James Talarico’s Spiritual Bernie-Style Politics Is a Fundraising Force in the Texas Senate Race

The Texas Senate race next year may wind up being the most high-profile one in America, just because both primaries are shaping up to be so competitive and expensive. Incumbents like Republican John Cornyn reign supreme in American politics, but he has a formidable challenger in Texas Attorney General slash Fox News personality Ken Paxton. On the left, establishment-backed Colin Allred is back to try to do what he and Beto O’Rourke could not: defeat a Republican in a Texas Senate race. Maybe Allred will have a better chance this time against someone less viscerally offensive to the human senses than Ted Cruz, but I doubt it. That said, not all hope is lost for the Democrats to make Blexas some kind of reality, as another candidate in the Democratic primary has emerged. Former public school teacher, current Presbyterian seminarian and current Democratic Representative for Texas’ 50th district, James Talarico, says he is running because “The biggest divide in this country is not left vs. right. It’s top vs. bottom.” And “Billionaires want us looking left and right at each other instead of looking up at them.”

Sound familiar?

That said, the Bernie Sanders comparisons end there. Talarico’s deep religious conviction is a unique aspect of his candidacy that you don’t see often in the more secular Democratic Party whose highest profile figure famously criticized some Americans for “cling[ing] to guns or religion.” Talarico is explicit that his politics and his religion inform each other, and he is lining up an attack on the entire Texas primary from the left and behind the pulpit. His rhetoric is laser focused on billionaires, and he has given sermons against Christian nationalism. This will be a very interesting race to watch.

Democracy is not just voting in elections; it’s not just institutions and laws.

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Democracy is a spiritual practice.

It requires a deep love for our neighbors — especially our neighbors with whom we disagree the most.

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— James Talarico (@jamestalarico.bsky.social) September 28, 2025 at 3:48 PM

DC politicians like John Cornyn promised to lower costs, fight for families, and drain the swamp.

Now they’re trying to gut healthcare for millions to cut taxes for their donors — even shutting down the government to do it.

If you feel conned, you have a place in this campaign.

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— James Talarico (@jamestalarico.bsky.social) September 30, 2025 at 8:19 PM

I am trying to picture Hakeem Jeffries saying “if you feel like you’ve been conned” without his K-street wiring short-circuiting, forcing him to spontaneously combust. Will Allred or Cornyn or Paxton attack a Presbyterian seminarian for being too woke? Will they criticize his “it’s time to start flipping tables” tagline inspired by a “barefoot rabbi [who] walked into the seat of power and flipped over the tables of injustice” for being too extreme? They may have to pull out all the stops in this race, because Talarico announced today that he can play their game pretty well too.

In the three weeks since James Talarico launched his U.S. Senate bid, his campaign has raised $6.2 million. To put that figure in perspective, Colin Allred launched his campaign on July 1st and has raised $4.1 million total. If both candidates maintained this pace over a whole year (which they won’t), Allred would pull in $16.4 million while Talarico would raise $107.46 million. There is enthusiasm for one candidate on the left in Texas, that’s for certain. Two? Well…we had an election about that not too long ago and it’s on Allred to prove why this time is different.

Talarico has seen his star rise in recent months as his speeches and sermons have gone viral, and it seems to have translated into fundraising dollars. He is a very naturally talented speaker, and he is a tough figure for the Beltway’s political machine to smear. Explicitly tying his religion to his political pitch is clearly his earnestly held belief system if you’ve ever seen his sermons, but it’s also a great way to play political defense by forcing people to attack him through his faith. He’s a formidable candidate on paper, and as his campaign announced today, he’s got a lot of paper too. It’s still early, but not that early as 2026 primaries will begin in earnest in a few months, and Texas is clearly a race to watch on both sides–especially Talarico, one of the more interesting people to come into national politics since we all learned the name Zohran Mamdani.