texas Democrats, Talarico insisted that he was the man for the job.

“I told them the fact that I was new, and different, and had no D.C. connection was a huge advantage,” he told the New Yorker in February. “They were all retreads — which I said lovingly.”

Former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke — the Democrats’ 2018 nominee for Senate and 2022 nominee for governor — remembered the exchange differently. “James came in, like, ‘I don’t care what you guys are doing with your little huddle. F*** all y’all, I’m doing this,'” O’Rourke told the magazine. “He blew everything up in his excitement to make the case for himself.”

Compared to Allred, Talarico had far less name recognition in Texas early in the primary race, but he gained steam by leaning into his comparative advantage: his ability to deliver, in his deep Central Texas voice, plainspoken populist sermons that deemphasize the differences between Republicans and Democrats and push for a more “love thy neighbor” approach to politics — messages that tended to go viral.

“The biggest divide in our country is not left versus right; it’s top versus bottom,” Talarico likes to tell his 2.6 million Instagram followers. “Billionaires want us looking left and right at each other so that we’re not looking up at them.”

Allred dropped out in December as Crockett — a more confrontational figure — entered the race. Polls suggested that the race between Talarico and Crockett would be extremely close, but Talarico ended up winning the primary by a comfortable margin.

Where does Talarico stand on key issues?

Congressional reform: Talarico supports term limits for members of Congress and a ban on congressional stock trading. He opposes partisan gerrymandering. He has said the Senate should eliminate its filibuster rule so laws can pass with a simple majority vote.

Health care: Talarico calls his approach “Medicare for Y’all.” He favors letting nonseniors buy into Medicare or providing another “not-for-profit health care option for every American.”

Immigration: Talarico favors comprehensive immigration reform that would crack down on criminals; provide a pathway to citizenship for certain others; hold Immigration and Customs Enforcement accountable for abuses; and improve the asylum and guest worker systems. He likes to say that “our border should be like a front porch — it should have a welcome mat out front and a lock on the door.”

Foreign policy: Talarico supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He has condemned what he called Israel’s “war crimes” while describing the conflict itself as “the moral test of our time.” He opposes the sale of offensive weapons to Israel and has refused to take money from the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC. “I think God is screaming at us in Gaza right now,” he has said.

He has also criticized Trump’s handling of the war with Iran, pledging to help “end the forever war” if he’s elected to the Senate.

Taxes: Talarico supports raising taxes on billionaires and corporations, as well as tax cuts for the middle class and the expansion of tax credits for working-class Americans.

Can Talarico win Texas in November?

There has been no shortage of Democrats trying to turn the Lone Star State blue in recent years. O’Rourke even parlayed his early buzz into a 2020 presidential bid.

But the last time Texas actually elected a new Democratic senator was in 1970, so Talarico has a lot of history to overcome if he hopes to win. Some key things have broken in his favor, though.

The public’s view of Trump has declined to the point where even a majority of Texans say they disapprove of his job performance. The far-right Paxton is also widely seen as the more vulnerable of the two Republicans who faced off in the GOP primary.

He is a favorite of Trump’s MAGA base, but he has also been shadowed by scandal: a suspension from office after being impeached on accusations of abusing his office to help a real estate investor (he was later acquitted by the Texas Senate); a 2015 indictment on securities fraud charges that were dismissed in 2024; and a recent divorce filing by his wife, a Republican state senator who accused him of committing adultery.

Recent polls have generally shown Talarico with a narrow lead, though some have found the candidates tied or Paxton ahead. Talarico’s chances of victory depend on his ability to consolidate a broad and diverse coalition of Texas voters, many of whom would be supporting a Democrat for the first time.

“In Texas, you cannot do this with just Democrats,” political strategist Mike Madrid, a centrist Republican, told Newsweek after Talarico’s primary win. “You have to win Republicans. His whole approach has been about building a bigger coalition.”