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"We just won Texas back." So said James Talarico, 37, to supporters in Austin, a state where Democrats haven't won a national election in over 30 years. "Real men serve others; weak men serve themselves," he said, responding to attacks on his "lack of masculinity" by his Republican opponent, Ken Paxton, citing the example of Mark Talarico—the Italian-American who married his mother, Tamara, a single mother of two who had left an alcoholic and abusive partner—who then adopted the Democratic Senate candidate and his sister, giving them their Italian-origin surname.
“Every Saturday morning, Mark Talarico would mow the lawn and then, without anyone asking, he would go into the next yard and mow the neighbor's, who was elderly and a widow. My father never spoke about it, he just did it, because that's what a man does,” the 37-year-old former Presbyterian seminarian and former middle school teacher said in recent months, claiming that his father had given him an example of what a true man is: “one who keeps his commitments to his family and his neighbors, who does the right thing, even when no one is looking.”
Family, love for one's neighbors, and then, of course, faith: the watchwords of Talarico's campaign, as an eighth-generation Texan, are unsettling given the rhetoric of Paxton and Donald Trump, who portray him as an extremist Democrat in disguise.
“This election is not about the Democratic Party or the Republican Party, it's about something bigger, this election must focus on the vision of what our state can be,” the Democrat said in one of his latest rallies, reiterating the bipartisan message, what in America is called the 'big tent', with which he promised that from the Senate in Washington he will lead “the fight against the mega-billionaire financiers and puppet politicians who have taken control of Texas”, as his platform states.
A message that not only galvanized and united the various souls of the Democratic Party, but also attracted Republicans, disillusioned with Trump and Republicans in general over the high cost of living, the price of gasoline, and, most importantly in Texas, the construction of data centers for artificial intelligence.
His opponent was one of Texas's most controversial political figures, current Attorney General Paxton.
Despite the many scandals he has been involved in, which in recent years pushed Texas Republicans to impeach him, Paxton won the primaries because he was vigorously supported by Trump, who wanted to take the seat away from John Cornyn, a fourth-term senator whom the tycoon wanted to punish for being "disloyal."
Paxton's candidacy wasn't helped by the fact that his wife Angela, also a Texas Republican, filed for divorce in the summer of 2025, accusing him of adultery, citing the Bible. He then asked Texas voters to hold their noses and vote for all Republican candidates in November "regardless of their weaknesses."
Doubts, reticence, and outright distancing from Paxton then came from the old Texas Republican establishment, of which Cornyn is a part, which has a point of reference in the Bush clan, even if what was once the Republican political dynasty is progressively losing influence in the GOP controlled by the never-loved Trump.
According to what was revealed by the NYT in September, George W. Bush excluded Paxton from a fundraiser organized for GOP Senate candidates.
Instead, his former strategist Karl Rove, for decades the deus ex machina of Texas Republican politics, took public stands against Paxton, and now the former president's younger brother, Neil, has announced that he voted early for Talarico because he was "deeply concerned" about Paxton's conduct and instead "enormously impressed" by the Democrat's pragmatic principles.
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