Carville says Texas Democrat Talarico must walk back past comments
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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.
The home team agrees that Talarico is in a strong position to pull off a historic victory in Texas if he plays his cards right. They had previously applauded his victory over Rep. Jasmine Crockett, the Democratic nominee, and noted that he would likely implement the same policies as Crockett without sharing her history of controversial comments.
But some of his past statements about race, gender ideology, abortion and religion are now causing his campaign headaches.
“I think Talarico needs to be smart and aggressive. As you noted, the GOP already ran an ad accusing him of saying all kinds of weird things,” Hunt said.
JAMES TALARICO ADMITS PAST COMMENTS THAT HE ‘MISSED THE MARK’ WHEN FACED WITH CLAIMS SUCH AS GOD IS ‘NON-BINARY’
Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville and his co-host agreed that U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico needs to be careful with 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 that is true,” Carville said, adding: “He has to deal with it.”
“Yes, but he said there were six genders. I don’t know if he said it, but if he did, God damn it, he better retract it or explain it immediately,” Hunt said. “But I think the most important thing for James to do is to say, ‘Hey, I may have said some stupid things, but Ken Paxton committed stupid, corrupt actions that harmed the citizens of Texas.'”
Hunt went on to claim that Texas had a 50% chance of selecting him.
“If he stays on the offensive and Hispanic and Black voters are energized, I don’t think Talarico has that much of a 50/50 chance — like the Texans, that is.”
“We can agree on that,” Carville said. “This is complete nonsense.”
Carville argued that all the key ingredients for a perfect Democratic comeback are in place.
“First of all, the Republicans would have a frustrating, expensive, negative, drawn-out primary. Check. The Democrats need a Democrat to defeat an urban progressive in the primary to give them at least the patina of moderation. Check!” Carville said.
RISING STAR TALARICO TOPS PROGRESSIVE FIREBRAND CROCKETT IN HIGH-EARNING TEXAS SENATE DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY EDUCATION
Texas Senate candidate James Talarico speaks at a campaign rally in Houston on March 2, 2026. (Danielle Villasana/Getty Images)
He continued, “You’d have to have a political climate where Democrats would consistently overperform. Check. You’d have to raise an extreme amount of money for a Democrat from Texas because they don’t have any power. Check.”
“In other words,” Carville concluded, “everything you would say had to happen in the lab to get this thing here, almost post-Memorial Day, to the point of saying this is a 50/50 race.”
In a recent CBS interview, Talarico criticized Paxton’s campaign for clipping past controversial statements, admitting he regretted some of them.
Talarico said, “I definitely have some statements that I regret. There are also statements that I overlooked. I will be the first to admit that.” he said. “But Ken Paxton is deliberately clipping my embarrassing comments to distract from his career of corruption.”
