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Talarico, a current Democratic state lawmaker, secured his party’s nomination Tuesday by defeating Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, in the primary. But critics quickly dug up a May 8, 2020 post he shared amid the COVID-19 pandemic and national protests following the killing of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia.
In the post, Talarico equated systemic racism to a contagious virus carried by white Americans. “White skin gives me and every white American immunity from the virus,” he wrote. “But we spread it wherever we go—through our words, our actions, and our systems. We don’t have to be showing symptoms—like a white hood or a Confederate flag—to be contagious.”
The message immediately drew condemnation from Republican leaders.
Sen. Ted Cruz slammed Talarico’s remarks, stating, “Left-wing zealots are very, very different from ordinary Americans. Among other things, they are open racists.”
Iowa Solicitor General Eric Wessan also criticized the post, arguing it mischaracterized white Americans.
“Officials should not treat people differently based on skin color. There is nothing magic in Mr. Talarico’s complexion. It’s not infectious, evil, or bad,” Wessan said. He added, “To the extent he is trying to attack ‘the West,’ that’s wrong too. Stereotyping whiteness as KKK or confederate is gross.”
Political pundits from across the spectrum weighed in, noting the post could haunt Talarico in a statewide race.
Journalist Josh Barro suggested the nominee follow the lead of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who publicly apologized for past statements. “Mamdani didn’t win skeptics over just by being handsome and charming — he announced that he had changed and said he was sorry. (Kamala should have tried this too!)” Barro wrote.
Commentary editor John Podhoretz connected the post to Talarico’s prior controversial remarks in the Texas legislature. “Add this to ‘God is non-binary’ and you have a Republican campaign against him,” Podhoretz noted, referencing a 2021 video in which Talarico made the comment on the state House floor.
Fox News contributor Mary Katharine Ham suggested Talarico’s remarks reflect a larger challenge for Democrats who embraced similar rhetoric in the early 2020s.
“There’s a rational desire from Dems to find a candidate who didn’t say this stuff publicly in 2020-22, so they can pretend they didn’t put us all through this nonsense,” Ham wrote. “But it will be hard to find a non-R person old enough to run for office who didn’t [because] ‘silence was violence.’”
Abbott returned to the post after his own primary victory, reinforcing its potential impact. “If this is a real Talarico post, he is toast,” the governor said, underscoring the political stakes.
Talarico’s campaign pushed back, accusing Republicans of smearing the nominee. “While they lob stale attacks to mislead Texans, we are uniting the people of Texas to win in November,” campaign spokesman JT Ennis said.
Ennis also went after the state’s top Republican leaders. “Our campaign is building a movement poised to change the politics of this state and take power back for working people,” he said, criticizing Sen. John Cornyn, Ken Paxton, Abbott, and “the billionaires who prop them up” as being “scared of James Talarico for good reason.”
Talarico is set to face either Cornyn or Paxton in November, following a GOP primary that forced a May 26 runoff after neither candidate secured a majority.
