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Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville and his co-host Al Hunt agreed last Thursday that Texas’ Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico needs to walk back his past comments if he wants to win in the Lone Star State.
Talarico, the co-hosts agreed, is in a strong position to score a historic victory in Texas if he plays his cards right. They previously cheered his victory over Rep. Jasmine Crockett, to be the Democrat’s nominee, saying he would likely push the same policies as Crockett but without sharing her history of controversial comments.
However, some of his past statements on race, gender ideology, abortion, and religion are now causing headaches for his campaign.
“I think Talarico has to be smart, and he has to be aggressive. As you just suggested, the GOP already aired an ad accusing him of saying all kinds of weird things,” Hunt said.
Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville and his co-host agreed that U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico needs to be careful about his rhetoric if he wants to win in Texas. (Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for SCAD via Getty | Bob Daemmrich/The Texas Tribune/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“Some of it is true,” Carville agreed, before adding, “He’s got to deal with it.”
“Yeah, but he said there’s six genders. Well, I don’t know whether he said it or not, but if he said it, God d— it, he better walk it back right now or explain it,” Hunt said. “But most importantly, I think James, what he has to do is say, ‘Hey, I may have said some dumb things, but Ken Paxton has committed dumb, corrupt acts that hurt Texas citizens.’”
Hunt went on to argue that Texas has a 50% chance of electing him.
“If he stays on the offensive and Hispanic and Black voters are energized, I may not be quite as — I mean, I think Texans — I think Talarico has a 50/50 shot.”
“On that, we can agree,” Carville said. “It’s a pure tossup.”
Carville argued that all the key ingredients for a superb Democratic comeback are there.
“First, you would have a bruising, expensive, negative, drawn-out Republican primary. Check. It would need a Democrat who would defeat an urban progressive in a Democratic primary to at least give a patina of moderation. Check!” Carville said.
Texas Senate candidate James Talarico speaks at a campaign rally in Houston on March 2, 2026. (Danielle Villasana/Getty Images)
He continued, “You would need to have a political climate where Democrats would be consistently overperforming. Check. You would have to raise an inordinate amount of money for a Texas Democrat because they have no power. Check.”
“In other words,” Carville concluded, “everything that you would say in a lab had to happen to get this thing to the point that here we are, almost post-Memorial Day, saying it’s a 50/50 race.”
In a recent CBS interview, Talarico blasted Paxton’s campaign for clipping his past controversial statements, even as he admitted he regrets some of them.
“There are some statements that I have made that I certainly regret. There are statements that I have made where I have missed the mark. I will be the first to admit that,” Talarico said. “But Ken Paxton is intentionally clipping my cringey comments to distract from his career of corruption.”
