Just days into his Senate campaign, James Talarico is making his Christian faith a centerpiece of what will be an uphill battle to strip one of Texas’s Senate seats out of the hands of Republicans.
On Tuesday, Talarico launched his bid to challenge Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) with a campaign video that emphasized his Presbyterian background, and in the aftermath of conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination, he again invoked Christianity as a shared ideal.
Kirk, a conservative political activist, was assassinated at a speaking event in Utah on Wednesday, the day after Talarico launched his Senate campaign in Texas.
“My faith — the faith I shared with Charlie Kirk — teaches me to love my neighbor as myself — not just my neighbors who look like me or pray like me or vote like me,” Talarico said at a rally just hours after Kirk was shot. “I’m called to love all my neighbors the way I love myself.”
“Because despite our differences, we all want the same things: a safe neighborhood, a good job, a quality, well-funded public school, and the ability to see a doctor when you need one. I’m tired of being pitted against my neighbor. I’m tired of being told to hate my neighbor,” he continued.
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Talarico’s Christian-infused messaging long predates his Senate campaign and is part of what makes him an attractive candidate to Democrats. He’s gone viral for opposing Republican state lawmakers moving to add the Ten Commandments to public classrooms, and at another point for criticizing those lawmakers for not adopting stricter gun laws in the face of mass shootings.
In terms of politics, Talarico is generally aligned with today’s Democratic Party platform, opposing Texas’s abortion restrictions and believing in a stronger separation of church and state. He’s also outspokenly against what he calls the rise of “Christian nationalism.”
Those views have put him at odds with the evangelical Christians who make up some of the Republicans’ traditional voting base, but Talarico’s theological vocabulary — he is training to become a pastor in seminary — presents a test case in Texas, where Democrats have long been locked out of political power.
The Texas Senate race is shaping up to be a crowded one with competitive primaries on both the Republican and Democratic sides. Talarico launched his bid for the upper chamber with 2024 Democratic Senate nominee and former Rep. Collin Allred (D-TX) already in the race, while ex-Rep. Beto O’Rourke could also join.
Earlier this year, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced a primary bid against incumbent Cornyn, and the primary has already become especially bitter, with Paxton’s separation from his wife, who is divorcing him on “biblical grounds,” and apparent infidelity becoming one line of attack.
Talarico held the second rally of his Senate campaign on Wednesday evening, where he “repurposed” his message to focus on the shooting in Utah and the “larger issue of political violence.” His message represented an attempt to strike a message of reconciliation with rising tensions nationally.
“I disagreed with Charlie Kirk on nearly every political issue, but he was a child of God. He was our sibling,” Talarico said at the rally.
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In addition to studying to become a pastor, the Texas Democrat is a member of the state House. The 36-year-old has 1.2 million followers on TikTok and is a former sixth-grade teacher in San Antonio. Just weeks before launching his campaign, Talarico joined podcaster Joe Rogan, where he also identified as a Christian Democrat.
“I think that the way James is doing it in framing Charlie like any of us as children of God, I think that is a way to infuse humanity back into it and does provide a way to bring down the temperature,” Sammy Kanter, CEO of Girl and the Gov, told the Washington Examiner.
