Politics
Republicans want to talk about James Talarico’s manhood. Talarico says let them.
He’s eating barbecue. He’s winning over Joe Rogan. He’s challenging his opponent to mano-a-mano televised faceoffs.
James Talarico is determined not to let his GOP challenger Ken Paxton’s and Republicans’ attacks on his masculinity define him in what has emerged as one of the party’s loudest tactics in the crucial Senate race.
The Texas Democrat is working to position himself as a candidate focused on issues he says men actually care about instead of speculation about his diet, sexuality and religious beliefs.
“They’ve even called me a vegan, and those are fighting words in the state of Texas,” Talarico said at a San Antonio rally this summer.
“Nowadays our culture tells young men that greatness is tearing other people down, is trolling and owning and dominating. But my dad showed me what real greatness looks like. He inspired me to serve,” Talarico said at another rally in Houston, referencing how his dad often mowed the lawn of his elderly widowed neighbor without asking.
Talarico’s attempt to reclaim the masculinity narrative by confronting the issue head-on could help propel him to flip a seat Democrats haven’t held in nearly four decades, and which could determine control of the Senate next year.
It comes as both parties, in Texas and across the U.S., are fighting to win male voters — especially young, Black or Hispanic men — who in 2024 lurched to the right to help Republicans take control of the White House and Congress. The issue of masculinity has also been turbo-charged during Donald Trump’s second term, with the president hosting UFC fights on the White House lawn and his Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth pushing for testosterone testing in the military.
If Talarico prevails, he could ultimately serve as a model for other Democratic candidates to connect with male voters or fend off Republicans who try to use issues of masculinity as a cudgel.
“Democrats need to be prepared for more of these attacks to come and understand how to handle them,” Lucas Holtz, a senior political adviser at the centrist think tank Third Way, said in an interview.
Republicans think they’ve hit a nerve with Texas voters about Talarico’s manhood. Members of the party have targeted the 37-year-old public school teacher-turned-state legislator for past statements endorsing a vegan lifestyle, suggesting that “God is nonbinary” and opposing legislation that erodes transgender rights.
“If you look at him, this is a guy who’s publicly stated pretty bizarre things — that God is nonbinary,” said Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) in an interview. “He’s a total weirdo, and I think Texas voters recognize that.”
Talaricosaid recently his comment on God’s gender was meant to be “deliberately provocative” and that he meant God is beyond gender.
Republicans are also seizing on Talarico’s unmarried status and smaller physical build to paint the Democratic candidate as weak and effeminate. Some have falsely called him gay or transgender. Paxton’s very first ad of the general election campaign implied Talarico has low testosterone levels. And a conservative PAC released an AI-generated video of Talarico as an actress from “The Sound of Music” singing about wanting to give hormones to children.
Talarico opposes gender affirming care for minors, his spokesperson JT Ennis said.
“In Texas, there’s a certain level of tough guy-ness that we all pretend to have in ourselves, and that we like in our elected officials,” said Vinny Minchillo, a Texas-based Republican admaker who is not involved in the race. “If you push that the right direction, that especially does not sit well with Hispanic men and Black men.”
Paxton’s campaign and his allies think Talarico’s previous comments on these issues put him out of touch with voters in both parties.
“Texans can spot an audition for a new identity and they know he is weak and woke on core Texas values,” Paxton adviser Nick Maddux said in a statement. Maddux pointed to moves Talarico has made during the campaign he said shows flip-flopping, such as wearing a Texas flag shirt after calling the American flag a “complicated symbol.”
“He is undoubtedly hurting Democrats,” Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said in an interview about Talarico.
Some Hill Democrats say Republicans’ fixation on Talarico’s manhood is an attempt to distract from Paxton’s weaknesses.
“They fear his strength, especially since he’s running against the most notorious scumbag in American politics,” Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) said.
Paxton has faced an ethics complaint that was later dropped, a Justice Department corruption investigation for which he was not charged and securities fraud charges which were ultimately dismissed in an agreement. He was also impeached by the Texas GOP-led House for bribery and abusing his public office, which he called a “sham” coordinated by liberals, and was later acquitted by the Texas Senate.
Paxton also has a history of using cultural issues to his advantage, such as stoking anti-Muslim fears through campaign messaging.
Meanwhile, Talarico’s campaign says they’re not seeing evidence that the masculinity barbs are gaining traction, pointing to robust Democratic gains among Hispanic voters while also arguing that polling shows a toss-up general election contest. The campaign did not share specific data to support that its messaging to male voters was lifting Talarico’s polling with that demographic.
Talarico has focused on issues he says affect many men — like lowering housing costs, stopping corporate landlord rent manipulation and curbing the influence of billionaire mega-donors in politics.
“Ken Paxton is picking these fights no one cares about to distract from the fact that he has no solutions to lower the cost of gas, groceries, or healthcare,” Ennis said in a statement. “Real men serve others, weak men serve themselves.”
Talarico also has tried to appeal to young men and Hispanic voters by placing ads during World Cup and NBA Finals games. And he’s challenging Paxton to a series of televised debates, in which the two could spar on manhood and other issues. Paxton’s team said he’s agreed to the debates but they’re still negotiating logistics and terms.
The Democrat’s campaign also said it is trying to facilitate similar opportunities to Talarico’s pivotal appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast last year, which boosted his national profile to millions of young men who make up Rogan’s core audience. The podcaster — who during the interview exclaimed “you need to run for president,” to Talarico — has continued to compliment the Texas Democrat and defend his views, including during a conversation with Vice President JD Vance last month.
Talarico has also fired back with his own jabs. He responded to Paxton calling him “Talafreako” by putting the phrase on T-shirts and selling them on his campaign website.
And Talarico turned on Paxton’s low-testosterone message by telling MS NOW “I don’t think guys my age are really concerned about that kind of thing,” adding, “You’ve got these old guys lathered up in their fake tans throwing cheesy nicknames at each other.”
Some public opinion research shows Talarico’s strategy fits the 2026 moment.
The growing cost-of-living crisis — exacerbated by the deeply unpopular military conflict in Iran — and Trump’s low approval ratings may mean the GOP’s masculinity attacks fall flat this cycle, Luke Warford, founder and director of Texas Public Opinion Research, a nonpartisan public opinion research firm, said in an interview.
The top issues for men and young men in Texas center on affordability, the cost of living, economic growth and job creation, according to an aggregate of data shared with Blue Light News from the group’s latest surveys in May and June.
“We’ve got a really different scenario now where the Republicans are in power in Texas and nationally, so they own the things that are broken,” Warford said. “There is a deep anti-establishment sentiment in this country and a deep frustration with the status quo particularly among men, and that could be a much stronger political force than the cultural attacks.”
Matt Angle, founder of the Lone Star Project, a Democratic-aligned political action committee in Texas, said “there’s no attack that should be ignored,” but that Democrats are in a good position.
“Ken Paxton is no he-man. He’s a thin-chested, soft spoken, weak guy,” Angle said.
One warning sign for Talarico: a swath of male voters perceive him as too progressive, said Holtz, the Third Way adviser. Holtz noted a recent poll of men by the group in which 49 percent of respondents said the candidate was “too far left.”
In focus groups held by the centrist think tank last year and this year, young men overwhelmingly pointed to the Republican Party as the better representative of men’s priorities. Respondents in those groups associated Democrats with more social and cultural issues while tying Republicans with financial independence, finding a partner and starting a family.
On Capitol Hill, some Democrats are calling the conversation in Texas an opportunity to revisit the party’s historic avoidance of issues that are important to men, which have made them more susceptible to criticism.
Rep. Marc Veasey, a moderate Texas Democrat, said in an interview that “Democrats, overall, need to do a better job of expressing some of the concerns that young men have.”
“When we have people on our side who are attacking things like nuclear family structure and expecting everybody to fall in line, that’s pure insanity,” Veasey said. “There’s this expectation with Democrats that men are just going to follow along, and they’re not. We haven’t figured out how to talk to them.”
Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) said in an interview that Democrats tend to display examples of “traditional masculinity” rather than the “stereotypical masculinity” Republicans are attacking them for not adhering to. He pointed out he served in the Marines, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) played football and Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) was an astronaut.
“What voters know is truly masculine is a politician who is going to take care of their needs and be a protector and be a provider for the family,” Gallego added.
“When a man can’t support his family because inflation is so fucking high, they’re not going to care about who is on the ballot that is, quote unquote, ‘not masc enough.’”
Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed put some distance between himself and his ally, progressive Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, after the latter faced intense criticism for suggesting that American Jewish support for Israel could lead someone to “take action” against Jews in the U.S.
“My commitment to Jewish safety is the same as my commitment to the safety of my own daughters. Antisemitism is a scourge, and we need to address it in all its forms. And I stand against any rhetoric that puts the community at risk,” El-Sayed said in a statement. “But I want to be crystal clear, nobody speaks for this campaign besides me and my campaign spokespeople. And while politicians and pundits try to make this race about a Twitch streamer, we’re going to be talking about gas, groceries, good schools, and healthcare.”
The statement marks El-Sayed’s clearest attempt to disentangle his campaign from Piker, whom he embraced during the primary despite the streamer’s contentious rhetoric. And it reflects his efforts to win back Jewish Democrats and moderates in the state after a primary campaign that alienated many of those voters in the key Senate race.
During a Thursday livestream, Piker called “the idea that Jews are monolithic” in their support of Israel “a very dangerous mode of propaganda.”“If Jews in America keep putting this — this idea out there that they are singularly invested in Israel, eventually someone’s going to come around and take action, not against the state of Israel, mind you, but against American Jews,” he continued. “We’re teaching people the wrong lesson. At the end of the day, American Jews do not prioritize Israel, but they do prioritize antisemitism.” During Piker’s remarks, the stream displayed a social media post showing Michigan Democratic congressional nominee and state Sen. Jeremy Moss, who is Jewish and a supporter of Israel. The post originated from the group Track AIPAC, and featured an image from Moss’ Instagram account of him in Tel Aviv next to the group’s signature red graphic noting contributions from “pro-Israel donors” to Moss’ campaign.
Moss’ support for Israel has made him a lightning rod among progressives opposed to pro-Israel Democrats. An audio clip alleged to be a recording of Moss claiming the purpose of his campaign is to maintain U.S. support for Israel went viral online over the weekend. Moss told The Detroit News that it was a fake, and that “I would never say these things.”
In a statement Monday evening, Moss said he’s been “in continual dialogue” with El-Sayed, including about “Jewish and Arab safety and security, both here at home in Michigan and in the Middle East.”
Moss also denounced Piker’s comments as an attempt to “create further divisions.”
“I will not be lectured by a California podcaster about what Oakland County, Michigan’s Jewish community should and shouldn’t believe,” he said.
El-Sayed has struggled to unify Michigan Democrats since edging out a victory in a bitter primary that was marked by accusations of antisemitism — partly due to his own views on Israel, and partly due his embrace of Piker, who has risen to prominence through controversial and vocal attacks on Israel. El-Sayed also drew criticisms from the Jewish community for his response after a man attacked a Michigan synagogue in March. El-Sayed condemned the attack but pointed out the Israeli military killed some of the attacker’s family in Lebanon, saying “hurt people hurt people.”. He also received blowback for declining repeatedly to answer whether Israel has a right to exist during a BLN interview in June.
His primary campaign made Stevens’ acceptance of contributions from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee a central issue, accusing the group of unfairly influencing the race and steering the party towards stronger U.S. relations with Israel, which he opposes. AIPAC spent $30 million in the race, a record for the group.
El-Sayed has repeatedly condemned antisemitism throughout his campaign.
His failure to corral support from many Jewish voters in Michigan threatens to undermine Democrats’ chances of winning the Senate. The state’s significant Muslim and Arab-American population and its prominent Jewish population pose unique challenges for Democrats’ messaging around Israel — a problem then-Vice President Kamala Harris struggled to navigate in the 2024 presidential election.
Piker’s comments drew a forceful rebuke from Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-Mich.), who endorsed El-Sayed’s opponent Rep. Haley Stevens in the primary and has so far declined to endorse El-Sayed, excoriating Piker’s comments as “dangerous” and “unacceptable.”
“Piker is a hack who thrives on hate, shock and awe because he lacks substance,” she said. “We should all be calling out this disgusting rhetoric so it loses it’s [sic] grip on our politics once and for all. It has no place in Michigan, and no place in our country.”
Piker fired back at Scholten on social media, telling her not to “spend so much time vying for the spotlight by actively defaming a prominent antizionist voice to harm the dem senate majority chances over a 90/10 issue.”
Scholten’s statement accused Piker of “targeting” Moss after Piker displayed images of Moss while making the inflammatory comments. Moss, who is running to succeed El-Sayed’s primary opponent Rep. Haley Stevens, backed Stevens in the primary and has yet to endorse El-Sayed in the general election.
Republican Mike Rogers jumped on the controversy, describing Piker as El-Sayed’s “running mate.”
“Hasan Piker’s call for violence against the Jewish Community, specifically against Jeremy Moss, must be condemned by every single Michigan Democrat. But Conman Abdul El-Sayed doesn’t have the guts to disavow his running mate,” Rogers said in a statement. “Abdul’s attempt at distancing himself from this violent and hateful rhetoric now that he and Hasan won the primary is the epitome of what a conman does — says one thing when it serves him and another when it doesn’t.”
Since winning the nomination earlier this month, El-Sayed has taken steps to keep Piker at arm’s length. In an August interview, El-Sayed disavowed Piker’s comments that “America deserved 9/11” during a 2019 livestream, a comment Piker has since walked back.
Democrats have gone to great lengths to reunify the party after the primary, including with a party unity rally featuring remarks from prominent Michigan Democrats, including unity breakfast Sen. Elissa Slotkin and a rally featuring remarks from former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Former President Barack Obama spoke with El-Sayed after his victory and offered a rare readout of the conversation to reporters to signal that El-Sayed has the party’s backing.
This article has been updated with Moss’ response to Piker’s comments.
President Donald Trump is using a bit of his mostly untapped $400 million MAGA Inc. warchest to boost Sen. Darline Graham in South Carolina — the first significant expenditure his team has made this year for one of his chosen candidates, according to campaign finance reports.
The super PAC has funneled more than $827,000 on voter phone calls and text messages for Graham ahead of her tough GOP runoff battle with Rep. Ralph Norman on Tuesday, according to a Federal Election Commission report made public on Monday.
It’s yet another sign that Trump is focusing his efforts on propelling Graham — a political newcomer — to victory, after holding a rare in-person political rally with her on Friday. And it’s a notable spend given MAGA Inc.’s ongoing absence from other battleground races this cycle, even as Republicans have been pushing the president and his team to spend heavily this fall to help counter Democrats’ massive fundraising advantage.
As of last week, the super PAC had reported over $403 million in fundraising.
The money for Graham is just the second time MAGA Inc. has spent on a race this year. The group in March shelled out nearly $18,000 for now-Rep. Clay Fuller (R-Ga.), who was running in the special election to replace former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
And in late 2025, MAGA Inc. threw roughly $1.7 million into phone calls for Tennessee Republican Matt Van Epps, who won the special election to replace retired Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.).
Spokespeople for MAGA Inc. and the White House did immediately respond to requests for comment.
Should Graham become the Republican nominee in South Carolina on Tuesday, it will be in large part thanks to Trump, who expended serious political and financial capital to help her win. Her victory would also help reaffirm Trump’s influence in Republican primaries after a string of losses for his preferred candidates in states like Michigan, Minnesota, and Iowa.
Jessica Piper contributed to this report.
Democrats have figured out how to talk about the border. They still haven’t reached a consensus on ICE.
In battlegrounds across the country, moderate and progressive Democrats alike are calling for a secure border and admitting the Biden administration’s policy there led to political backlash in 2024. But with less than three months until Election Day, they still aren’t on the same page in how far to go in reining in Immigration and Customs Enforcement — with some high-profile candidates pushing reforms, and others calling to dissolve the agency altogether.
Many in the party see an opening: Half of Americans view President Donald Trump’s deportation push as too aggressive. But some Democrats are starting to worry that going too far on ICE could again kneecap their electoral chances in key battlegrounds now and in the future.
“The party is still struggling to get its footing on this issue and talk to voters about this,” said Daniel Delgado, a senior career Department of Homeland Security official who left the department after Trump took office in 2025 and now works as a senior fellow at the center-left Searchlight Institute think tank in Washington. “Trump’s actions are pushing people to adopt a more extreme position, but reform is what’s sticking with voters in the middle.”
Democratic candidates are pulled between a fired-up base that wants to see ICE abolished or dramatically reined in, and an undecided voter bloc that’s much less likely to support drastic measures — all while continuing to distance themselves from the Biden administration’s border policies that become political kryptonite for Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 race.
A new Blue Light News Poll — conducted by Public First between Aug. 8 to 12 — found that just 21 percent of undecided midterm voters say they support abolishing ICE, while 51 percent of self-described moderate Democrats and 67 percent of progressive Democrats say they do.
Those findings track with other polling this year from Navigator Research and NBC News/SurveyMonkey that found Democrats are much more likely than independents to support abolishing ICE, though support for full abolition falls across all groups when respondents are given the option to “reform” the agency.
“A Democratic primary electorate represents less than 25 percent of general election voters,” said Democratic strategist Chuck Rocha, a former Bernie Sanders campaign veteran now advising Texas state Rep. James Talarico’s Senate campaign and numerous other candidates this cycle. “The electorate is really pissed, and the Democratic electorate has been very energized, but also these are different electorates from state-to-state.”
Battleground candidates running in border states like Arizona and Texas are calling for ICE officers to be held accountable and guardrails to be installed for the agency — like Talarico, who wants ICE to focus on violent criminals and be banned from using face coverings. Meanwhile, progressive nominees in key Senate contests in Maine and Michigan say the agency is beyond saving, and have used the potent catchphrase “abolish ICE.”
The intraparty divide was on display in Austin last weekend, where Democratic National Committee members could not reach a consensus on whether ICE should be abolished or reformed, eventually approving dueling resolutions that called for both.
That disunity comes as Democrats’ 2028 path to the White House will run straight through two early primary states with significant Hispanic populations — Nevada and border-state New Mexico — all but guaranteeing that immigration enforcement will be a central point of contention.
Immigration enforcement is an issue where Democrats in 2024 “really missed the opportunity to be who we are: smart, fair, and can deliver aggressively through Congress the things that really make a difference. And we couldn’t say it. We didn’t deal with it,” said New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who has called for more accountability regarding ICE but argues abolishing it is not a winning message. “Shame on us then. We better not make these mistakes again — now, in ’26, in the midterms, and certainly not in 28.”
Some of the party’s battleground Senate nominees, even as they support securing the border, see a path to victory with an abolish-ICE message.
Troy Jackson, Democrats’ nominee in Maine, called to eliminate the agency in response to a federal immigration agent killing a man in the state in July and has used the incident to hammer his opponent, GOP Sen. Susan Collins, for voting to further fund ICE.
And Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed has called to abolish ICE and likened the agency’s hardline tactics to “normalizing paramilitary force.”
“There’s no question we need a safe, secure southern border. And there’s also no question that we have a responsibility to enforce immigration policy, but to do that in a way that does not supersede the Constitution itself,” El-Sayed said in an interview.
But he also acknowledged “different communities” around the country “are going to think differently about these things.”
Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, the Democratic nominee for Senate, has avoided explicitly calling to abolish ICE, but has tiptoed up to the line: “We need to rip ICE apart,” she said in her primary-night victory speech. She won a hard-fought primary in Minnesota’s Senate race by castigating her Democratic rival’s votes with Republicans on a pair of immigration-related measures. She opened her general-election clash against Michele Tafoya by accusing the Republican of supporting the Trump administration’s violent tactics in her state.
Border-state Democrats sound different.
Moderate Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), who currently sits as ranking member on the Homeland Security Appropriations subcommittee, frequently tells voters during stump speeches that he will chair the subcommittee should Democrats retake control of the House — and he’ll use that position to push reforms in the next DHS funding bill, like mandatory use of body cameras, requiring judicial warrants before entering a home or worksite, and reinstalling guidance on avoiding enforcement in sensitive areas like churches and hospitals.
“Let me just say this: I don’t believe in abolishing ICE. I don’t believe in defunding the police. There’s a role for them,” he told reporters last month after meeting with Sister Leticia “Letty” Ugboaja, a nun detained by ICE while walking to Sunday Mass. “But they have to have the right safeguards. What ICE is doing right now is not right. It is not correct.”
The South Texas Democrats pay little heed to the loudest voices in the party calling to abolish ICE. “I personally don’t follow what national Democrats are saying on this,” said Abel Prado, the campaign manager for Bobby Pulido, the Democratic nominee in Texas’ 15th District.
Some other candidates are altering their message now, too. William Lawrence, the Sunshine Movement co-founder who won the Democratic primary in Michigan’s swingy 7th District, called in January to abolish ICE. But he sidestepped when Blue Light News asked this week if that was still his position.
“I don’t care what our immigration enforcement agency is called,” Lawrence said in a statement. “What I care about is immigration policy that adheres to the Constitution and lives up to our country’s highest values.”
Frank Sharry, a longtime Democratic immigration activist, said Democrats would be wise to avoid the phrase.
“I don’t think that ‘abolish ICE’ gets you much more than a little bit of play in a primary and a round of applause in the blue bubble,” said Sharry, a senior fellow at Third Way who advised both Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris during their 2024 campaigns on immigration policy. “Democratic candidates who want to win the seats that are going to deliver a majority of the House and the Senate, and then the White House in 2028, would be wise to steer clear of a rally slogan.”
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