James Talarico won the Democratic nomination for a US Senate seat in Texas on Tuesday, capping a remarkable rise from state lawmaker and seminary student to the party’s standard-bearer in one of the key races of the 2026 midterm cycle.
With his blend of faith-based populism, bipartisan appeal and generational energy, Talarico defeated Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, a firebrand beloved by the party’s base but who struggled to dispel concerns that she could defeat a Republican in a state that has not elected a Democrat statewide in more than 30 years.
A jubilant Talarico told supporters in Austin before the race was called: “We are not just trying to win an election. We are trying to fundamentally change our politics. And it’s working.”
They also had the earned media from the Trump/ Colbert thing.
I genuinely think Crockett wins without that. That was hundreds of millions in earned media, and just an unforced error on the part of Trump.
If Trump had just “done nothing”, that Talarico interview maybe gets 80k views coming from people who just “Like Colbert”. Instead it got millions of views because it was the thing everyone was interested in for 48 hours. And it got a lot of people who would have not known who Talarico was to learn the name.