James Talarico is the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Texas and a state representative first elected in 2018. A former public school teacher with degrees from the University of Texas at Austin and Harvard, he won the March 2026 Democratic primary over U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett and faces Republican Ken Paxton in November.[1][2][4] His campaign describes him as an eighth-generation Texan and Presbyterian seminarian, and he says he has never taken corporate PAC money.[3]
James Talarico was born in Round Rock, Texas, on May 17, 1989, and went through Round Rock Independent School District schools, attending Wells Branch Elementary School and graduating from McNeil High School.[1][2][5] He earned a bachelor's degree in government from the University of Texas at Austin and a master's degree in education policy from Harvard University.[1][2] He also earned a master's degree in theological studies at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, though as of June 2026 he had not completed the Master of Divinity there, according to Wikipedia.[5] In 2011 he joined Teach For America.[5] He then taught sixth-grade language arts at Rhodes Middle School on the west side of San Antonio, which he describes as one of the poorest ZIP codes in Texas.[2][3] He later became Central Texas executive director of Reasoning Mind, a nonprofit that runs computer-based math instruction.[5]
Talarico first ran for the Texas House in 2018 and, by his account, flipped a district that Donald Trump had won two years earlier.[1][3] At age 29 he won concurrent special and general elections for the seat vacated by Larry Gonzales and was sworn in on November 20, 2018.[5][1] After redistricting he moved to House District 50, which he won in 2022 and 2024, and he sits on the Public Education, Juvenile Justice and Family Issues, and Calendars committees.[5][1][2] His office says he helped write a reform of the state's school finance system in his first term and passed legislation capping insulin copays at $25 a month, importing lower-cost prescription drugs from Canada, and capping Pre-K class sizes; he is a type 1 diabetic.[2] According to Wikipedia, he was lead author of nearly 200 bills, 16 of which became law, including a 2021 law capping out-of-pocket insulin copays at $25 per month for state-regulated plans and Javier Ambler's Law (HB 54).[5] He took part in the 2021 Democratic quorum break over the Election Integrity Protection Act and returned to Texas before it ended, and he was among the Democrats who broke quorum in August 2025 over mid-decade congressional redistricting, according to Wikipedia.[5] Texas Monthly named him one of the ten best legislators, according to the House biography.[2]
He announced his U.S. Senate candidacy on September 9, 2025.[5][1] Talarico ran for U.S. Senate in 2026 and won the March 3 Democratic primary with 52.4% of the vote, ahead of Jasmine Crockett (46.2%) and Ahmad Hassan (1.3%).[1][4] His general-election opponent is Ken Paxton, who defeated incumbent John Cornyn in the Republican primary runoff.[1] Talarico says he has passed 60 bipartisan bills, including measures on prescription drug costs and child care, and that the central divide in the country is between the top and the bottom rather than left and right.[1]
Talarico is a member of the Presbyterian Church (USA) and is active at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Austin, according to Wikipedia.[5]
Researched from the cited sources on 2026-10-21.
