James Talarico is moderating on gender, climate issues in his competitive Senate election

By Kayla Guo, The Texas Tribune
September 22, 2026

State Rep. James Talarico sat at the end of a long table in May 2021 and pleaded with his colleagues on the Texas House Public Education Committee.

He wanted them to vote down a Republican bill prohibiting transgender student-athletes from competing on sports teams aligned with their gender identity.

“I know many of you don’t like this bill because you tell me you don’t like this bill, but you think it’s a compromise,” Talarico said. “But if history has taught us anything, it’s that you can’t compromise with hate.”

Five years later, amid an intensely competitive race for U.S. Senate, the Democratic nominee took a different position on such restrictions.

“I oppose trans athletes playing in girls’ sports if it endangers safety or fairness,” Talarico said on Fox News this month.

In the face of relentless Republican attempts to define him as a “radical liberal,” Talarico has carefully moderated his messaging on certain issues. The Austin Democrat is now attempting to balance his support for causes like LGBTQ+ rights and combating climate change with the demands of a statewide race in conservative Texas.

He has walked back some of his past remarks, calling them “cringey” and saying they “missed the mark.” He has argued that the GOP’s focus on culture war issues is meant to inflame and distract voters from political corruption and an economic system rigged against them. And he has sought to center the conversation on his faith-based, populist economic message, which describes the country’s true divide as “not left versus right, but top versus bottom.”

The shift, his supporters say, is necessary for Talarico, who appears to be within striking distance of giving Democrats their first statewide win since the 1990s.

“James has always, always done a great job of having this core set of values that remains constant, but at the same time, very accurately reflecting his constituency,” said Matt Angle, a Democratic strategist. “It’s really, really hard and absolutely essential for a Democrat to win by building a coalition. Republicans can still find their way to a path to win just by lining up everybody from the right. Democrats, to win — you got to start in the middle and build out.”

Across four terms in the Texas House, Talarico’s votes landed him close to the middle of the pack of Democratic lawmakers ranked by least to most liberal, according to analyses conducted by Rice University’s Mark Jones for The Texas Tribune. Today, much of his Senate platform centers on economic issues and aligns with progressive ideals, such as universal pre-kindergarten, higher taxes for billionaires and corporations, a $15-an-hour federal minimum wage, a public option for healthcare and codification of Roe v. Wade to legalize abortion access nationwide.

But as he looks to appeal to an electorate broader and more conservative than his solidly Democratic Texas House district in Austin, Talarico has tightly focused his campaign on tying increasing costs to billionaire political influence, touted his support from Republicans and independents, and, on some wedge issues, shifted on past positions and statements.

That movement toward the middle has drawn fire from Republicans, who’ve repeatedly argued that Talarico is merely modulating for his campaign and would revert to his most progressive views if elected to the Senate.

Last week, Republicans circulated an “undercover video” posted by a right-wing outlet capturing the Rev. Babs Miller, a minister at Talarico’s Austin church who served as one of his references for seminary, suggesting Talarico’s new tune is only temporary.

“I can guarantee you that once he gets elected, he’ll change his tune back to where he was,” Miller said.

“The people who know James Talarico best know he is lying to you,” Lone Star Liberty PAC, who is supporting Talarico’s opponent Attorney General Ken Paxton, posted on X.

Miller declined to comment on the video.

Talarico’s campaign insisted the Senate hopeful has “remained consistent his entire career: working across the aisle whenever he can and standing up to powerful politicians when he has to.”

“That’s how he passed 60 bipartisan bills to lower costs for working Texans,” campaign spokesperson JT Ennis said in a statement. “As politicians pushed increasingly extreme legislation that a majority of Texans opposed, James stayed true to his values — working with Republicans to improve overly broad bills and propose common sense solutions.”

To be sure, candidates of all political stripes adjust their messaging or try to avoid certain policy issues during election seasons.

Paxton, Talarico’s Republican opponent, came out in support of in-vitro fertilization in June after Talarico’s campaign worked to tie him to the Texas GOP’s opposition to the fertility treatment. Paxton later said, “we need to look more into” the procedure and expressed concern about the discarding of fertilized eggs — a routine part of IVF. (A Paxton spokesperson insisted that Paxton supported access to IVF.)

When asked for his thoughts on Texas’ ban on hemp-derived THC products in August, Paxton said, “I don’t know the details of it, but let’s talk about it later.” Paxton’s office has defended the state against lawsuits related to Texas’ THC policies, and in 2024, he sued five Texas cities that decriminalized low-level marijuana possession.

Democrats have also argued that voters shouldn’t trust Republicans who are claiming to be focused on lowering costs and advocating for working people this cycle, painting Republicans as more concerned with corporate interests and their big-money donors over everyday Texans during their decades in power.

Still, Republicans have repeatedly cited Talarico’s past comments and votes in campaign materials to paint him as inconsistent and, at his core, too progressive.

Part of Talarico’s response has been to clarify his legislative record — and to suggest that the attacks are the product of billionaire donors spending to preserve their political influence and economic advantages.

After national Republican groups launched a multimillion-dollar ad campaign against him this month, Talarico put out a spot claiming “billionaires are spending millions attacking” him because of his anti-corruption platform.

“I’m James Talarico, and I approve this message — because if the billionaires are coming after us, we must be doing something right,” he says.

Talarico’s history on LGBTQ+ policies

Talarico’s positions on trans issues have drawn particular attention from the right, with Republicans looking to turn this election cycle into a 2024 redux, when attacks on Democratic support for trans rights and protections helped carry the GOP to victories.

In the Legislature, Talarico opposed GOP bills to restrict trans youth participation in sports, saying they amounted to a push for the government to “police people’s private parts” and would harm “the least of these,” a reference to Scripture. “Some things are more important than perfectly fair competition in sports,” he said in 2021.

During a committee hearing on one bill, Talarico noted that no witnesses testifying on the proposal could name any documented cases of trans athletes “causing a problem in Texas.”

“This is a manufactured problem,” Talarico said. “The only reason we’re doing this is because certain Republican legislators … want to brag to their far-right primary voters that they hurt trans kids.”

Talarico told Fox News this month that he voted against the bill because it was “overly broad.” He added that he supported amendments that would have left eligibility decisions to local school boards and limited the restrictions to individual sports rather than team sports.

“As a former public school teacher, James cares about our student athletes,” Ennis said in a statement. “At the same time, he’ll always stand against discrimination, especially when the most powerful politicians in the country bully students to score political points, because his faith teaches him that every child is made in the image of God.”

In 2023, Talarico opposed GOP legislation to block Texans under the age of 18 from accessing gender-affirming medical care such as puberty blockers, hormone therapies and surgeries — a vote Republicans have pointed to as evidence Talarico supports gender reassignment surgeries for minors.

Talarico voted in favor of unsuccessful Democratic amendments to the bill that would have allowed minors to continue accessing gender-affirming prescription drugs if they were diagnosed with “severe gender dysphoria” or had been receiving such treatment before the bill’s enactment. Those amendments would have maintained restrictions on surgeries for children.

During his campaign, Talarico has said he would support a national ban on gender-change surgeries for minors. He told Fox News this month he has been “consistent” on the issue and opposed the Republican bill because it, too, was “overly broad” and jeopardized healthcare for children regardless of their gender.

“As a lawmaker, my job is to try to sift through everything the bill does,” he said. “And sometimes there’s stuff in it that’s really harmful, and I have no choice but to oppose the bill as a whole.”

LGBTQ+ rights activists were not pleased with Talarico’s comments on Fox News.

“We expect better,” Brad Pritchett, CEO of Equality Texas, said in a statement.

Still, in an interview, Pritchett emphasized Talarico’s pro-LGBTQ+ record in the Texas House and contrasted it with Paxton’s history of targeting families with trans children. Days after Talarico’s Fox News interview, Pritchett cohosted a “Pride for Talarico Celebration” fundraiser in Houston alongside Human Rights Campaign PAC and other LGBTQ+ activists.

Pritchett also met with members of Talarico’s campaign staff after the Fox News interview to communicate concerns Equality Texas heard from LGBTQ+ community members about his remarks.

“From what I know, I don’t think James Talarico has changed the core beliefs of who he is or how he supports our community,” Pritchett said. “There are a lot of folks who are pragmatic about it in the community, and know that at the end of the day, Ken Paxton will try to push legislation that will harm the community, and James Talarico won’t.”

State Rep. Erin Zwiener, D-Driftwood, acknowledged that Talarico’s Fox News interview “opened a different conversation of athletics that I hadn’t seen him open before.”

But Zwiener, a leading advocate on LGBTQ rights in the Texas House, argued that Talarico “holds his values” while welcoming and considering ranging perspectives.

“How you talk about issues with different audiences is different. It doesn’t mean the core answer isn’t connected or close, but it does mean that the way you build a bridge with people can vary,” she said. “I see a lot of that same processing happening in real time with him on the campaign trail as he is hearing from more folks and more corners of the state.”

Talarico sponsored bill to limit emissions

In February 2021, Talarico introduced the Texas Climate Action Act, which aimed “to combat climate change by establishing greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets, energy efficiency standards and a resiliency plan with a framework for local involvement.”

Among other provisions, the bill — which did not advance in the Legislature — would have required Texas to cut its carbon emissions to 50% of 1990 levels by 2030 and to 10% of 1990 levels by 2050.

“Fossil fuels are destroying the planet,” he said in February 2022 during a conversation about the deadly 2021 Winter Storm Uri, while acknowledging the economic benefits and heritage many Texans, including his own family, derived from the oil and gas industry.

“Right now, it feels a little bit like we’re the No. 1 supplier of cassette tapes in 1988,” he said. “It’s time to transition because that’s not going to last very long. So I guess I just don’t know where the hostility comes from in trying to figure out a safer, cleaner, greener path forward.”

That legislation and comments have provided fodder for Republicans who want to paint Talarico as hostile to the oil and gas industry.

“If Talafreako is elected to the Senate, he would vote to abolish the Texas oil and gas industry with the Green New Scam,” President Donald Trump said in a video posted Friday, referring to the federal Green New Deal proposal. “He’s not a believer in oil and gas.”

In his Senate campaign, Talarico still lists fighting climate change, which is worsened by fossil fuel emissions, among his energy and environment-related policy goals.

But his primary energy platform centers around an “all-of-the-above” approach that protects the oil and gas industry while also investing in innovation and renewable energy sources.

“These are some of the best jobs you can get, and they are keeping whole families afloat,” Talarico said in an interview this year with Tejano music star Bobby Pulido, a Democrat running for a South Texas congressional seat. “The idea that politicians in Washington think they can just eliminate this industry, eliminate these jobs — it’s something we’re gonna have to fight against, something we’re gonna have to fight against in our own party.”

Talarico added that he supported renewable energy sources, too, but lamented that “too many people in our party talk about eliminating oil and gas.”

“It would do so much damage to our state and do damage to the whole country, which relies on our industry here in Texas to keep us moving and keep us powered,” he said.

Talarico’s campaign pointed to votes he took in the Texas House to support the oil and gas industry, including by promoting cooperation between Gulf Coast states, giving state law enforcement additional tools to crack down on oil theft, investing in an economic development project in West Texas and putting public funds toward infrastructure needs caused by oil and gas production.

Talarico “went to public schools funded by the oil and gas industry and knows how essential oil and gas is to Texas’s economy — it’s why he supports an ‘all-of-the-above’ energy strategy so Texas can remain a leader in oil and gas, wind, solar, geothermal and more,” Ennis said in a statement. “James will put the economic interests of Texans first — creating good jobs and lowering energy costs.”

Zwiener, who chairs the Texas Energy and Climate Caucus, of which Talarico is a member, said she did not see Talarico’s statements about energy in his campaign as a departure from positions he took in the Texas House.

“I really see this being a framing question,” she said. The caucus has “pretty consistently talked about all-of-the-above energy, and there’s nobody serious in the climate change space that thinks Texas will stop using oil and gas tomorrow.”

Colin Leyden, Texas state director at Environmental Defense Fund Action, added that emissions caps as proposed in Talarico’s Texas Climate Action Act would not require Texas to end production of oil and gas.

To environmental advocates who engaged with Talarico in the Legislature, his campaign’s position on energy reflects the reality of running for statewide office — without negating his past support for pro-environment measures.

“When bills have come for the Legislature to protect air quality and our drinking water and parks and open space, he’s shown up time and time again to vote for those core protections,” said Luke Metzger, executive director of Environment Texas. As a candidate now for statewide office in Texas, Metzger added, Talarico “has to represent all of us, and so it’s understandable that as he’s listening and talking to more Texans, his positions might evolve on the issue.”

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This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.