{"id":91,"date":"2026-05-28T20:15:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T20:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/modernhomejournals.com\/?p=91"},"modified":"2026-05-28T20:15:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T20:15:11","slug":"talarico-fights-back-at-attacks-on-his-masculinity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/modernhomejournals.com\/?p=91","title":{"rendered":"Talarico Fights Back at Attacks on His Masculinity"},"content":{"rendered":"
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HOUSTON \u2014 James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Texas, is directly confronting attacks on his masculinity being lobbed by his rival Ken Paxton and other Republicans as the general election campaign gets off to a personal start.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIn a time when there\u2019s so much debate about what it means to be a man, my dad showed me every Saturday morning. He would mow our lawn, and then, without telling anyone, without anyone asking him, he would go next door and mow our neighbor\u2019s lawn,\u201d Talarico told the crowd at a campaign event this week. \u201cNowadays our culture tells young men that greatness is tearing other people down, trolling and owning and dominating, but my dad showed me what real greatness looks like.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moments after it became clear that Paxton would become the Republican nominee for Senate in Texas, a state that hasn\u2019t elected a statewide Democrat in decades, his allies began raising questions about Talarico\u2019s sexuality, masculinity, diet and other topics that they hope could cause general election voters to turn against him.<\/p>\n

Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump\u2019s deputy chief of staff, posted an inflammatory statement on X<\/u><\/span> on Wednesday: \u201cThe Democrats made history in Texas by nominating their first transgender senate candidate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republicans have also been bringing up Talarico\u2019s past statements, including when he referred to God as \u201cnonbinary.\u201d<\/u><\/span><\/p>\n

He told CBS News in an interview this week he \u201cmissed the mark\u201d<\/u><\/span> with some of his past comments.<\/p>\n

The Democratic nominee is making affordability a central message of his campaign and talks about taking down billionaires. But he also added a new message: focusing more on his adoptive father, who he said taught him how to be a man.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that there\u2019s all this debate about who\u2019s a real man \u2014 I wanted to use [my father\u2019s] example because he showed me what being a man is all about,\u201d Talarico told NOTUS while speaking to reporters after Wednesday\u2019s event. He later added, \u201cI think that\u2019s what this campaign is going to be a referendum on: selfishness versus service.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a time when there\u2019s so much debate about what it means to be a man, my dad showed me every Saturday morning. He would mow our lawn, and then, without telling anyone, without anyone asking him, he would go next door and mow our neighbor\u2019s lawn,\u201d Talarico said on stage. \u201cNowadays our culture tells young men that greatness is tearing other people down, trolling and owning and dominating, but my dad showed me what real greatness looks like.\u201d<\/p>\n

Talarico is the underdog in a general election for Senate against Paxton, the state attorney general, who beat incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in a primary runoff Tuesday. The race has attracted national attention, with Democrats and Republicans alike watching whether Talarico, a 37-year-old state House member from the Austin area, could flip a seat that Cornyn held for more than two decades. The fact that the reliably red state is in play is upping the pressure on Talarico to demonstrate some independence from other national figures in his party.<\/p>\n

Paxton, on the other hand, was endorsed by Trump last week. The president still has an iron grip on Republican voters in the state, who have supported him overwhelmingly in his elections.<\/p>\n

Read more Trump\u2019s \u2018License to Kill\u2019 Boat Strike Policy Faces a Reckoning<\/a><\/p>\n

The question will be which party can turn out more independent voters with Paxton, rather than the relatively more moderate Cornyn, on the ballot.<\/p>\n

The Republican nominee has spent most of his decade-plus time in office dealing with controversy. He was indicted in 2015 on felony securities fraud charges, which were eventually resolved years later with no admission of guilt. He was impeached by the Texas House in 2023, though the state Senate acquitted him. He also faced scrutiny in his personal life after he admitted an affair and his wife\u2019s 2025 divorce filing revealed details about the relationship. Through it all, Paxton has dismissed the accusations as politically motivated.<\/p>\n

\u201cKen Paxton is a criminal. Ken Paxton is the most corrupt politician in America, and he belongs nowhere close to the United States Senate,\u201d Talarico said. \u201cThree years ago today, Ken Paxton was impeached by his own party for using his public office, his position of public trust to enrich himself and his donors at our expense. Ken Paxton is morally unfit for office.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even as Republicans have questioned everything from Talarico\u2019s sexuality \u2014 he has said he has a longtime girlfriend who was a former staffer<\/u><\/span> \u2014 to whether he might be a vegan, he has sought to turn the focus back to Paxton\u2019s past.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose are fighting words in the state of Texas,\u201d he said, mocking the charge that he doesn\u2019t eat meat. \u201cI\u2019m an eighth-generation Texan. I\u2019ve been eating barbecue since before Ken Paxton\u2019s first indictment.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also addressed the \u201ccringe\u201d label that Republicans have attempted to give him about previous statements he\u2019s made. Talarico said: \u201cI resent any insinuation that I\u2019m not Texan. And I will say that this is the playbook of puppet politicians like Ken Paxton: distraction and division.\u201d<\/p>\n

A reporter asked Talarico how he planned to succeed with the same kinds of attacks against Paxton that didn\u2019t work for Cornyn. He maintained that \u201cthere\u2019s a huge difference between a Republican primary when about a million Texans vote versus a general election.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThe reason that I\u2019m leading in every public and private poll against Ken Paxton is because Texans are sick of corrupt politicians like him, and they\u2019re looking for servant leaders. Eeven if they don\u2019t agree with me on every issue, they\u2019re looking for a senator who\u2019s going to fight for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paxton defended his strategy of raising questions about Talarico\u2019s personal life and diet in a statement to NOTUS: \u201cAbsolutely nothing has been taken out of context. Those are his words, and now he\u2019s running from them. \u2026 Now that he\u2019s in a general election, he wants to run from those statements and pretend they meant something different than what he clearly intended at the time. That\u2019s simply not true, and we are going to hold him accountable for his own words.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Blame It on the Reign: Music Acts Exit State Fair<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Democratic Senate nominee says his race against Ken Paxton will be \u201ca referendum on selfishness versus service.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":90,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campaigns"],"yoast_head":"\nTalarico Fights Back at Attacks on His Masculinity - Modern Home Journals<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/modernhomejournals.com\/?p=91\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Talarico Fights Back at Attacks on His Masculinity - Modern Home Journals\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Democratic Senate nominee says his race against Ken Paxton will be \u201ca referendum on selfishness versus service.\u201d\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/modernhomejournals.com\/?p=91\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Modern Home Journals\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-05-28T20:15:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/modernhomejournals.com\\\/?p=91#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/modernhomejournals.com\\\/?p=91\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/modernhomejournals.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/533de239efc09a2ab59959cc1bff86d0\"},\"headline\":\"Talarico Fights Back at Attacks on His Masculinity\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-05-28T20:15:11+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/modernhomejournals.com\\\/?p=91\"},\"wordCount\":1082,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/modernhomejournals.com\\\/?p=91#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/modernhomejournals.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/05\\\/e9ac3acde2b6f628ad4162b6197c0c97-scaled.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Campaigns\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/modernhomejournals.com\\\/?p=91#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/modernhomejournals.com\\\/?p=91\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/modernhomejournals.com\\\/?p=91\",\"name\":\"Talarico Fights Back at Attacks on His Masculinity - Modern Home Journals\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/modernhomejournals.com\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/modernhomejournals.com\\\/?p=91#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/modernhomejournals.com\\\/?p=91#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/modernhomejournals.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/05\\\/e9ac3acde2b6f628ad4162b6197c0c97-scaled.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-05-28T20:15:11+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/modernhomejournals.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/533de239efc09a2ab59959cc1bff86d0\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/modernhomejournals.com\\\/?p=91#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/modernhomejournals.com\\\/?p=91\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/modernhomejournals.com\\\/?p=91#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/modernhomejournals.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/05\\\/e9ac3acde2b6f628ad4162b6197c0c97-scaled.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/modernhomejournals.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/05\\\/e9ac3acde2b6f628ad4162b6197c0c97-scaled.jpg\",\"width\":2560,\"height\":1707,\"caption\":\"Texas state Rep. and Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico attends a rally in Houston, Wednesday, May 27, 2026. 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