Texas Democrat James Talarico joins a widening US Senate race

Texas state Rep. James Talarico, a Democrat and former schoolteacher with a rising national profile, joined a widening race for U.S. Senate on Tuesday that already has two prominent challengers trying to unseat Republican Sen. John Cornyn.

Talarico, 36, has gained popularity in the Texas House through viral social media posts challenging Republican-led policies such as private school vouchers and requiring the Ten Commandments in classrooms. It is the first statewide race for Talarico, who flipped a seat in Austin’s booming suburbs in 2018.

He will seek the Democratic nomination in a field that includes former U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, who is running again after unsuccessfully challenging Republican Sen. Ted Cruz last year.

“I get the sense that there is a deep hunger across the political spectrum for a fundamentally different kind of politics,” Talarico said in an interview ahead of his announcement. “It’s been 10 years now of Trumpian politics, politics as a blood sport … and there is a hunger 10 years later for a return to more timeless values of sincerity and honesty and compassion and respect.”

Talarico, who has degrees from the University of Texas at Austin and Harvard University, is working on a Master of Divinity at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary and said he hopes to one day lead the church he grew up in.

Cornyn, who is running for a fifth term, is facing the most competitive reelection campaign of his career against the state’s Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Paxton was impeached in 2023 by the Republican-led House of Representatives on articles including bribery and abuse of public trust. Paxton ultimately was acquitted in a historic impeachment trial and now is trying to position himself as an outsider to the political establishment more aligned with the state’s Republican voters.

Democrats have not won a statewide election in Texas in more than 30 years. Although former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke came within 3 percentage points of defeating Cruz in 2018, the margin of victory for Republicans have grown in the years since. President Donald Trump won the state last year by more than 13 percentage points.

O’Rourke has also been mulling another Senate run, three years after losing his bid to unseat Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. Astronaut Terry Virts is also running for the Democratic nomination.