Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico is denying he supported defunding police after 2020 comments calling the system deeply broken and in need of replacement resurfaced.
The New York Post reported that a video from a 2020 virtual discussion put Talarico on defense this week in his Senate race against Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton. Then a state lawmaker, Talarico told progressive youth group Texas Rising it was “rich” that “defund the police” was treated as off-limits.
He tied the slogan to long-running state budget fights over schools and health services. The timing landed amid national protests after the death of George Floyd, when cities and activists pushed hard to shrink police budgets.
Months later, in a September 2020 interview with Honest Austin, Talarico went further. He did not hedge about the institution itself.
"Our system of policing is deeply broken. We must replace it with something new and something better,"
That line now sits at the center of the fight. Voters hearing “replace” the policing system can judge whether today’s denial matches the record he left in 2020.
Talarico’s campaign moved quickly once the clip spread. Spokesperson JT Ennis rejected the defund label in plain terms and cast the old remarks as a complaint about budget hypocrisy, not a plan to strip cops of money.
"James did not call for and does not support defunding the police, and he strongly supports Texas law enforcement and first responders,"
Ennis also pointed to floor votes. He said Talarico “voted to send billions of dollars to local law enforcement” and pushed more mental health funding so officers are not the default response to every crisis.
"That’s why James has voted to send billions of dollars to local law enforcement, in addition to advocating for better-funded mental health resources so that cops don’t have to respond to mental health emergencies that could be handled by a counselor,"
The campaign’s clean split is hard to miss. In 2020, Talarico called the system “deeply broken” and said it “must” be replaced. In the Senate race, his team insists he never backed defunding and stands with Texas law enforcement.
Resurfaced tapes have become a pattern in this contest, including a 2019 video on parents and gender identity that likewise forced fresh explanation from the Democrat.
The earlier clip came from a virtual event with Texas Rising, a progressive youth activist group. Talarico framed “defund the police” as fair game for debate and contrasted it with state cuts he said had already hit classrooms and health services for years.
"As an educator, it’s always rich to me that ‘defund the police’ is considered off-limits in our political debate, when defunding health services, defunding public education has been the stated policy of our state government for decades now,"
He presented himself as an educator calling out selective outrage. He did not, in the quoted lines, walk through concrete staffing levels, crime data, or what “replace” would mean for 911 response on a Tuesday night in Houston or Dallas.
That gap matters in a large state where voters still expect a sheriff, a trooper, or a city officer when violence hits. Abstract talk about broken systems collides with the basic demand for order.
His wider record on first principles has drawn similar scrutiny, from a past description of capitalism as an oppressive system he wanted dismantled to other cultural flashpoints on the trail.
Ennis did not stop at a funding defense. He accused Paxton and his allies of lying about the 2020 comments to shift attention from the attorney general’s own record.
The example the campaign highlighted was the case of Adam Dean Hoffman, a former Waco attorney charged with sexual abuse of a minor. Prosecutors from Paxton’s office took the matter to trial in 2025. Jurors could not reach a unanimous verdict, producing a mistrial.
The child victim did not want to testify again. Prosecutors then negotiated a plea. Hoffman pleaded guilty to misdemeanor indecent assault and to displaying harmful material to a minor.
He drew a 60-day jail sentence, got out after 29 days, and did not have to register as a sex offender. Talarico’s team branded the outcome an “Epstein style sweetheart deal.”
That attack turns a policing debate into a character fight over who failed victims. It does not erase Talarico’s own 2020 language about replacing a “deeply broken” system. Both threads now sit in front of Texas voters at once.
Shifted positions have followed him elsewhere too, including on transgender athletes in girls’ sports after earlier votes against GOP bans, another point of pressure in the same Senate race.
Talarico is the Democratic nominee aiming to flip a Texas seat in a state that has rewarded law-and-order messaging for years. Paxton enters as the GOP attorney general with a long brand on border security and crime.
In that environment, 2020 rhetoric about defunding debates and replacing policing is not a trivia item. It is a test of whether a candidate’s present assurances match the words he chose when the national mood favored sweeping change.
Ennis says the comments were taken out of context and that essential services, including law enforcement, should be adequately funded. The quoted record still shows Talarico calling the system broken and declaring it must be replaced.
Faith and culture fights have dogged the same campaign, from church-adjacent controversy to the moment he headlined a Pride festival featuring an 11-year-old drag performer, keeping the contrast with mainstream Texas voters in plain view.
Old video does not vote. Texans will. When a Senate hopeful once said policing must be replaced, and now says he never backed defunding, the burden sits on him to explain what changed, and what did not.
