Texas Senate candidate Talarico walks back culture-war positions as race tightens
The Texas Senate contest, which Fox News polling now describes as surprisingly close, is heading into its final months with both parties treating it as central to their Senate majority calculations. Against that backdrop,…
Key takeaways
- Democratic Texas Senate candidate James Talarico told Fox News on Tuesday he would support a national ban on gender surgery for minors and opposes transgender athletes in women's sports.
- Talarico faces Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in a race Fox News polling describes as surprisingly close, with control of the Senate majority at stake.
- Talarico defended his 2023 vote against Texas Senate Bill 14 as opposition to an 'overly broad' measure, noting he backed all 18 Democratic amendments, which each failed.
- He walked back a prior claim about the number of sexes, saying there are two sexes, not six, and acknowledged he 'obviously didn't say it correctly.'
- Talarico pledged to focus on cost-of-living issues like groceries, gas, utilities, and healthcare through Election Day and called Paxton 'the most corrupt politician in Texas.'
The Texas Senate contest, which Fox News polling now describes as surprisingly close, is heading into its final months with both parties treating it as central to their Senate majority calculations. Against that backdrop, Democratic candidate James Talarico sat down with Fox News on Tuesday at a Dallas food drive event and moved toward the political center on several contentious social issues, saying he would support a national ban on gender surgery for minors and opposing transgender athletes in women's sports.
The interview ran as the first-ever GOP midterm convention opened just miles away in downtown Dallas. Talarico faces Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican who has faced his own controversies. A Republican loss in the state would significantly constrain President Donald Trump's ability to implement his agenda, making the race a priority for both parties.
Clarifications on gender and religion
Asked directly whether he would vote as a senator for a national ban on gender surgery for minors, Talarico said "absolutely." He defended his 2023 vote against Texas Senate Bill 14, which prohibited certain gender surgeries, puberty blockers, and hormone treatments for minors, by calling the measure "overly broad." He voted in favor of all 18 Democratic amendments to the bill. Each failed. His stated preference was to narrow the legislation through the amendment process rather than oppose its underlying goal.
His most-cited past statement came from a 2021 floor speech in which he declared that "God is both masculine and feminine and everything in between. God is non-binary." On Tuesday he called that comment "provocative," framing it as a theological point about the limits of human categories, though he did not fully walk it back. His retraction on the gender-count claim was sharper: there are two sexes, not six, and a small percentage of people have genetic abnormalities. "Obviously didn't say it correctly," he acknowledged. He left his Supreme Court critique untouched, describing the court as "infected" with corruption and saying he would vote for binding codes of conduct, term limits, and is open to expanding the number of justices.
The affordability frame
Talarico pledged to make cost-of-living the focus through Election Day, citing groceries, gas, utilities, and healthcare as the issues he hears most across the state. He said Texas should not have an income tax, a position that sits in tension with his vote against a 2019 measure to permanently ban one, which he called redundant at the time. Texas voters approved that measure in November 2019. He called Paxton "the most corrupt politician in Texas." Fox News Digital reached out to the Paxton campaign for a comment; no response had been received at the time of publication.
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