Politico Checks in on James Talarico After Attacks on His Masculinity by Seizing Republicans

Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico is suffering from some personal image setbacks after videos surfaced of him telling Texans it was a moral imperative to stop eating meat, that there are six genders, and that God is nonbinary. The guy with the boyish face is doing his best to man up, telling us about his hot vegan girlfriend (she's his rock) and driving around in a rented Dodge Ram 1500 in campaign commercials. The Atlantic even reached across the pond to find a woman to write a piece claiming Talarico was manly.

Politico has decided to do a wellness check on the Talarico campaign and notes that he's eating barbecue (well, there's one photo of him eating barbecue) and winning over podcaster Joe Rogan.

He’s eating barbecue. He’s winning over Joe Rogan.

James Talarico is determined not to let Ken Paxton’s and Republicans’ attacks on his masculinity define him in what has emerged as one of the party’s loudest tactics in the crucial Senate race.https://t.co/UQZ9w5yYWU
— POLITICO (@politico) August 3, 2026

Calen Razor writes:

Talarico’s attempt to reclaim the masculinity narrative by confronting the issue head-on could help propel him to flip a seat Democrats haven’t held in nearly four decades, and which could determine control of the Senate next year.
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If Talarico prevails, he could ultimately serve as a model for other Democratic candidates to connect with male voters or fend off Republicans who try to use issues of masculinity as a cudgel.

“Democrats need to be prepared for more of these attacks to come and understand how to handle them,” Lucas Holtz, a senior political adviser at the centrist think tank Third Way, said in an interview.
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Republicans are also seizing on Talarico’s unmarried status and smaller physical build to paint the Democratic candidate as weak and effeminate. Some have falsely called him gay or transgender. Paxton’s very first ad of the general election campaign implied Talarico has low testosterone levels. And a conservative PAC released an AI-generated video of Talarico as an actress from “The Sound of Music” singing about wanting to give hormones to children.