Texas state Rep. James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, acknowledged that some of his past public statements were off-base, even as he tried to redirect the conversation toward his new Republican opponent, Attorney General Ken Paxton, who defeated incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in a GOP primary runoff this week.
The admission came during an NBC News interview published May 27, 2026, as Talarico scrambled to get ahead of a barrage of attacks from Paxton and President Donald Trump, attacks built largely on Talarico's own words.
The Texas general election is now set: Paxton, backed by Trump's endorsement earlier this month, against Talarico, a four-term state legislator who will need to explain away a trail of statements on race, gender, religion, and diet that his opponents are already weaponizing. For a party that can't afford to lose winnable races, Talarico's baggage may be the last thing Democrats needed.
Paxton wasted no time. At his victory celebration Tuesday night, the attorney general rolled out a string of mocking nicknames for his Democratic opponent, "Tofu Talarico," "Six-gender Jimmy," "James Tala-freako," and "Low T Talarico", while denouncing Talarico's positions on gender-affirming care, immigration, energy, and religion.
The "six-gender" line traces back to a 2021 Texas Legislature debate on a bill targeting transgender athletes. Talarico stated during that debate: "Modern science recognizes that there are many more than two biological sexes, in fact, there are six." That clip has become a centerpiece of Republican opposition research.
Then there are the 2020 social media posts. After the killing of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia, Talarico posted images on X of Black individuals and wrote in a follow-up post:
"White skin gives me and every white American immunity from the virus. But we spread it wherever we go, through our words, our actions, and our systems. We don't have to be showing symptoms, like a white hood or a Confederate flag, to be contagious."
The "virus of racism" metaphor, published during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, reads today like a product of the racial reckoning rhetoric that swept progressive politics in 2020. It is exactly the kind of statement that plays well in a Democratic primary and lands like a lead balloon in a Texas general election.
Talarico's response was to own it, partially. He told NBC News he would be "the first to admit" he missed the mark on some of those old statements, but framed the whole offensive as a distraction tactic by Paxton.
"I'll be the first to admit that I missed the mark on some of those old statements, but what Ken Paxton is doing is clipping my cringey comments to distract from his career of corruption."
The Democratic nominee's strategy is clear enough. Rather than litigate every old clip, he wants the race to be a referendum on Paxton's legal and ethical record. Paxton was impeached in 2023 by the Republican-led Texas House on charges that included using his public office to benefit a donor. The Texas State Senate acquitted him. Paxton also faced an indictment that was dismissed after he participated in a diversion program.
Talarico leaned into that contrast hard. "Ken Paxton has a criminal record; I have a legislative record," he said, claiming credit for passing 60 bipartisan bills during his four terms in the Texas House, measures he said addressed property taxes, teacher pay, housing costs, childcare, and prescription drug prices including insulin.
He also called Paxton "the most corrupt politician in America" and added that "that kind of corruption is the rot at the core of this broken political system that we're running against."
It's a familiar Democratic playbook: when your own record is a liability, make the other guy's record the issue. Whether it works in a state like Texas, where Republican primary voters just chose Paxton over a sitting senator, is another question entirely.
President Trump endorsed Paxton earlier in May 2026 and posted on Truth Social after the primary victory with a broadside against Talarico. Trump called Talarico "may be the worst TEXAS candidate I have ever seen" and ticked through a list of vulnerabilities: open borders advocacy, weakness on crime, the six-genders claim, being "insulting to Jesus Christ," opposition to the military, mask-wearing, and veganism.
On that last point, Talarico denied being vegan in a Tuesday interview with MeidasTouch, and used the question as an opening to bring up Paxton's past indictment. In Texas, apparently, even your lunch order is a campaign issue.
Trump's involvement signals that the White House sees this seat as a priority and Talarico as a target-rich opponent. For Talarico, running against both Paxton and a sitting president in deep-red Texas is a steep climb. Democrats are already struggling with internal doubts about party leadership heading into the midterms, and a weak Texas nominee would compound those problems.
The backdrop to all of this is the defeat of John Cornyn, a three-term incumbent and former Senate majority whip, in his own party's primary runoff. NBC News analyst Steve Kornacki noted that "you don't see incumbents lose by this kind of margin every day", a remark that underscores how dramatically the Texas GOP electorate has shifted.
Cornyn and his allies had argued for months that nominating Paxton would "put the seat at risk" because of the attorney general's legal controversies. That argument failed with Republican primary voters. Now Democrats have to decide whether Paxton's record actually gives them an opening, or whether Texas is simply too red for Talarico's brand of politics.
The honest answer is that Talarico's problems are mostly self-inflicted. Paxton's impeachment and indictment history are legitimate lines of attack, but they are old news to Texas voters who chose him anyway. Talarico's statements about six biological sexes, his racial-metaphor social media posts, and his broader cultural positioning are fresh ammunition that Republicans will use relentlessly from now through November.
Talarico's concession that he "missed the mark" is an attempt to neutralize the damage early. But in a general election, admitting your past statements were "cringey" doesn't make them disappear. It confirms they exist, and invites voters to look them up.
The Texas Senate race is shaping up as a test case for whether Democrats can compete in hostile territory when their nominees carry cultural baggage that alienates the very voters they need to win. Some prominent Democrats have already broken with party orthodoxy on various fronts, recognizing that the progressive lane has limits outside deep-blue districts.
Talarico seems to understand this. He told NBC News he has "called out the extremes in both parties", language designed to position himself as a centrist. But the clips don't lie. A candidate who declared there are six biological sexes on the floor of the Texas Legislature is going to have a hard time selling himself as a moderate to general-election voters in a state Trump carried twice.
Meanwhile, other Democrats are stepping aside rather than face tough races, and the party's Senate map looks increasingly difficult. Talarico is staying in and fighting, which takes a certain nerve. But nerve alone doesn't erase a paper trail.
The Paxton-Talarico matchup gives Texas voters a stark choice. On one side, an attorney general who survived impeachment and a criminal indictment to win his party's nomination with Trump's backing. On the other, a state representative whose own words have become his biggest liability before the general election has even formally begun.
Democrats facing uphill Senate battles across the country will be watching Texas closely. If Talarico can't find a way to make the race about Paxton's record rather than his own, the seat stays Republican, and the "missed the mark" interview becomes just another chapter in the story of a party that keeps nominating candidates who can't win where it counts.
When you have to open your general-election campaign by apologizing for your own statements, you've already told voters everything they need to know about your judgment.