Free Republic

James Talarico is too radical for Texas.

Democrat U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico now says he does not support gender mutilation surgery for minors—but when Texas lawmakers voted to prohibit the procedures, Talarico voted no.Talarico voted against Senate Bill 14, legislation prohibiting physicians from performing gender-mutilation surgeries on minors as well as prescribing sterilizing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for the purpose of changing a child’s biological sex. The measure was ultimately approved by the Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott.Talarico’s legislative record also includes another vote involving insurance coverage for gender-mutilation procedures and the consequences of those treatments. In 2025, Talarico voted against...

James Talarico is running for Senate as a mainstream Texas Democrat. But a look at his past tells a very different story. After previously using his website to promote some strikingly radical positions and rhetoric, key language has since been scrubbed from the site. So what exactly did Talarico remove — and why? This week on Come & Take It, watch as Sara takes a closer look at James Talarico’s political past, the statements and positions that have disappeared, and then you decide whether he’s trying to rewrite his record as he seeks a bigger political future in Texas. Is...

Three years can be a long time in Texas politics. Republicans who once stood on opposite sides of one of the party’s most bitter battles are now sharing stages, exchanging embraces, and urging voters to unite behind Attorney General Ken Paxton in November. The display has unfolded during Paxton’s campaign tour this week, where several lawmakers with a history of conflict with the Republican senate nominee have appeared alongside him and encouraged voters to put past disagreements aside. The most prominent example came in Allen, where State Rep. Jeff Leach introduced Paxton before a packed crowd and embraced him as...

The Democrat Senate nominee said the experience was part of the religious tradition that eventually led him into politics. Democrat U.S. Senate nominee James Talarico says the church he grew up in once housed illegal aliens who were facing deportation by federal immigration authorities. The comments, first reported by Fox News, came during a 2023 appearance by Talarico on Texas Impact’s Weekly Witness podcast. Asked how his faith influenced his political career, Talarico pointed to a history of progressive activism at his church. “Our church was really active in LGBTQ rights in the ’90s. We caught some attention by letting...

Planned Parenthood just announced a $47 million budget for their midterm election blitz. The ACLU is spending $25 million specifically to push pro-abortion propaganda. And, Reproductive Freedom for All (formerly NARAL) is spending $23.5 million. That’s nearly $100 million, all aimed at one goal: flipping the U.S. Senate for Chuck Schumer, his pals at the DSA (Democratic Socialists of America), and the Abortion Lobby this November. Last week we got proof their plan may be working. A new poll out of Texas shows Democrat James Talarico jumping to a 5-point lead over Attorney General Ken Paxton in the race for...

After months of ignoring questions and concerns regarding James Talarico’s romantic relationship with a former member of his Texas House staffer Brianna Menard, his campaign has finally confirmed that the pair’s relationship began while Menard worked in Talarico’s office. The Talarico campaign had previously suggested that Menard, who had worked in Talarico’s office from March 2020 until January 2023, did not begin a relationship with Talarico until leaving his office to work for Texas State Representative Salman Bhojani as his office’s chief of staff. According to a statement from Bhojani, Talarico himself reached out to secure Menard a position in...

Back at the start of June, Karmelo Anthony was found guilty of stabbing Austin Metcalf in the chest at a track meet. Both Anthony and Metcalf were 17 at the time. The Left was very angry about the case and the verdict; many of them believe Anthony acted in "self-defense," and that he shouldn't have faced charges at all, let alone prison time. Now that case is coming up in the Texas U.S. Senate race, with Democrat James Talarico falling squarely on the side of the leftists who think Anthony did nothing wrong. Watch as Talarico nods sycophantically as a...

Democrat James Talarico leads Republican Ken Paxton by five percentage points in a survey of likely Texas voters released Tuesday, marking a shift from earlier polling that showed the attorney general narrowly ahead or tied in the U.S. Senate contest. Discover more Legislative Branch Government Voter registration services Texas Public Opinion Research found Talarico leading Paxton, 45 percent to 40 percent, “marking the Austin state representative’s largest lead in any public poll taken during the general election period,” the Texas Tribune reported. The group surveyed 1,048 likely voters from July 15 through July 17. The poll has a margin of...

Woke warrior James Talarico sounds like your classic mama’s boy. The 37-year-old Texas Senate candidate reportedly shares an individual checking account with his mother, a frequent contributor to his campaigns. And records obtained by The Federalist show the Democratic Party’s great white hope for blueing up deep red Texas used his mother’s Austin address to register to vote in order to launch a previous campaign — an apparent violation of Texas election law. It’s an interesting twist in the key Senate race, given that Talarico has accused his opponent, Republican state Attorney General Ken Paxton, of illegally voting in elections...

James Talarico, the radical Democrat nominee for the U.S. Senate race in Texas, once credited Islamic teachings and authors as an inspiration for his Christian faith. 🚨UNEARTHEDJames Talarico — who said he "hates Christianity" — praised Islam for inspiring his religious beliefs:"I’ve learned as much about my faith from Salman’s tradition, from the Islamic mystics, from poets like Rumi, as much as I have from Christian authors..." pic.twitter.com/2UeksY9Hko— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 27, 2026“I’ve learned as much about my faith from Salman’s tradition, from the Islamic mystics, from poets like Rumi, as much as I have from Christian authors,” Talarico...

"She's a leader in this country, and she deserves the utmost respect," Talarico, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Texas, said at a town hall in Houston.“If you claim to be my supporter, if you claim to be a part of this movement that we are building, please keep Congresswoman Crockett’s name out of your mouth,” Talarico demanded on Sunday during a town hall in Houston. The remarks were significant as the residue of Talarico and Crockett’s primary contest had continued to stain the Democratic nominee’s campaign as he worked to win over Black voters, most of whom backed...

Evangelical pastor Jeff Mullen recently posted this open letter to Texas State Rep. James Talarico, who is running for U.S. Senate in the state of Texas. Mullen’s letter addresses fundamental problems with the way Talarico and others interpret Scripture, and he calls Talarico and all of us to come under the authority of God’s Word instead of redefining it to fit our wishes:Dear Rep. Talarico,My name is Jeff Mullen. As a pastor who spent 30 years shepherding God’s people, I have learned that what we believe about God shapes everything else. That is why I am writing this letter.I do...

Democratic Senate candidates James Talarico and Jon Ossoff are facing scrutiny over significant donations from Reid Hoffman, a billionaire mega-investor with former associations to Jeffrey Epstein, after both accused Republicans of representing the billionaire "Epstein class" over working Americans. Both Talarico, running in Texas, and Ossoff, running in Georgia, have repeatedly criticized billionaires’ involvement in politics and charged Republicans with being beholden to the "Epstein class" instead of the American people. Meanwhile, Hoffman, a co-founder of LinkedIn who has previously admitted to spending a night on Epstein’s Caribbean island, has heavily invested in both campaigns. In the Texas Senate race,...

Texas Senate candidate James Talarico (D) received a harsh reception from an attendee at his town hall in Houston on Sunday. Video from the event, during which Talarico took questions for more than 90 minutes, captured by the Austin American-Statesman’s Faith Bugenhagen, shows a Black woman yelling, “So you stay here, you answer our questions or you suffer the consequences.” Other attendees clapped in support of the woman’s remarks, while one man said, “Say it with your chest.” When Talarico told the woman he appreciated her for traveling to attend the town hall, she replied, “I did it for my...

Senate hopeful James Talarico is on the defensive after remarks resurfaced in which he lavished praise on Texas drag queens as "some of the best" in the country. Talarico, the Democrats' nominee in Texas’ hotly contested Senate race, made the comment in May 2023 while criticizing a bill in the state legislature banning "sexually oriented performances" on public property and in the presence of minors — a measure that would have likely restricted some drag shows. He voted "present" on the legislation at the urging of the Texas House LGBTQ Caucus after language explicitly referencing drag performers was stripped from...

Democratic Senate contenders are dramatically out-raising their Republican peers, according to Federal Election Commission data — with Georgia’s Jon Ossoff and James Talarico in Texas leading the pack. Eight of the top 10 Senate candidate fundraiser this year are Democrats, whose top contestants have raked in $574 million, compared to the Republicans’ $336 million, per the FEC. Incumbent Sen. Ossoff (D-Ga.) is the biggest fundraiser on both sides, having raked in a jaw-dropping $77 million as of June 30, and has a staggering $42.5 million in cash on hand. He’s raised nearly $98 million as a Senate candidate, including the...

By now, we have all seen the evidence that the socialist uprising happening in the Democratic Party is fueled mainly by highly educated White voters, and on Saturday, I saw even more evidence of it at a Detroit rally for Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed. It was whiter than a toothpaste ad. Scanning the hundred or so people in line for the event that featured Marxist superstars Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., I saw fewer Black people than you could find at Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse’s restricted beach club in Rhode Island. Outside of the Opera House where...

Christians, according to Talarico, are ‘Christofascists’ who are practicing “Christofascism”. Christianity is far more violent than Islam, according to him, and has caused far more damage to Islam than the other way around. “Christianity is Season 2, and Islam is Season 3,” he told the New Yorker. “I’m Season 2—the most violent season. My religion has done more damage to both of those religions than they’ve done to each other.” And, beyond that, all religions are basically the same and Islam is just as true as Christianity. “I always think of all the world’s faith traditions as a circle, with...

It’s been a tough week for Democrat U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico on the sexual abuse front, who is now battling with the public learning that his largest financial backer is listed in the Epstein files, is facing condemnation from an abuse victim’s family for lying, and is refusing to condemn a political ally who consorts with a sexual predator. Earlier today, it was revealed that Talarico had been receiving millions from billionaire Epstein-associated Reid Hoffman. Hoffman was featured prominently in the Epstein files for making trips to Jeffrey Epstein’s island and to other Epstein residences, as well as exchanging...