For four years, James Talarico dared Texas to be shocked by him.
This week, in a race too close to call, he asked Texas to forget it.
It took one Fox News interview to unravel everything he spent four years building.
The Candidate Who Suddenly Discovered There Are Two Genders
Talarico built his national brand on being the provocative one.
In 2021, he stood on the Texas House floor and declared, "God is both masculine and feminine and everything in between. God is non-binary."
He later claimed there were six biological sexes, not two.
In 2023, he voted against the Texas bill that banned gender surgery, puberty blockers and hormone treatments for minors – after backing Democrat-sponsored amendments meant to narrow it, all of which failed.
A year earlier, he'd opposed a bill requiring school athletes to compete based on the sex on their birth certificate, dismissing the whole issue as invented.
That was the real James Talarico.
Progressives cheered him for it. National Democrats held him up as proof their party could still sound bold in a red state.
Then a Fox News reporter sat him down this week and asked him to say it all again, on camera.
He couldn't do it.
Asked if he'd back a national ban on gender surgery for minors, he didn't hesitate.
Asked about biological men in women's sports, he suddenly discovered fairness matters.
Asked about his six-sexes claim, he said there are only two after all, and blamed his own wording.
Call it what it is: a campaign-trail conversion, timed to the exact week his party needs Texas moderates to stop paying attention to who he actually is.
He's Not Fooling Anyone Who's Been Paying Attention
Talarico wants credit for a consistent record, pointing to the Democrat-sponsored amendments he backed to narrow the 2023 bill.
Every one of those amendments failed. The bill still came to a final vote. He voted no.
An amendment nobody passed doesn't erase a vote he actually cast – that's not nuance, that's spin, and Texans aren't dumb enough to buy it twice.
Here's the tell his campaign hopes nobody notices: he only walked back the positions polling worst.
He hasn't budged on wanting the Supreme Court restructured, complete with term limits and an openness to adding justices.
But on taxes, he flipped again.
He voted against permanently banning a state income tax back before Texas voters approved that very ban in 2019, calling it needless government overreach at the time.
This week, he told Fox News flatly that Texas shouldn't have a state income tax at all.
That's a third reversal in one interview – it just didn't get the same headline as the other two.
That's not growth. That's a man reading his own internal polling and reverse-engineering a new personality from it, 55 days before Texans vote.
The Deflection Trick Every Democrat Runs When Cornered
Every time Fox News pressed him on his own record, Talarico had one move: pivot straight to Ken Paxton's legal troubles.
Paxton's baggage is real, and Texans already know about it – it's been litigated in public for years.
But bringing it up mid-interview isn't an answer. It's a dodge, and it doesn't explain why he spent four years fighting policies he now claims to support.
Talarico's Rebrand Has 55 Days to Outrun His Own Tape
Early voting starts October 19, and Talarico doesn't have long to make this new version of himself stick.
His own legislative record contradicts it, on tape, in his own words.
Republicans aren't going to stop running those clips now that he's decided to disagree with himself on camera too.
Sources:
- Brooke Taylor and Peter Pinedo, "Talarico says he 'missed the mark' as he backtracks on controversial woke statements," Fox News, September 9, 2026.
- "James Talarico and Ken Paxton in dead heat in razor tight Texas Senate race," Newsweek, September 2026.
