Texas Democrats finally found their candidate — and he wants to reach into your pocket.
Polls are showing cracks in his support, and fellow Democrats are raising doubts about whether he can turn out minority voters.
And now James Talarico is running openly on raising taxes, which tells you everything you need to know about what kind of senator he would be.
What Talarico Is Actually Saying
Texas Democrat US Senate candidate James Talarico has made tax hikes a centerpiece of his pitch to voters, and he is not shy about it.
At a recent event in Fort Worth with billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban — moderated by Fox News host Jessica Tarlov — Talarico told the crowd: “I’ve told every wealthy person I’ve come across in this race: If you are ok with getting taxed more, if you’re ok with me limiting your influence in politics, you are welcome to join this movement that we are building.”
His campaign website spells out the rest. Talarico wants to make “billionaires pay their fair share in taxes,” including “by imposing a higher tax on their income and capital gains and ending the dubious ‘buy, borrow, die’ loopholes that billionaires use to grow untaxed wealth.” He also wants to raise the corporate tax rate.
The standard Democrat line, of course, is that all of this is aimed only at the very rich. Talarico’s website puts it this way: “Make giant corporations and the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share of taxes. (That way, we can cut taxes for working families and small businesses.)”
That promise is as old as the Democrat Party itself. Governments do not create wealth — they redistribute it. Every dollar extracted in taxes is a dollar no longer working in the private economy, paying someone’s mortgage, or keeping a small business afloat. The history of “tax the rich” campaigns is the history of middle-class families eventually picking up the tab.
Talarico also stood against the “big, beautiful” bill, which locked in tax cuts for middle-class Americans and added new benefits including no tax on tips or overtime. Had that legislation failed, tax brackets would have snapped back to pre-2018 levels. He called the bill “that big ugly bill,” claiming it “gutted our health care, they defunded schools, and they did all that to cut taxes for their donors. So, when you’re doing the people’s business instead of your donors’ business, you fight for things like I’ve fought for at the state capitol.”
He also wants to stand against what he described as “attacks against SNAP and WIC” — which are actually the Trump administration’s efforts to root out fraud, waste, and abuse in those programs.
The Bigger Picture on Talarico’s Record
Talarico is a Texas state representative and Presbyterian seminarian who recently said he chose his Senate run over completing his ordination, describing the campaign as its own form of ministry.
“And when we’re out here and we’re giving hope to people who have been starved of hope, when we bring people together who normally wouldn’t be together, it does feel like we’re doing some kind of ministry,” Talarico said.
But the record attached to that ministry talk is worth examining closely.
On abortion, Talarico has claimed the Bible is “silent on abortion” and previously called on former President Joe Biden to use federal buildings in red states to perform abortions following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision. Scripture does not support that reading. The Bible affirms the value of life in the womb, and Democrats who invoke Jesus to justify abortion funding are making a selective and politically motivated argument, not a faithful reading of the text.
On guns, Talarico endorsed a ban on “assault weapons” in a 2020 interview, despite presenting himself as a “believer in the Second Amendment” while running for higher office. His campaign website has listed universal background checks, a firearm-storage law, and raising the minimum purchase age for semiautomatic rifles among his priorities. He is running against Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who has used his office to challenge gun-control measures and secured a legal victory preserving Texans’ right to private firearm sales.
Talarico also said from the Texas House floor while opposing a bill protecting women’s sports that “God is non-binary.” And he called legislation restricting gender-affirming care for minors “Christofascism.” These are not the positions of a candidate trying to appeal to mainstream Texas voters — they are the positions of someone who has spent years in Austin’s progressive bubble and is now hoping no one notices.
The attempt to invoke Jesus to push a government-run healthcare agenda deserves the same scrutiny. The Bible does not prescribe modern progressive taxation or centralized bureaucratic redistribution as Christian obligations. Democrat politicians who reach for Scripture to justify expanding government control over healthcare are using faith as a rhetorical prop, not as a sincere guide to policy.
Why the Establishment Gap Matters for Paxton
Talarico is running against Ken Paxton, the Republican Texas Attorney General backed by President Trump, in a race that could determine Senate control. And the spending disparity is staggering.
Talarico has raised roughly $72 million since the beginning of 2025. Paxton has raised approximately $16.8 million through his campaign and joint fundraising committees. Since the general election began, Democrats have outspent Republicans on advertising by about $31.5 million to $4.7 million, according to AdImpact data.
But there is a deeper story here that goes beyond the dollar figures.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee and the Senate Leadership Fund — the super PAC tied to Senate Majority Leader John Thune — both strongly backed incumbent Senator John Cornyn in the primary. Paxton defeated Cornyn with President Trump’s endorsement. Now, those same establishment institutions have been looking for MAGA Inc. to take the lead in the general election rather than stepping in themselves. A spokesperson for the Senate Leadership Fund said it was “confident” Paxton would win but declined to comment on spending plans.
Cornyn, who supported amnesty measures and championed Joe Biden’s gun control legislation, has not moved to raise money for Paxton. That is the Republican establishment in a nutshell: perfectly comfortable letting a MAGA-aligned nominee twist in the wind rather than close ranks the way Democrats do after a contested primary.
Compare that to how Democrats handled Michigan, where Abdul El-Sayed defeated the establishment-backed candidate in the Senate primary. Chuck Schumer and top Democrats moved to accommodate the progressive winner rather than withhold support. That contrast — between a party that unifies and a party that sulks — is the institutional story underneath the Texas numbers.
Elon Musk’s America PAC has stepped into the breach, spending more than $247,000 to support Paxton and oppose Talarico — the largest expenditure in America PAC’s first major midterm spending wave. President Trump has also held a fundraiser for Paxton in Houston. But the absence of full national Republican investment, motivated in significant part by resentment over Trump’s primary endorsement of Paxton, remains a real factor in a race this close.
Paxton himself has been direct about the stakes. “If we lose Texas, I have no doubt the Senate will fall into Democrat hands,” he said in a recent social media post. “It is your job, as Texans, to ask someone to vote for our Republican ticket and tell them why. We all share one mission: Keep Texas, Texas.”
And Talarico, for his part, is doing everything a left-wing candidate does when he senses an opening: raising taxes, invoking Jesus, and hoping the money advantage carries him across the finish line.
Every dollar Talarico raises from California and New York donors — roughly half his haul in some reporting periods came from outside Texas — is a dollar aimed at flipping a seat that would tilt the electoral map and give Democrats a path to Senate control. That is not a Texas story. That is a national power play dressed up in cowboy boots.
Working Texans should ask themselves a simple question: when has a Democrat who promised to only tax the rich ever stopped there?
Sources: Breitbart News, “Texas Democrat James Talarico Campaigns on Raising Taxes,” August 31, 2026; Breitbart News, “Exclusive — Ken Paxton: ‘If We Lose Texas, the Senate’s Gone,'” August 15, 2026; Breitbart News, “WATCH — Crockett: Black Community in TX Not ‘Excited’ About Talarico,” August 24, 2026; Breitbart News, “Texas Leftist Talarico Gains Two-Point Edge over Paxton in Senate Race,” August 2, 2026; CNBC, “Elon Musk starts spending his midterm election millions, revealing his key Senate targets,” September 3, 2026; CNN, “Republicans fret as Talarico bombards airwaves and Paxton awaits Trump team’s cash.”
