James Talarico Flips Texas Senate Seat Blue For First Time In Nearly 4 Decades

Democratic Texas state Rep. James Talarico became the first Democrat to win a Texas Senate seat since 1988 during Tuesday’s election.

Talarico ran a tight race against Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in deep-red Texas while the economy and corruption were top issues on voters’ minds. Texas will have a Democratic senator for the first time since June 1993, when former Democratic Texas Sen. Bob Krueger left office.

The race topped $500 million in advertisement spending, making it the most expensive non-presidential U.S. election in history. Republican outside groups and political action committees (PACs) spent over $360 million to support Paxton, while Democrats spent over $133 million on ads to support Talarico through late October.

Tech mogul Elon Musk spent about $212 million to support Paxton, including a $168 million donation to the Senate Leadership Fund, the Senate Republicans’ top campaign arm, which funneled almost all of the cash into pro-Paxton advertisements. Many of Musk’s headquarters, including Tesla and SpaceX, are headquartered in Texas.

Outside groups also spent large sums in other red states, including Kansas and South Carolina.

Talarico raised $64 million in the third quarter, the largest third-quarter haul of any Senate candidate in history. Former Democratic Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke raised a then-record $38.1 million in the third quarter when he ran against Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018, although he lost to Cruz by a two-point margin, 50.9% to 48.3%.

Talarico stated in 2021 that God was “non-binary” and told a podcaster in May 2023 that he loved transgender children when asked to name something he loved other than his children. He claimed that the biblical account of Jesus’ conception justified abortion.

The Texas Democrat walked back his claim on God being “non-binary” and said he was being “deliberately provocative.” He opposed a bill in the Texas state Legislature that would ban men from competing in women’s sports, although he claimed in September that he did not support trans-identifying men competing with women because it “endangers safety and fairness.”

Talarico expressed support for a gun-licensing system, mandated safety standards for handguns and a ban on modern semiautomatic firearms during a 2020 webinar recording. In the state Legislature, he co-authored two bills that restricted handgun sales and added new regulatory burdens involving concealed carry permits. He supported another bill that would raise the age to buy certain semiautomatic weapons to 21.