James Talarico has spent months selling himself as a reasonable, faith-grounded Democrat.

But his own past tells a different story entirely.

And now that story is catching up with him as he battles Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for a US Senate seat.

What the Job Listings Actually Said

According to listings reviewed by the Daily Caller, Democrat Texas Senate nominee James Talarico put up several job postings during past political campaigns that prioritized transgender and nonwhite people, with one listing reading, “Women, people of color, and LGBTQIA+ applicants are strongly encouraged to apply.”

Critics say the pattern in campaign hiring reveals the real priorities driving Talarico’s operation, stripping away the moderate veneer he has worked hard to construct for general election voters.

Talarico has not kept the racial composition of his team a secret. At a November appearance hosted by the Houston Black American Democrats, he said, “Our campaign is already putting major resources behind direct mail, door knocking, black media, faith outreach, and much more.” He followed that by saying, “I recognize that I’m a white boy from Round Rock, and I’ve got blind spots. And it’s why we are building a campaign team that looks like Texas. And I’m proud to say that the senior staff… is majority minority and majority women.”

Bragging about the racial and gender composition of your staff is, by definition, making hiring decisions based on race and gender. That is DEI by another name, regardless of how Talarico packages it for different audiences.

Data from the University of Texas shows about 43 percent of state residents support prohibiting DEI policies and programs at K-12 public schools in Texas, with 44 percent opposed and 12 percent expressing no opinion. Texas is not a state where doubling down on race-conscious hiring is obviously a winning general election strategy.

The Christianity Comments That Keep Surfacing

The job listings are one thing. What Talarico said about Christianity at an August appearance is something else altogether.

Talarico boasted about having young staffers who oppose Christianity because it does not coincide with their progressive social values. His exact words: “I have seen how Christianity has been perverted in this country over the last 50 years by the religious right. It’s gotten to the point where, you know, I have Gen Z members of my team who now think that Christianity is synonymous with being anti-gay, anti-science, anti-woman. And that is not the tradition I grew up in.”

Pause on that for a moment. He was not condemning the fact that his staffers hold a dim view of Christianity. He was presenting it as evidence of damage done by the “religious right.” The implication is that his young team members’ hostility to the faith is a reasonable response to Republican politics, not a problem worth addressing.

This is a candidate who has made his Christian credentials central to his appeal. He earned a master’s degree in theological studies and has publicly discussed his aspirations to become a pastor. But when his own staffers treat Christianity as a synonym for bigotry, his reaction is to blame conservatives rather than push back on the contempt.

That is not the posture of someone who genuinely respects Christian faith. That is the posture of someone who uses Christian language as a political tool when it is convenient and sets it aside when his base finds it inconvenient.

The Bible does not endorse DEI hiring programs, transgender surgeries for children, or the proposition that God is non-binary. Talarico has made all three of those positions part of his record. In 2021, on the Texas House floor, he said, “God is both masculine and feminine and everything in between. God is non-binary,” while opposing legislation to keep biological males out of women’s sports. Scripture does not support that claim. Genesis 1:27 describes God creating humanity as male and female. Talarico’s selective use of Christian framing to advance positions that contradict traditional biblical teaching is exactly the kind of political appropriation that deserves scrutiny.

The Institutional Double Standard Nobody Wants to Talk About

Here is the broader picture that explains why this race matters beyond Texas.

Ken Paxton defeated incumbent Senator John Cornyn in the Republican primary. Cornyn, who supported amnesty measures and championed Joe Biden’s gun control legislation, has made clear he does not intend to raise money for Paxton. Senate Majority Leader John Thune and the National Republican Senatorial Committee left Texas off their initial list of eight battleground races and off the first round of ad reservations from the Thune-linked super PAC.

That reluctance is widely understood as institutional payback for President Trump’s decision to endorse Paxton and as part of a broader establishment effort to distance the party from MAGA influence. Some elements of the GOP apparatus appear more comfortable watching a Democrat take the seat than rallying behind a strong MAGA senator who beat their preferred candidate.

Compare that to what happened in Michigan. After Abdul El-Sayed defeated establishment-backed Representative Haley Stevens in the Democrat primary, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer moved quickly to accommodate the progressive winner. Schumer, who had endorsed Stevens, announced his support for El-Sayed shortly after the projected victory and declared, “We are going to win in Michigan.” That is how a party establishment behaves when it actually wants to win.

The contrast is stark. Democrats close ranks. Republicans in the establishment lane find reasons to sit on their hands.

Elon Musk’s America PAC has stepped into the vacuum, disclosing more than $247,000 in spending to support Paxton and oppose Talarico, the largest single-race allocation in America PAC’s first round of midterm spending. President Trump’s main super PAC, MAGA Inc., subsequently disclosed $10 million in spending to aid Paxton. Trump also held a fundraiser for Paxton in Houston. The MAGA world is picking up the slack that the Republican establishment is deliberately leaving behind.

Recent polling from the University of Texas/Texas Politics Project shows Talarico leading Paxton 42 percent to 39 percent among registered voters, with 14 percent still undecided. A separate survey of 1,167 likely voters put Talarico ahead by just half a percentage point. Those numbers reflect a competitive race, but they also reflect a spending gap that is extraordinary. Talarico has raised $72 million to Paxton’s $16.8 million. As of late August, Talarico’s campaign had spent more than $25 million on advertising since the general election began, compared with roughly $119,000 by Paxton’s campaign directly.

That gap does not happen in a vacuum. It happens when an incumbent party’s establishment decides a nominee is the wrong kind of Republican and chooses to let the race drift rather than defend the seat.

Talarico’s DEI job listings and his comments about Christian-skeptical Gen Z staffers are not isolated gaffes. They are a window into the actual values driving his campaign, values that most Texans do not share. The state went for President Trump by roughly 14 percentage points in 2024. No Democrat has won a statewide office in Texas since 1994.

But a candidate with a $55 million fundraising advantage and a GOP establishment that would rather lose than win with the wrong person can make even Texas competitive. That is the story of this race. And it is a story the Republican establishment would prefer voters not notice.

Sources: Daily Caller, September 9, 2026; Axios, July 6, 2026; Texas Tribune, August 28, 2026; CNBC, September 3, 2026; Houston Public Media, August 25, 2026; NBC News, August 5, 2026; The Texan, September 2026