One day after securing the Democratic nomination for the Texas Senate, James Talarico sat down with CBS News and tried to explain away years of incendiary public statements, telling interviewer Ed O'Keefe that some of his own remarks were things he "certainly regret[s]" and that he had "missed the mark." The pivot came less than 24 hours after Republican nominee Ken Paxton used his runoff victory speech to frame Talarico as a radical threat to Texas values.
The race is now set for November 2026: Paxton, the Trump-endorsed former attorney general who toppled incumbent John Cornyn in Tuesday's runoff, versus Talarico, a four-term state representative whose catalogue of provocative remarks is already the centerpiece of Republican opposition research.
For a party that hasn't won a statewide race in Texas since 1994, and hasn't captured a Senate seat since the year Talarico was born, 1988, the general election was always going to require a deft sales pitch. What Talarico delivered on Wednesday looked less like confidence and more like damage control.
The list is not short. In 2021, Talarico declared that God is "non-binary" and that transgender children were made in God's image. On a May 2023 podcast, asked to name something he loved besides family and friends, he answered that he loved transgender kids. He has argued that the biblical account of Jesus' conception justified abortion. And he has said that a person cannot call themselves a Christian if they support the oil and gas industries, a position that, in Texas, amounts to telling a sizable share of the workforce they are living in sin.
When O'Keefe pressed him on the "non-binary God" remark, Talarico offered this explanation:
"Well, you know, I think I was being intentionally provocative with that statement. But what it means is that God can't be defined by human categories."
He then pivoted to scripture, citing the Apostle Paul's letter to the Galatians, "in Christ there is neither male nor female", and framed himself as a defender of vulnerable Texans. But the concession came quickly after:
"There are some statements that I've made that I certainly regret. There are statements that I've made where I've missed the mark."
The admission is worth pausing on. A candidate who built his brand on bold moral claims, wielding the Bible to justify progressive positions on gender, abortion, and energy policy, now says he was just "being intentionally provocative." Voters are left to wonder which version is the real one: the firebrand who meant every word, or the nominee who now wishes he'd kept quiet.
Ken Paxton, for his part, made clear in his victory speech Tuesday night that he intends to make Talarico's record the defining issue of the fall campaign. His language was blunt:
"James Talarico is a threat to everything we hold dear in this state and in this country. He's a threat to our security and our safety. He wants open borders and even said a welcome mat should be at our southern border. He's a threat to our children. He wants boys in girls sports. Gender mutilation surgery performed on kids... That's weird and that's a radical guy."
Talarico's response was to redirect attention to Paxton's own controversies. He told O'Keefe that Paxton was "intentionally clipping my cringey comments to distract from his career of corruption," adding: "Ken Paxton has a criminal record. I have a legislative record."
Paxton's baggage is real. The Texas House impeached him in 2023 on 20 articles alleging he misused his office to benefit Nate Paul, a wealthy real estate developer and political donor. The state Senate acquitted him that September. He was also indicted on felony securities fraud charges and reached a pretrial agreement in 2024 involving community service and restitution. An extramarital affair became public, and his wife, Republican state Senator Angela Paxton, filed for divorce.
None of that, however, prevented Paxton from defeating Cornyn in the runoff with President Trump's endorsement behind him. And none of it erases the trail of statements Talarico left behind, statements he now concedes were mistakes.
Talarico's path to the nomination was itself contentious. He defeated Jasmine Crockett in the Democratic primary, but the victory came amid credible accusations of racism and heavy spending by billionaire-funded super PACs. The Washington Free Beacon reported that the Lone Star Rising PAC, started by a Talarico associate days before his campaign launch, spent millions attacking Crockett, bankrolled by donors including Reid Hoffman, Stephen Mandel, and Mark Heising. Democratic establishment figures and media outlets allegedly coordinated to support Talarico while undermining Crockett's candidacy, branding her as "unelectable."
Talarico's controversial social media history has drawn scrutiny before. His 2020 tweets claiming white people spread a racism "virus" became a flashpoint during the primary, and he chose to dig in rather than apologize at the time.
That pattern, provoke, then recalibrate when the political math demands it, is exactly what the CBS interview looked like on Wednesday. The man who told podcast listeners he loved transgender kids and told oil-and-gas workers they couldn't be real Christians now wants to be seen as a unifier who "brought Democrats and independents together to actually make progress for people."
Texas Democrats have reportedly been cautiously optimistic about their chances against Paxton, viewing his legal and personal controversies as an opening. But optimism and electoral gravity are different things. No Democrat has won statewide in Texas in more than three decades.
Talarico will need to persuade voters who backed Cornyn, a conventional Republican incumbent, that he is a safe alternative. His campaign has already begun making that pitch to disaffected Cornyn supporters. Whether those voters will overlook a record of statements that Talarico himself now calls regrettable is another question entirely.
He has drawn national attention, too. Former President Obama traveled to Austin to campaign for him, a sign that national Democrats view the seat as competitive. But big-name surrogates can only do so much when a candidate's own words are the opposition's best weapon.
Paxton, meanwhile, carries Trump's endorsement and a message tailored to Texas's conservative base: border security, parental rights, and traditional values. His legal history gives Democrats ammunition, but his acquittal by the state Senate and his pretrial resolution on the fraud charges allow him to argue those chapters are closed.
Talarico's chapters, by contrast, keep reopening. His declaration that God is nonbinary trailed him through the primary and will follow him into November. His remarks on abortion, transgender issues, and the oil and gas industry are not obscure committee-hearing footnotes, they are recorded, quotable, and shareable. The National Republican Senatorial Committee has already circulated clips.
Talarico's Wednesday interview revealed a candidate caught between two audiences. The progressive base that powered his primary win expects the provocateur who wielded scripture to defend gender ideology and attack fossil fuels. The general electorate in Texas, a state where energy jobs pay mortgages and church pews fill on Sunday, expects something very different.
Saying "I was being intentionally provocative" is an explanation, not an apology. It tells voters that the statements were calculated, not accidental, and that the current softening is calculated, too. Calling his own remarks "cringey" doesn't retract them. It just acknowledges they poll badly.
Paxton has vulnerabilities. His impeachment, his fraud indictment, and his personal life give Talarico real material to work with. But the Democratic nominee's strategy of pointing at Paxton's record while asking voters to ignore his own is a gamble that assumes Texans will weigh one man's legal troubles more heavily than the other man's stated beliefs about God, children, abortion, and the industry that fuels their state's economy.
That is a bet most Texas Democrats have lost for a generation.
When a candidate tells you who he is, on podcasts, in tweets, from the well of the state House, believe him the first time. The walk-back is the performance. The record is the résumé.
