When State Rep. James Talarico took the microphone to deliver his victory speech after winning Texas’ Democratic Senate primary this week, he noted that his Republican rivals would likely call him a “radical leftist” and “fake Christian.” Indeed, Talarico’s faith has become a major feature of the 36-year-old’s political work, which the former seminarian has described in unapologetically religious terms.
Faith is “central in my life” and the reason “why I’m in public service,” Talarico said in a recent interview with Time. Speaking about religion is a way to “tell the people that I seek to represent why I’m doing this.” With him narrowly defeating Rep. Jasmine Crockett for the party’s nomination to unseat Sen. John Cornyn in November, is his faith-first brand the start of a new electoral movement for Democrats?
What did the commentators say?
Among Talarico’s many “powerful qualities,” it’s his “unapologetic embrace” of Christianity that not only “sets him apart from other rising Democratic stars” but could “even help reshape American politics,” said MS Now. During his time in politics, he has gained a national reputation for “rooting his opposition to Christian nationalism in his own Christian faith” and defending religious freedoms “without casting religion as the enemy.”
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Delivering his campaign stump speech in both red and blue districts with the “cadence of a sermon” and including a “more-than-occasional mention of Scripture,” Talarico is betting that his “religious foundation opens a door to that broader coalition of voters,” said The Texas Tribune. At the same time, Talarico’s progressive religiosity has elicited a “backlash” from Christian conservatives who see his faith as “incongruous with their own despite a shared vocabulary.” Conservative Christian Texans are already “familiar with the kinds of teachings” one might hear at Talarico’s Austin-area church, said Mother Jones. But many of these Texans would “rather dance with the Devil than a church-going Democrat,” according to research, to say nothing of a “seminarian who says ‘God is nonbinary.’”
“Strip away” the “polish and the TikTok virality” and voters will see that Talarico is offering the “same program that has been on offer from the mainline left since at least the 1960s,” said First Things. Talarico’s is a Christianity “evacuated of its doctrinal substance and refilled with the priorities of the Democratic National Committee.”
In turn, Talarico sees his role as a bulwark against the rising Christian extremism of the Trump era. There’s an “inconsistency I’m trying to call out,” he said on a recent episode of The New York Times’ “The Ezra Klein Show.” The MAGA movement is “using my tradition” and “speaking for me,” said Talarico. He has a “special moral responsibility to combat Christian nationalism.”
Talarico’s message of “compassionate progressive Christianity” that’s “wedded to a populist economic message” has attracted the “most attention” both locally and nationally as a “core feature of his campaign,” said Vox. But complicating his personal rise, and the ascendency of Talarico’s style of Christianity in Democratic politics more broadly, is the fact that while there may be a “resurgence of the religious left” taking place, it’s happening as the party’s coalition and its voters “get less religious overall.” Party leaders may see it as “imperative to tap into” religious energy and “make inroads with a religious electorate that the right has seized.” But ultimately their “share” of religious voters has “declined significantly.”
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What next?
After Talarico secured his party’s Senate nomination this week, Republicans have begun “previewing the attacks they will wage against” the now-nominee, said the Tribune. This may entail “highlighting comments he has made” about God being nonbinary, arguing that the Bible “sanctions abortion” and stating that Christianity “merely ‘points to the truth’ along with other religions.” Still, if elected, Talarico would hardly be alone in helping mainstream liberal Christianity by joining sitting Sen. Rev. Raphael Warnock and divinity school graduate Sen. Chris Coons, both of whom have “urged Democrats to take religious engagement more seriously.”
Ultimately, votes for Talarico aren’t about “progressive versus moderate,” said Democratic strategist Joel Payne, per The Hill. Talarico’s ability to “link his faith to his politics successfully” shows he can “attract a larger coalition” and “tell the story of progressivism in a way that’s more palatable to a larger population.” But in Texas, where “white evangelicals make up around a quarter of Texas’ electorate and went almost 90% for Trump in 2024,” said the Tribune, the question boils down to whether or not that faith-based palatability is enough to propel Talarico into the Senate.
Rafi Schwartz has worked as a politics writer at The Week since 2022, where he covers elections, Congress and the White House. He was previously a contributing writer with Mic focusing largely on politics, a senior writer with Splinter News, a staff writer for Fusion's news lab, and the managing editor of Heeb Magazine, a Jewish life and culture publication. Rafi's work has appeared in Rolling Stone, GOOD and The Forward, among others.
