In 2021, Texas Democrat James Talarico spoke about how he had flipped a Republican state House district as “one of the most progressive members of the Texas House.”Being progressive and appealing to moderates weren’t mutually exclusive, he said.

These days, Talarico says, he rejects the progressive label as he makes a high-profile bid for the U.S. Senate.

“I’ve kind of rejected the left versus right spectrum for one that is more vertically oriented,” Talarico said in an interview.

The 37-year-old seminarian hopes to pull off what no Democrat has achieved in more than 30 years: win statewide office in Texas, the ruby-red beating heart of the modern Republican Party.

To do so, he will have to convince some measure of voters that, despite viral clips of his previous statements supporting trans athletes and criticizing capitalism, he isn’t too far to the left to represent Texas. Talarico says his beliefs haven’t changed, only his views on political labels.

“I’m very open to learning new information and changing my mind. I’d be completely comfortable admitting if I changed my mind. I just haven’t,” Talarico said. “But I understand that when you’re losing in a campaign, the only thing you can do is accuse your opponent of flip-flopping, and I think that’s what’s happening now.”Talarico faces Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in one of the country’s most important Senate races. Paxton and Republicans have pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into the state with ads featuring previous “woke” comments by Talarico, who first gained notoriety through viral social-media moments taking on Republicans in the state Capitol.

Talarico is seeking to court both moderate swing voters turned off by the scandal-plagued Paxton and also disaffected Republican supporters of Sen. John Cornyn, whom Paxton defeated in an ugly GOP primary. Some Texas voters aren’t sure what to think.

“It feels like you can’t trust either one of these folks,” said South Texas lawyer Rick Salinas, who voted for Talarico in the primary but is now unsure whether to back him in the general election.

Salinas, who is running in a nonpartisan race for mayor of the city of Mission, Texas, voted for President Trump in 2024, but has been disappointed with the economy and immigration enforcement in his second term. He was impressed by Talarico’s messaging and thought he embodied “faith-based values.”But all the Republican attacks using past statements Talarico has made on transgender issues—and Talarico’s own responses—have made him unsure of what the Senate candidate actually believes.

In 2021, during a hearing on a bill to ban trans athletes from interscholastic sports, Talarico said, “Some things are more important than perfectly fair competition in sports.”On the campaign trail in September, he told Fox News he would oppose trans athletes playing in girls sports “if it risks health or fairness.”The difference drew social-media outcry from both right-wing and left-wing voices, while Talarico said he had long believed the matter should depend on particular sports and school boards.

When, during a recent CNN Town Hall, host Erin Burnett pressed Talarico on how he once called capitalism an “oppressive system” and referenced dismantling it, Talarico said he was referring to a current state of “crony capitalism.” [video] ‘I’m Tired of Us Being Divided,’ Talarico Says at CNN Town Hall Democrats think Talarico’s temperate, inclusive style, stacked against Paxton’s weaknesses, will propel him to victory. Talarico has consistently held a narrow lead in polls.

He says four terms in the Texas legislature, which he describes as a broken system, brought him to his oft-repeated Senate-campaign slogan: Political divides aren’t left versus right, but top versus bottom.

“It’s all of us—whether you’re a little more progressive, a little more conservative—getting screwed by the billionaires who run this country, by puppet politicians like Ken Paxton who cater to those wealthy special interests,” Talarico said.

An Austin-area native, Talarico has been involved in politics since his undergraduate days at the University of Texas, where he was a leader of the college Democrats. He taught middle-school language arts in San Antonio for two years via Teach for America and then worked for an education nonprofit. In 2018, he was elected to the state House, flipping a formerly Republican district north of Austin. At 29, he was the session’s youngest lawmaker. He is unmarried and has a girlfriend.

Mark Littlefield, an Austin Democratic political consultant who became Talarico’s first major donor, recalled being surprised by the professionalism of his first campaign in its early stages. He was even more stunned when he later mentioned Talarico’s name at home and his then-teenage daughter said she had been watching his content on Dade Phelan, a GOP state representative and former speaker of the House, also encountered Talarico first via a social-media clip, he said, and immediately thought, “He’s not just running for state rep—he’s very good at this.”

During his tenure in the House, Talarico became known as the Democrat no Republican wanted to see at the back microphone, where opponents of bills on the House floor would step up to question or challenge them, Phelan said. Often, he would use biblical passages to argue a progressive case, delighting fans who considered it a subversive strategy.

During every legislative session he has been part of, Talarico has sided with the Democratic majority more than 95% of the time, according to data compiled by civic tech database Decode Texas. He also wrote or sponsored dozens of bills that were able to pass the Republican-dominated legislature.

Talarico gained some of his first major recognition during a 2021 quorum break, when Democrats fled to Washington, D.C., in an effort to prevent passage of a bill placing restrictions on voting. He tangled with then-Fox News host Pete Hegseth during a fiery interview that went viral. But Talarico was ultimately among the earliest Democrats to defect from the effort and return to Texas, writing in an opinion column that it was time to “begin the work of rebuilding relationships, negotiating policy, and reducing harm.”

That year, the legislature banned nearly all abortions, passed redistricting maps that cut Talarico out of his district and tried to pass limitations on transgender athletes. By fall, Talarico said his faith in cooperation with the GOP had faded. “The Republican Party in Texas is out of control, and I’ve regrettably come to the conclusion that I don’t think there is a way to work with them anymore,” he told a Progress Texas podcast. He won his next term in a new, bluer, Austin district.

While Trump has referred to him as “Radical Left Lunatic” and “TalaFREAKO,” Talarico has regularly emphasized on the campaign trail that Trump’s voters—and even Trump himself—are welcome in his campaign. In an ad campaign launched earlier this month, he vowed to “always put Texas before any political party.”

“I called out Joe Biden for failing us on the border,” Talarico says in the straight-to-camera shot. “I worked with Republicans to pass the largest property tax cut in Texas history, and I’ll fight for the good-paying oil and gas jobs that power our economy.”

James Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas, described Talarico as “somebody with progressive impulses who can speak to moderate Democrats and nonpartisan voters.”Moderating messaging during a general election is typical of candidates as they work to appeal to swing voters, Henson said, although that is usually in tension with appeals at the same time to excite the base. But he thinks Talarico has been more effective at qualifying his prior comments, in part because of a political climate in which many voters are tired of partisanship and are most interested in kitchen-table issues, and because of Talarico’s disposition.

“The messaging comes off more plausibly, in part because Talarico can rely on his Christianity,” Henson said. “It’s harder to pigeonhole him as a progressive, secular, Godless, socialist Democrat.”Talarico’s church, an open-minded Presbyterian congregation best known for housing a Guatemalan mother and son to protect them from immigration raids, has also drawn scrutiny. On a recent Sunday, the service at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian included an affirmation of differences, a guitar song for children called “You Can’t Love God and Hate Your Neighbor” and criticism of the MAGA movement.

Many conservative Christians, however, consider Talarico and his church’s teachings to be blasphemous. Among them is former GOP Texas Gov. Rick Perry. In April, Perry called Paxton “corrupt morally, ethically and legally” on a level he had rarely encountered in his four decades in politics. This month, Perry told the Journal he had already voted for Paxton anyway, by mail, largely because he considers Talarico’s religious and political messaging dangerous.

“Talarico is, from my perspective, a cockroach,” Perry said. “Anyone who gets up and states about the Bible what he does is in the demonic category.”Enthusiastic Talarico fans at a recent rally in San Marcos, Texas, south of Austin, found themselves taking part in filming a final campaign ad. Under bright lights on a youth football field, they circled around the candidate as he repeated a line about working with both parties to lower costs, joking with the crowd between takes.

“I feel like he’s progressive even though he might seem moderate,” said MariLisa Niebuhr, a local musician. “But he’s a listener who wants to hear from everyone. Even if he doesn’t agree, he’ll listen.”