James Talarico: The man who stood up to Trump the bully – and won Texas - The Independent

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Delivering a historic victory speech in the early hours of 4 November 2026, Democrat James Talarico faced a roaring crowd and showed what standing up to a bully looks like.

In the run-up to the midterms, in Texas, Trump made this senatorial race personal. He repeatedly mocked the slim, built 37-year-old candidate by portraying him as an effete, out-of-touch liberal who could never win in the macho Lone Star state. The attacks became increasingly personal as the election approached, with the president dubbing him “Talafreako” and mocking him for being a vegan (he isn’t), saying he secretly vomited after eating barbecue (he didn’t).

And yet last night, taking the podium, it was Talarico standing and declaring a victory that has rocked Texas politics and paved the way for a Democratic majority in the US Senate, and possibly the White House in two years. Dressed in a smart black jacket, white shirt, tie-less, Talarico declared: “We just took back Texas,” to a roar from the crowd.

His campaign had, he said, “just proved that all the money in the world is no match for the people of Texas ... that a politics of division is no match for a politics of love”.

As hard as Trump tried, Talarico does not fit neatly into the usual American political stereotypes. He is a young, progressive Democrat who wears cowboy boots, talks openly about Jesus (was at seminary school) and presents himself as a product of Texas public schools. No surprise then that he told his supporters that in his moment of victory, he was reminded, he said, of a story from scripture of a shepherd boy who goes up against a giant. “In this race we went up against our own Goliaths: the richest … most powerful man in the world and the entire Washington, DC establishment. ... Tonight we defeated Goliath."

Even Elon Musk’s $200m rescue mission designed to boost Talarico’s Republican rival Ken Paxton didn’t work. “Guess my election-interfering space lasers didn’t work this time,” he posted on his social media platform, X.

Instead, Talarico became the first Democrat to win a Senate seat in the Lone Star State since 1988 – and the first to win statewide office in more than three decades.

It came amid an incredible night for Democrats as the party flipped both the Senate and House and delivered a loud and clear verdict on Trump’s second term in office.

“Texas may never be the same,” wrote my friend, the journalist Lauren McGaughey, in the New York Times, adding: “James Talarico’s victory over Ken Paxton, a scandal-scarred Republican candidate, in the US Senate race was only the beginning of a series of seismic victories for Democrats on Tuesday in Texas.

Republicans in the state lost their lieutenant governor, their attorney general, comptroller, railroad commissioner, land commissioner. And Greg Abbott, who has served as the Governor of Texas for nearly 12 years, lost to Democrat Gina Hinojosa, ending 30 years of Republican control of the governor's office.

I lived in Texas for 17 years and optics matter there. Talarico gave his victory speech in front of a podium at The Long Center for the Performing Arts in Austin, Texas. The Long Center overlooks Lady Bird Lake, named after Lady Bird Johnson, wife of Lyndon B Johnson, the last Texan Democrat to occupy the White House.

The last Democratic governor of Texas was the sharp-tongued, folksy Ann Richards, who left office in 1995. When she’s sworn in in January, Hinojosa, 52, will become the first Latina governor of Texas.

Before last night, Democrats were in the proverbial wilderness here – a state that during Trump’s term has made abortion a felony punishable by up to life in prison, with no exceptions for rape or incest; and enacted “permitless carry”, meaning anyone 21 or over can carry a handgun in public with no licence, training or background check (an earlier law, known as Campus Carry, allowed guns on university campuses). It has also banned gender-affirming care for transgender minors and passed a so-called “bathroom bill” restricting the use of toilets by transgender people in public buildings.

Texas was, until last night, the largest conservative state in the nation.

So who is the man who has turned it? A few years ago, a lobbyist friend who has spent decades in Texas politics told me Talarico was one to watch. He’d recently had lunch with him and told me he was “very sincere and authentic”. Talarico, he said, had worked as a school teacher and had recently given one of the best stump speeches he had ever heard. I looked that speech up online.

“We’re the only country in the world that allows this to happen,” he told the Texas House of Representatives a week after eight people were gunned down in a mass shooting near Dallas. “You can’t offer thoughts and prayers on Monday and then debate a bill to loosen gun regulations on Tuesday,” he said. “There is something profoundly cynical about asking God to solve a problem that we’re not willing to solve ourselves.”

During this election, he positioned himself as a fighter. He explained how he got his fight from his mother – a preacher’s daughter from Laredo who left home at 19 and met his birth father, who had a drinking problem and could be violent.

“One night he became abusive again,” he told his supporters. “But that night my mother’s love rose to meet it. She packed all our stuff into her little Ford Escort and took me to the hotel where she worked. The manager let us stay in one of the rooms until we found a small apartment of our own in East Austin… she passed that fighting spirit along to me.”

Serving in the Texas House of Representatives since November 2018, Talarico has led efforts to reform the state’s school finance system, introduced bills to improve school safety, early childhood education, ban reality TV shows from filming police work, and allow minors in Texas prisons the opportunity to graduate high school.

A lobbyist contact told me Talarico gave one of the best stump speeches he’s ever heard in 30 years working in Texas politics. Texas Monthly magazine called him “whip smart”, saying he was able to leverage his personal relationships with Republicans to pass a bill described as “20 years in the making” to better ensure the quality of childcare providers.

He also introduced a bill to abolish Confederate Heroes Day and a constitutional amendment stopping future abortion restrictions. Neither would become law while Republicans controlled the legislature, but it was the kind of thing Democrats were desperate to see their politicians doing in a state that had become synonymous with far-right politics.

Talarico got national attention in July 2025 when he appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast. Rogan ended the interview by telling him: “You need to run for president – we need someone who’s actually a good person.”

When a friend’s mother-in-law – a dyed-in-the-wool Texas Christian conservative – said she would be voting for Talarico in this election, I knew something had changed.

That same lobbyist friend, who wanted to stay anonymous because of his lobbying efforts in Texas, said it was hard to tell how much of Talarico’s win was a vote for a “very attractive, articulate young candidate and how much of it was a vote against Paxton or Trump. That remains to be seen.”

But he said it was unusual how many prominent Republicans came out and said they would be voting for Talarico, including former Republican state senator Kel Seliger and Neil Bush, brother of former Texas governor and president George W Bush.

Before the election, online political magazine Texas Bullpen polled political consultants, pollsters, and reporters in the state to give their best guess at how the election would turn out. The results didn’t look hopeful, and as my lobbyist friend says, “Even among experienced observers of Texas politics, nobody was picking Dems.”

But, polls are tricky things, particularly in Texas. On election night in 2018, I stood watching the large screens in the Capitol building in downtown Austin as the results came in. That year, Democrats statewide were talking about finally turning Texas blue. In the end, the Republicans won by 2.6 points.

Republicans, generally, don’t talk to pollsters, so they have to adjust to take this into account. The error in Texas polling is regularly four to five points. Before last night, Talarico was only polling just a few points above Paxton – a bona fide Bond villain who has been accused of fraud, has been impeached (though the Senate would acquit him) and whose own wife, a Texas state senator, filed for divorce “on biblical grounds”, alleging adultery.

So what does seismic change at the top in Texas mean in the long term?

It isn’t a surprise that Trump put himself on the ballot paper here in all but name. He knew how important it was. Before the results came in, The Texas Tribune was arguing that a Talarico win would rewrite the national political map for the 2028 presidential race. Texas, a state Republicans have long taken for granted, is now one of the most important battlegrounds for what comes next.

Texas has 40 votes in the Electoral College – the system used to decide who becomes president – accounting for about 15 per cent of the 270 needed to win. If Democrats can maintain their gains in Texas, they could win the White House without having to carry some of the states that traditionally decide close elections. Both parties are now going to have to spend heavily campaigning in Texas, one of the largest and most expensive states to contest, to secure its votes because they won’t be able to win the White House without it.

“We’re not going to have politics as usual,” my lobbyist friend said. “There will be challenges for these folks coming into office. Even staffing up is going to be a challenge because there have been so few Democratic officeholders. It’s not like there are a lot of experienced Democratic staffers out there.”

The scenes at Talarico’s opponents inside the Westin Galleria in Dallas were striking. While Talarico’s supporters were celebrating the breakthrough for the Democrats, Paxton’s supporters shouted “No!” as the result was called and some gathered in a prayer circle, while others looked visibly distressed.

The wilderness years may be over for Democrats in Texas, but they should also know that celebrating is the easy part. In January, the governing begins.

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