Abbott trolls Talarico with tacos and cattle at Texas Democratic Convention, ignoring opponent Hinojosa

By Alejandro Serrano, The Texas Tribune
June 26, 2026

CORPUS CHRISTI — As thousands gathered Friday for the first full day of the Texas Democratic Convention, a pair of Texas Longhorns down the street gazed listlessly at the Corpus Christi Bay.

Gov. Greg Abbott and his campaign commissioned the bulls, 18-year-old Buckero and 17-year-old Dallas. Draped over one of their backs was a towel that said, “Don’t Buy the Bull,” seeking to tie Democrats’ policies — and their alleged attempts to run from their “radical” records — with the product of the cattle’s digestive system.

The trolling stunt was among a series of counterprogramming attacks led by the governor as Democrats convened at a bayfront event center for their biennial meeting, armed with loads of optimism. As delegates geared up to pick their party leadership and policy priorities and hear from their statewide nominees, a van circled downtown Corpus Christi displaying ads blasting James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, and national party leaders like Kamala Harris.

The governor’s campaign was behind the van, which also spent part of the day camped out on a street in front of the convention center, near where an Abbott-sponsored food truck distributed free tacos labeled with names that mocked Talarico.

However tongue-in-cheek, the Abbott-led antics are the latest sign Texas Republicans, despite three straight cycles of electoral dominance, see the midterms as a serious threat. Democrats, inspired by a favorable political climate with President Donald Trump’s lackluster approval ratings, are looking to seize what they see as their best opportunity since 2018 for a statewide victory. Similar conditions that year helped propel then-El Paso Congressman Beto O’Rourke to within three points of unseating U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.

This time, Republicans are mobilizing far earlier, returning to Abbott’s playbook of 2022, when he easily warded off a challenge from O’Rourke, in part by accusing him early and often of supporting “open borders,” “defunding the police” and other left-wing stances based on past comments.

The key difference is that the governor is training his fire on Talarico rather than his actual opponent, state Rep. Gina Hinojosa of Austin, who remains much less known to voters.

As busloads of convention-bound Democratic delegates dispatched Thursday morning from across the state, Abbott’s campaign unveiled a website called “RadicalTexas” — with the URL promoted on the longhorn’s towel and elsewhere — to blast Democrats for stances on property taxes, education, immigration and public safety.

In one of the featured quotes, Talarico says, “We should treat our southern border like our front porch. We should have a giant welcome mat out front.”

The quote has become popular with Republicans moving to cast Talarico as weak on immigration. However, Democrats and Talarico’s campaign have noted that a second part of the quote, when Talarico says the door behind the mat should have a lock, has been omitted.

Hinojosa went unmentioned on the site, and while Talarico’s past quotes were featured more than any other Democrat — accounting for seven of the site’s 35 quotes — the effort to tie him to more progressive members of the party, like U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, in some instances appeared to hinge on tenuous connections.

A section on public safety labeled “Law and Order vs. Left-Wing Lunacy” does not mention Talarico, for example, and none of the quotes featured are from Democrats currently running for statewide office in Texas. Over half the quotes on the website are from Democrats and political figures outside the state, and of those mentioned, just three — Talarico and U.S. Reps. Greg Casar and Joaquin Castro — will be on the November ballot in Texas.

Abbott campaign manager Kim Snyder said Democrats are attempting to rebrand and hide that they’ve “embraced a radical, socialist agenda that is dangerous for Texas,” and the “RadicalTexas” site “exposes the fraud, highlights their own words, and shows Texans exactly what’s at stake this November.”

No Democrat has won a statewide election in Texas since 1994 and no Democrat has won an election in the state for U.S. Senate since 1988. But Democrats have faith that Talarico, a state representative from the Austin area, will snap the losing streak.

Texas Democratic Party Chair Kendall Scudder called the gimmicks “pathetic.” The party posted on social media that “you can always count on Greg Abbott to bring the bullshit.”

Talarico’s opponent, Attorney General Ken Paxton, has been largely absent from the capers in Corpus Christi. The most visible sign of his presence was an ad he aired in the area spotlighting some of Talarico’s votes opposing restrictions on transgender athletes and accusing him of supporting unnamed policies “that’ll raise prices on families.”

To be sure, not all of Abbott’s counterprogramming amounted to hijinks.

GOP state Reps. Todd Hunter of Corpus Christi, A.J. Louderback of Victoria, J.M. Lozano of Kingsville and Katrina Pierson of Rockwall held a press conference Friday afternoon at a hotel conference room near the convention where many Democrats were staying.

Between railing against Democrats’ policies, the lawmakers also made the proactive case for the GOP blueprint, which Louderback said has made Texas “safer and more prosperous.” Hunter, who carried the GOP’s redistricting bill last summer, praised the governor, whose campaign had promoted the event, for working with the Legislature to cut property taxes, boost the state’s economy and help coastal areas recover from hurricanes.

Meanwhile, the Abbott campaign’s tacos had names like “Veggie Talarico,” as Republicans try to define the Democrat as a vegan based on an old clip from a previous campaign in which Talarico, who eats meat, said he would run a meat-less campaign. The attacks grew sharper after the Austin lawmaker ordered a potato, egg and cheese breakfast taco when former President Barack Obama swung by an Austin taco joint with him and Hinojosa.

Other tacos included “Open Border Brisket” and “Democrat Promises” — an empty tortilla.

This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.