James Talarico Won The Democrats’ Texas Primary – MAGA’s Attack Was Swift And Transphobic
Texas state representative James Talarico has clinched the Democratic nomination for a U.S. Senate seat in Texas. Republicans have wasted exactly zero time going after him for it.
On 3 March 2026, Talarico defeated U.S. Representative Jasmine Crockett in the Democratic primary, pulling in 52.9% of the vote to Crockett’s 45.7%, according to NBC News. The 36-year-old Austin lawmaker and Presbyterian seminarian is now the Democratic nominee for one of the most watched Senate races of the 2026 midterm cycle.
Republicans go straight for the trans angle
Even before the race was called, Republicans were previewing the lines of attack they planned to use against Talarico. The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) posted a 10-second clip on social media from a 2021 floor speech in which Talarico opposed an anti-trans sports ban in Texas. The caption read: “Meet James Talarico, Texas’ Democrat nominee for U.S. Senate. He thinks ‘God is nonbinary.'”
It wasn’t a slip. It was a deliberate theological argument made in a legislative chamber. Talarico was responding to legislators who grounded their support for the bill in Christianity. “The worst part, for me, was the number of Christians who used Scripture to justify hurting children,” he said at the time. He then pointed to the opening lines of Genesis, which use two different Hebrew words to describe God, one masculine and one feminine.
This isn’t new territory for him
In the lead-up to the primary, Talarico remained firm in his support for the LGBTQIA+ community, telling New York Times columnist Ezra Klein that Republicans didn’t want to solve a real problem but were trying to gain votes off the back of a vulnerable community.
He’s also been more direct than most. “Being a Christian is about loving thy neighbour, not bullying LGBTQIA+ people, chasing pregnant women across state lines, harassing librarians, silencing teachers and defunding our schools,” he said in a statement that went viral in March.
What comes next
Texas hasn’t elected a Democrat to a statewide office since 1994. Talarico won’t know his November opponent until after a Republican runoff on 26 May. Senator John Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton both fell short of the majority needed to win outright, with Cornyn securing around 42% of the vote.
Alex Latcham, executive director of the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC (Political Action Committee) connected to Senate GOP leadership, called Talarico “a far-left liberal who is wildly out of step with Lone Star voters.”
Talarico sees it differently. “Tonight, the people of our state gave this country a little bit of hope,” he told supporters in Austin after the race was called. “And a little bit of hope is a dangerous thing.”
