James Talarico is not the kind of politician you’d expect to find fighting for LGBTQIA+ rights. He’s a 36-year-old Texas state representative, a Presbyterian seminary graduate, and the grandson of a Baptist preacher. He also happens to be one of the most vocal allies in American politics right now.
Talarico has built a reputation for turning conservative Christian arguments on their head, using scripture to defend the very people the religious right wants to exclude. During debates in the Texas legislature, he’s opposed anti-trans bills, fought mandatory Ten Commandments displays in public schools, and openly called Christian nationalism “a cancer on our religion.”
In one viral exchange, he asked a Republican lawmaker sponsoring a Ten Commandments bill: “Why is having a rainbow in a classroom indoctrination and not having the Ten Commandments in a classroom?” The clip racked up millions of views on TikTok, where Talarico has over 1.2 million followers.
He’s called Christian nationalism “the worship of power in the name of Christ” and has accused its proponents of turning Jesus “into a gun-toting, gay-bashing, science-denying, money-loving, fear-mongering fascist.” As a member of the Texas LGBTQ Caucus, he’s consistently used his faith to argue that loving your neighbour means loving all your neighbours.
On 17 February 2026, Stephen Colbert was set to interview Talarico on The Late Show. It didn’t air. Colbert told his audience that CBS lawyers informed him “in no uncertain terms” that Talarico could not appear on the broadcast, citing new guidance from Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr about the “equal time” rule for political candidates. CBS later disputed this, saying the show was offered “legal guidance” and chose to post the interview on YouTube instead.
Colbert wasn’t having it. He called CBS’s statement “crap” and urged the network to stop caving to the Trump administration. The YouTube interview has since been viewed more than six million times, reaching a bigger audience than The Late Show‘s average rating of 2.5 million.
“I think Donald Trump is worried we’re about to flip Texas,” Talarico said in the interview. His campaign raised US$2.5 million in the 24 hours that followed.
Talarico is running for the United States Senate in the March 2026 Democratic primary against US Representative Jasmine Crockett and businessman Ahmad Hassan. No Democrat has won a statewide race in Texas in more than 30 years, but the conditions are shifting. The Republican side is messy, with Senator John Cornyn fighting off challenges from scandal-plagued Attorney General Ken Paxton and Representative Wesley Hunt.
Before entering politics, Talarico was a public school teacher in San Antonio through Teach For America. He holds a master’s degree in education from Harvard and a master’s in theological studies from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. He’s not yet ordained but plans to complete his Master of Divinity to become a Presbyterian minister.
His pastor, Jim Rigby, was put on trial by the Presbyterian Church (USA) in the 1990s for ordaining lesbian and gay clergy. Talarico grew up in that tradition, and it shows.
