The Press Box - The March Issue: James Talarico and the Dream of Turning Texas Blue

Episode Date: March 30, 2026

It’s time for the March issue! Bryan and Joel are here to examine Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico in his race to turn Texas blue. They take a look at who Talarico is, why he’s gained national recognition from other Democrats (18:49), and how Texas turned into a completely red state (36:47). Then they take a look at how the Texas Senate race has gone so far and they give reasons for optimism and pessimism for Talarico’s case for Senate (41:58).Hosts: Bryan Curtis and Joel AndersonProducers: Bruce Baldwin, Isaiah Blakely, and Donald LoBianco Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, media consumers. Welcome to Press Box. You've got Brian Curtis of the Ringer here, along with producers Isaiah Blakely and Bruce Baldwin. My buddy Joel Anderson's going to be here in just one second. But first, I want to welcome you to the March issue of the press box. This month, Joel and I are going to hit two of our obsessions, politics and our home state, Texas. We're going to talk about James Tala Rico and the idea that Texas could go blue. for the first time in a generation. Now, if you've heard James Tala Rico talk on a podcast or on a TV hit during his Senate campaign, you know that he has become a familiar character of the midterms, the nice young Democrat.

Beto, but better, you might say. Tala Rico is just 36 years old. He's a state representative in Texas and a minister in training, and that has given him the ability to explain democratic policies in the language of script. in the language of scripture. Now, a Talleyco victory over say Ken Paxton could help the Democrats pick up one of four seats they need to take back the Senate. But Joel and I's interest in the James Talaico story is way more personal. We grew up in Texas when there were Democrats, like Ann Richards and Lloyd Benson and Barbara

Jordan. LBJ wasn't just the subject of a long-awaited Robert Caro book sequel. LBJ was a fairly recent memory. The Republican takeover of Texas was, in many ways, the political story of our childhood. The last time a Democrat won any statewide race in Texas, Joel and I were in high school. The last time Democrats won a U.S. Senate race in Texas, Joel and I were in fifth grade. All James Tolariko is trying to do is snap one of the longest losing streaks in American politics. Welcome to the March issue.

Well, Texas, final turned blue. All right, Joel, welcome to the Urban Cowboy Edition of the press box. I see that my Wrangler shirt didn't get in the mail. You know, I tried to, you know, Amazon didn't bring my wrangler shirt, unfortunately. So I got us both covered here. Yeah, I like that, man. I like that. I want you to know these are not buttons.

These are snaps. Okay. What were the colors? What were the, what was the second? choice for the uh for today's uh cowboy cosplay yeah i know you got how many of these shirts you got and what was number two i got about four or five okay but let me tell you something i never wore short like this in texas did when shoemaker and i were living together in the lower east side of new york we decided to go full urban cowboy for about a year or two oh man i don't know if i was longing for

taxes. I don't know what that was, but we were all in. I had the extra long wallet, you know, the cowboy wallet. It's like twice the size that sticks out of your pocket on the subway. I can not tell you how many good Samaritans came up to me. It's, hey, you're going to get your wallet stolen. Yeah, really? Oh, yeah. Well, wait a minute. This is pre-married Brian then. Oh, yeah. Okay. I know, because you were going for something with that look. I already, I already know. I can feel it, you know. We were striving in one way or another. Okay. All right, Joel, I divided this podcast into four parts.

Okay. And in part one, let's answer the most basic question. Who is James Tala Rico? Beto 2.0. In a lot of ways. If anything, he's a little bit younger. Right. I mentioned he's 36 years old, born in 1989, outside of Austin.

God, baby. Speaking of cowboy clothes, he wears the go-to outfit of any Texas politician of our time. Navy Blazer White button down Without a tie Blue jeans and Lucchese boots Joel what's your favorite brand of boots Tony Lama

I'm gonna talk I mean you I know you thought you were going to get me But look Do you know who one of my favorite singers Was when I was a kid Crystal Gale Okay With the long hair

My mom tells a story From when I was like I had to test into the elementary school I got into. Okay? And so, but the problem was that at this, the kindergarten I was at, it was like Go Texan day or something like that. So I got to dress up.

I had a cowboy hat. I had like a little pop gun. So I was so hyped. My mom said that I didn't do as well on the test as they were expecting. Still got to the school. But, you know, I was a big, look, man, that cowboy shit, that was real. That was real to me as a kid. I lived that life.

So the Tony Lamas, man, I don't have any boots right now. we mentioned on a previous episode, but I know my cowboy stuff, man. You've not owned a pair of boots in adulthood? No, man, where am I going to wear it? I don't know. It's like a jersey, you know what I'm saying? It's like I only had a couple, but I only wear it. You say, there's not a lot of places to wear it.

You know, maybe if I've been going out with you and Shoemaker in New York, you know, going about the town, maybe, you know, with my long wallet, you know, maybe fit right in, let me tell you. Mm-hmm. Now, when James Salarico talks about his job, in Texas, he often mentions that his father, his birth father, was abusive. His mom, Tamara, took her son and left when Tala Rico was only a few weeks old. Here's how Tala Rico told that story on The View on ABC.

And she packed all our stuff into her little Ford escort. She drove me to the hotel where she worked. She begged the manager to let us stay in one of the rooms until she found this little apartment in East Austin. And there wasn't room for a nursery, so I slept in a crib in her closet. And she was so proud of that closet. She decorated with toys and pictures. No one was going to tell her it wasn't a nursery.

Tellerico later took the last name of his stepfather, Mark Tellerico. He went to undergrad of UT. Okay. Hold on hold that against him. I mean, whatever. Got his master's in education at Harvard, taught middle school in San Antonio for a while. That's, he was a teachful America guy.

It's just, and I think I read, later that he worked at a tech company that, you know, they're bringing tech to classrooms. It's like a very Cory Booker type background. And this is a very well-intentioned liberal guy that wants to get into public service. Like, I've worked with kids and now I want to improve education. And now I want to help America to be better. It's just like, yeah, it's just, again, very nice guy, he seems to be. People say he talks like a preacher.

Don't you think he talks like a middle school teacher, too? Yeah, a good middle school teacher. And that, like, it's very easy to understand them that you can just tell the generosity within his spirit. Yeah, I should say, I mean, again, without a go, I went to my Nana's church, Clint Park, United Methodist. He didn't sound a lot like Reverend Alton Lister, but I understand if I didn't go to that kind of church. But I can see what people were going for when they say that. Adam Wren, he's a writer with Politico, he wrote one of the first profiles of Tala Rico back in 2003.

Here's how he described Tala Rico's affect to me. He's a, you know, all shock's guy, if I had to describe him. You know, he's someone that you're surprised to learn wasn't an Eagle Scout. And, you know, he's, you know, pretty, pretty, you know, funny and kind of a hokey, quirky way. And what's funny is a lot, you know, people who know him and have known him a long time, I went to college with him at UT. You know, they call him Jimmy. You know, and so when you call him James, people are like, oh, you mean Jimmy?

Jimmy, Tala Rico. That's funny. That's funny. How perfect is that? That's really cool. I mean, you don't get to, I guess, so I wonder, you know, yeah, because you just don't see very many adults. He's 36, which is still sort of young to me. I wonder if he gets into his 40s that people will start calling.

You don't see very many grown jimmies. He really don't. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, just very, very central casting, very agreeable guy. You know, just, yeah, you can, Jimmy, that seems just about right. It makes sense. In 2018, old Jimmy Telerico told his pastor in Austin that he was interested in two possible careers. One was politics, and the other was becoming.

a minister. Tala Rico initially picked politics on his first election as a Texas state rep in 2018 by flipping a Trump district outside of Austin. The very first mention, because I'm writing about this a little bit, that I could find a Tala Rico in print was in the metro and state section of the Austin American statesman in February 18th, 2018. And the article was about three Republicans who were vying to replace rep. Did you know, were you from? me with Larry Gonzalez, right? I was not. Yeah, okay. It was Larry Gonzalez. He didn't run for election, but it's a very Republican district. Tala Rico doesn't even show up in that article until the last paragraph because it's an afterthought. That is a Republican district. No way a Democrat

is going to win. And he ends up winning. But the funny thing to show you like how long this has been going on in Texas, like this dream on the same front page of that metro and state section in the Austin American Statement is an article headline. Could gun issue turned Texas blue an election? Yeah. Like we just, people are just wishcasting for so long. What is it going to, what is it going to take to turn Texas blue? So, yeah.

So 2018, that's Talrico's first election. Four years later, he also decided to become a minister, unrolling in an Austin seminary. Now, one of the quirks of the Texas state legislature is that it only meets an odd number years. So everyone who's in the state ledge has to have a side hustle. Tala ricos just happened to be going to the seminary. And those two careers gave Tala RICO an ability to talk about politics in the language of scripture.

Let me take you back to 2023, Joel, when Republicans had a bill in the Texas state legislature that would mandate public schools post the 10 commandments in the classroom. To repeat, mandate that public schools post the 10 commandments in the classroom. I didn't respond probably in a way, because this is a, a good one. This is Texas now, right? I was like, oh, yeah, that's just what we do down there now, right? But yeah, that's what's going on. And as the Texas tribute noted, the Ten Commandments poster that you were putting up in your public school classroom

had to be at least 16 inches wide and 20 inches tall. They weren't going to let you get away with a note card. No, no, no, no, no. It's got to be loud and proud. Is this the kind of stuff that made you not want to move back to Texas? Yeah. Well, I mean, we've talked about this a little bit on the show before, because I think I moved since we've done this show, right?

If I'm not mistaken, I moved last year. And I was, I had been all planned. My wife and I, she said when we had our second blessing, Lonnie, who was a surprise, okay, we can move back to Texas because that was always sort of my dream. I was going to be home with my friends and my family. And then I just kind of started thinking about the Texas that I was moving back to. I've got young kids who have their entire academic lives ahead of them. And I just don't trust their commitment to education.

And I don't necessarily want to have to pay for private schools. I'm just looking at, we can talk about this some other time, but the state stewardship of Houston ISD, which is the school district I was in for nine of the 12 years that I was in, you know, school. And they just destroyed that district. I mean the Ten Commandment stuff, the book bands that these school boards and stuff are calling for. It's just not the kind of, it's not the state that I went to school in.

And I don't think it was fair to make my kids go to that. And, you know, yeah, and also, just to be frank, my wife, my mother-in-law, my father-in-law, they can see all these headlines coming out of Texas. And it's just like that's not, that doesn't seem like a place that we would want our kids to be raised, which is, look, I have a lot of friends that are raising kids there and they're doing fine, they're thriving or whatever. But if I have a choice, that's just not what I wanted to choose. Would you move back to Texas now?

I was thinking about this. When I was in elementary school, yeah. elementary school in Fort Worth. I had a teacher, a beloved teacher, teacher I really, really liked, who decided that we would just start class every day with a prayer. There we go. We're just going to start with it. Let us pray.

And parents had to come in and be like, actually, you can't do that. You know, that's just not it. And it was stopped. And we moved on and learned, you know, about, you know, addition or subtraction or whatever we were going to learn about. That was when I was in elementary school. So the idea that we'd fast forward to 2023, and there would be a law, a law, by the way, that passed last year,

that would mandate posting the Ten Commandments in public schools, you've got to be kidding me with this stuff. Of course that would, of course that would, you know, mix into mine and my wife's ideas about moving back to Texas. You're kidding? Yeah, absolutely. Well, look, there used to be when I was in high school, by the time I transferred into All-Boice Catholic School by my school by my

sophomore year high school. And we used to play a team called Santa Fe High School. The people know what Santa Fe Texas is. It's in Galveston County. It unfortunately had a school shooting tragedy there several years ago. It was more people might know famous for, but we played them every year I was in school. And one of the controversies that went up around in in Santa Fe was they would say a prayer before a football game. Like they couldn't, and like they had been told to not do it, but they kept on doing it. And I actually don't think they were able to stop Santa Fe High School from doing that prayer before the games. And I was Catholic school.

You came to play the Strait Jesuit, we prayed before the game because we're Catholic school. But it was like this was a real, this has always been a point of contention in Texas. And it's not really a surprise that it's tipped over now that the Republicans have control of the state. So that law is in front of the Texas legion, in 2023. Enter James Tala Rico, who had a different take on how the bill meshed with Jesus' teachings.

Because I believe this bill is idolatrous. I believe it is exclusionary, and I believe it is arrogant. And those three things in my reading of the gospel are diametrically opposed to the teachings of Jesus. You probably know Matthew 6.5 when Jesus says, don't be like the hypocrites. We love to pray publicly on street corners. When you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your father who is in secret. a religion that has to force people to put up a poster to prove its legitimacy is a dead religion.

I know there's somebody black in the background. I said, yes, I heard him say, he did the echo. He was urgent pastor Talariko on. But yeah, that's why this guy is where he is today, man. Now, beyond his ability to meld politics and religion, Tala RICO's speaking ability, full stop, led to some of his national fame. In 2021, Tala RICO was part of a group of legislators that fled Texas

to stop Republicans from passing a law that would restrict access to voting. This has happened again and again throughout the history of Texas politics. You just got to leave to stop the dominant party from doing what they want to do. Well, that July, Tala RICO went on Fox News to talk about voting rights and landed some punches against the host, who was, Wait for it. Pete Hicks. You have made a lot of money personally, and you've enriched a lot of corporations with advertising by getting on here and spewing lies and conspiracy theories to folks who trust you.

And so what I'm asking you to do is to tell your voters right now that Donald Trump lost the election in 2020. Can you resolve the lie that is Democrats are now for voter ID? It's not your show, sir. But at least you resolve the idea that Democrats are not for voter ID. Did Donald Trump lose the election in 2020? Real quick. Can you answer the question? Did Donald Trump lose the election in 2020?

I'm not, don't really feel any obligation to answer anything of you. An uncomfortable question for you? No. You ever happen to Pete Hacksett? I mean, that guy. He's still doing weekends on Fox? Trump looked at that and was like, I got to get him. I got to bring him in.

He's like, I got to bring him in. And one thing that's important to understand about Tala Rica is the Republican takeover of Texas is so complete that a bill that mandated the Ten Commandments, as I said, actually passed in 2020. And part of Talarico's image is that he is this lonely resistance figure in a place where even your eloquence doesn't stop Republicans from doing what they want to do. I definitely think that that is sort of the outsider's view of Texas. I mean, look, man, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Austin, all major, you know, top 15 cities in this country. They're all, they lean blue. I'm not going to say it's strongly blue as they used to be, but they're very blue places.

So he's not the only guy there, but he has, for whatever reason, captivated Americans outside of the state, which is important if you're going to run for Senate, right? Because he's able to merge together religion in a way and talk about religion in a way that, unfortunately, most, I mean, like Raphael Warnock could do that, right? But he's just not used to seeing people talk about Christianity. white Christianity to white voters in Texas. And that is something that people have been looking for for a very long time out of Texas. And so here in steps a little Jimmy Tala Rica.

The point I want to make is mostly generational. You and I grew up in Texas during the time when Democrats got wiped out, at least statewide. Tala Rico and his cohort came up in Texas when we saw the consequences of that wipeout when you saw these bills coming through the legislature. So that's something as we think about his viewpoint. All right, part two, Joel. Why did national Democrats fall in love with James Tolariko? I've got six reasons for you.

All right, let's do it. Tell me what you think of these. Number one, the simplest. He's a nice young man. Don't underestimate the power of nice young man in politics. I'm kind of, you know, the thing is that is very valuable. at a time. I still think that there is a constituency, hopefully there is, for people who don't lead with invective and rancor and animosity. Because the hope, right? The hope is that someday

politics will return to some sort of balance and there will also be like generosity of spirit, collaboration, bipartisanship. We all have to live in this country together. That's the sort of guy that you can envision being at the head of that sort of conversation while also holding fast to his beliefs. And so, yeah, I get it. He seems imminently reasonable. He reminds me of guys I went to school with that I thought were going to go and join the seminary as well, right? Like, I was like, oh, yeah, like, Jimmy Tolariko reminds me of, I'm not going to say the kid's name because he may listen to this or whatever, and he'd be like, you thought I was going to go to the seminary? But anyway, But yes, he reminds me of somebody because of that sort of niceness, yes.

He had a line in the New Yorker profile by Ted Friend, this is Talleyko, saying that Trump era is ending. And when you talk about that niceness, I think that's part of what hits people. This idea that politics has not changed permanently, that Trump is not just going to be replaced by more benign Democratic Trump. That, and again, is that something that's actually going to be replaced? going to happen is that, you know, possible? I don't know. But his argument on the stump, his argument by the way he talks is that it is possible. I mean, do you think we'll ever have another president that when the former head of the FBI dies, he'll say, good, I'm glad he's dead. I don't think we'll get that exactly. Yeah, we probably won't get that again. I don't think, no.

But are we going to get like, you know, this is the next president going to be kind of a Twitter troll? but again, a more benign version of the current Twitter troll. That's the sort of what Tala RICO's talking about. He's saying, no, no, no, this is not the destiny of the United States for the rest of time. There can be something different. Greg Kassar is a Democratic congressman from Central Texas. He and Tala Rika are the same age. They've known each other since they were in their 20s.

I asked Kassar the other day, is Tala RICO this earnest when he's off the stump as well? Yeah, almost painfully so. My little sister used to help run candidates in one of the reddest parts of Central Texas just outside of Austin. And there was one night where it was a Friday night and she called dozens of volunteers to be like, the election's coming up on Tuesday. We need everybody to come out, you know, it's a Friday night to phone bank and a dozen people signed up to phone bank to make phone calls to make sure people voted on Tuesday. This is years ago. before James was even elected official. And of those 12 people, 11 of them dropped out on a Friday night, and one person showed up, and it was James Tolariko. So I think that tells you something. Nice young man. Yeah, man.

And also, I mean, the thing is, like you talk about in Texas politics, it's kind of a part-time game. If you're coming up through state, like it requires a lot of volunteering, a lot of unpaid work, a lot of doing that sort of stuff. And like, that's good. I mean, the thing is, it leaves. it so that either only very wealthy people can do it or people that are really trying to make a sacrifice to make you know to to get into the political game and so obviously it didn't appear

that talarico came from a lot of money so yeah that's that's that's a that's really encouraging to hear did you tell cassar that did you tell them that your co-host went to straight jesuit to i was going to let you break that news to him oh all right well i'm much older than him we were never at school anyway so it's fine all right reason number two national democrats fell in love which James Tala Rico. He mentioned Raphael Warnock. Yeah. He can reclaim religion.

Yeah. For the Democratic Party. Yeah. Now, if you've heard Tala Rico speak, you'll notice there's a couple of different ways he tries to do this. One is to talk about how far back and how deep religious roots are in his family. This is how he explained it to Stephen Colbert on CBS. My granddad was a Baptist preacher in South Texas.

and when I was little, he told me that Christianity is a simple religion. Not an easy religion, he would always clarify, but a simple religion because Jesus gave us two commandments, love God and love neighbor. And there was no exception to that second commandment. You will get those two commandments in every single James Tallerico media parents. One and two. Granddad told me this, one, two.

It's a good folksy story. And, yeah, I mean, again, that is what I thought. I mean, I've always thought that Raphael Warnock, I don't think a black man should ever run for president again just because I don't feel like America can handle it. But the thing I thought about Raphael Warnock, I was like, that guy with that background, with his ability to communicate to people, being the pastor, being a pastor,

like you have to talk to people and you have to reach people, man, and you've got to make people believe. That is a real talent. Like the presentation part of that is, is really, really important. And so, yeah, like somebody that can break it down for you. It make Christianity seem accessible, welcoming, you know, a loving religion as opposed to something where, like, either you're doomed to hell or you can't come in here because

you're gay. And so, yeah, like that, I like your point, your second point. That's a really good one. And I think that's the thing he does, right? He is going out and saying, you are interpreting the Bible incorrect, as we heard in that clip about the Ten Commandments. Another thing he does, and David French made this point in the New York Times column, is

he casts religion not just as a matter of belief, but as a matter of behavior. Here's another cut from Colbert. Don't tell me what you believe. Show me how you treat other people, and I'll tell you what you believe. And as a handy counterpoint, here's a headline from Huffpo yesterday.

Pete Hicks' pastor says he wants James Tolariko to die. I mean, bro. Look, bro. Don't tell me what you believe. Live your wraps is what I would say. You live your wraps. And there's plenty of people who have talked about this and more eloquently and with more grasp of the subject matter.

But one of the things that has frustrated me so much over the last 20 years of American political life is people talking about white evangelicals, as of what they actually believe is Christianity when it's really whiteness. And again, I know that will probably upset a lot of people or whatever, But the thing is, is that if you actually believe in the Bible, if you actually are a Christian, it would be really hard to be as cruel and to support some of the things that have flourished in this country over the last generation or so. And I'm just like, so they allow people to self-identify as an evangelical,

but they never stress test what those values actually are, like, other than like going to church and giving money to the pastor or whatever, right? So anyway, yeah, I like that. That's a really good point, too, man. I'm liking this list, man. Do you want to write my story? Oh, well, let's do it. I'll just keep going.

Okay, let's go. Reason number three, national Democrats have fallen in love with Jimmy Telerico. Southern slash Texas Democrats have an outsized place in the party's imagination going back to 1992 and maybe even 1976. This is Jimmy Carter. This is Bill Clinton. This is John Edwards, if I can mention that name without vanishing in a puff of smoke.

John Edwards, man. you really take in it back. I think of like Lloyd Benson, man, you know. On the ticket with the caucus in 1988. I think of the Lloyd Benson's of the world. Yeah, that's, I mean, you know, Louisiana has had a sort of an interesting tradition of Democratic, you know, Kathleen Blanco, you know, people like that, but, you know, the Landrieu family, right? They've, they've supplied a few Democrats. But yeah, man, it's, it's been a long time. And like, those people are sort of, I mean,

look, LBJ, right? Which is, I mean, it's, I wonder how he would fare today because I know he probably couldn't, I think of like what Grand Platner's going through up there at Maine. And I'm just like, man, imagine if LBJ had to go through that sort of, you know, review or whatever. But those guys, man, they moved people and they did things to make this country a better place. And yeah, they're, they're sort of legends. And we haven't had many of those legends around, certainly in Texas in quite a while. The idea that Texas or Southern Democrats can show us away, this is what's under the Andy Bashir for president. Boom. I can throw another name on the list. How about Harold Ford? Remember Harold Ford? Oh, man. Here's the Southern Democrat.

Harold Ford. Harold Ford. I'm trying to think, well, does Charlie Chris don't really count? Because he kind of bounced around a little bit. Do you remember Charlie Chris? Yeah, he bounced around a little. He bounced around quite a bit. But yeah, I mean, that's sort of in the image of John Osoff and Raphael Warnock, right? They're just very folksy. They can talk to people that are from the soil. And yeah, like, you know, I mean, we all sort of like fetishized like the South in a way, like you and I, like these are the salt of the earth people, they live their values. We get along and support each other in time.

And they've won in hostile territory just from an electoral point of view. Yeah. Democrats, right, that's how do we win those states again? How do we win those states? Reason number four. Resistance media relies on superheroes who can slay supervillow. So just as better O'Rourke was the guy who could beat Ted Cruz, Tala Rica was the guy who could potentially beat Ken Paxton in the text.

Man. So do you know who Beau French is, by the way? I don't know much about Bo French. Can you tell me something about him? Is this a Texas Republican du jour? Yeah, Texas Republican du jour. I think he's from, well, he's from Tarrant County. I don't know if he's specifically from Fort Worth.

And he's running for the Texas Railroad Commission. And he was in charge, I believe, of the. Tarrant County GOP for a time. And he's just a really regressive, you know, I'll withhold some of the other judgmental words I was going to use there for him. But I've been trying to bait him into a Twitter fight for months with absolutely no success. Okay. What have you been saying to him?

Well, just, you know, he was one of the people that was saying the TCE was too woke because they wouldn't say specifically about what they were doing with their DEI programs or whatever, right? And they want TCU, like University of Texas, Texas, A&M to disavow their supportive DEI programs, fire those people, get them off their college campuses, whatever. And I, you know, look, I'm on one of the boards at TCU. I'm a member of the Bob Schiefer School of Journalism Board of Visitors. I care about my school. I care about my state.

And I think it's important for people to know that, you know, some people can. can't fight back. But, you know, I don't want to have to fight all the time. But the thing is, like the Bo Frenches, the Ken Paxton's, the Ted Cruises, they sort of need to make it necessary. Like sometimes you got to let people know that, hey, man, you just can't say that stuff and nobody's not going to say anything back to you. But like Bo French and Ken Paxton, they're sort of like the consequence of this decades of unchecked bigotry from within state GOP ranks. He's almost like a throwback to like the Jim Crow era. And so, yeah, Man, of course we want people, you know, if you're a liberal or leftist or whatever,

a progressive, of course you want to beat those guys and you want somebody that you think can beat them. And that's what people see in Jimmy Telerica. Does John Cornyn feel the same supervill the same supervillain role in the MS now imagination? Yeah, not really, man. I mean, how much do you know about John Cornyn? Like, he's, I mean, he's been a senator for, you know, over a generation now, like 24 years. part of the furniture of, you know, Texas politics for 20 plus years now. Yeah.

28 years ago, his elected attorney general. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, just he was a boy. You know, he reminded me of Rick Scott without like the fraud, you know, like just a very low energy, not very charismatic guy. Rick Scott without the fraud. Rick Scott without the fraud. I covered his first Senate race when he ran against, at the time, the very popular Dallas

mayor, Ron Kirk. And he kicked Ron Kirk's ass. Like, he's won by like 11 points or something like that, which was so surprising to me because I'm like, what are people seizing onto here? Like, he's not charismatic. He's not like an electrifying speaker. Like, it's not like he had like these really strong beliefs that he was, you know, imparting on voters or whatever.

But he's just, yeah, he's just been there. And he caught the wave of the Bush era, man. So he's been floating in on that Bush era, the Bush era of Republicans that have been running Texas for a while now. And it seems like maybe they're losing their grip. All right, last two reasons why National Dems fell in love with Tel RICO, and they're related. Number five, he is an almost perfectly designed figure for resistance 2.0, and then he can do battle on Fox News. Got to be able to do that.

And number six, and maybe more importantly, he can go on Joe Rogan show. Yeah. And in the attention economy more general. Yeah. Yeah. Rogan was sort of impressed with him, right? Like when he went on to Rogan and Rogan, you know, sees. seemed to have been not move as maybe a strong word, but he seemed like he had been convinced.

Like he, you know. Wait, just to be clear, he said Tala Rico should run for president. Yeah. So I would say moved is a fair word. Okay. Yeah, moved as a fair word. There you go. I just, because it's inconsistent with the things that Rogan said.

Like, Rogan, whoever is in front of him is the most, you know, the most influential person that in that moment. Okay. It takes something to go on there and be able to hold your own for a couple of. That's the thing. Yeah, man. And we can appreciate that. And yeah, I think those are two important things right now.

It's not just that you are impressed Rogan and his followers, but it sends a signal out to the other people that are maybe reluctant about what the bona fides are. Like, is this person going to be a strong candidate? And it shows it's like a test case. It's like, okay, like he can go convince people that are likely to be skeptical of him. So, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. elsewhere in that world he has 2.2 million Instagram followers. Tala Rico's done Mamdani style videos at the Texas State Fair,

escorted Spanish language influencers. He has also left a lot of sound out there that will be appearing in Republican attack ads and in some cases already has. You saw the thing where he was going, his campaign was swearing off meat, which is Texas attack ad possible. That's tough. That's tough. Yeah. Another instance, he said God is non-binary. He later said he was just trying to make a point that God is beyond gender. He talked about there being six biological sexes. I only say this stuff because Chris Lissivita, who we know from not only Donald Trump's 2024 campaign, but the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth episode of American politics, he's working for the Super PAC that is supporting John Cornyn. So you will see this stuff. You know, you remember the

They love finding the videos. Like, oh, that guy, look at that stuff that he says. This will soon be appearing in attack ads in Texas in some form. We'll see. I mean, assuming Cornyn makes it to the next round, right? You know, he's got, he's not favored. That's true. He's a two seed.

He's a three seed coming out of the Republican primary. And look, man, I know Tim Miller also kind of talked about this on Twitter, and we kind of had a little back and forth about it about like, oh, these clips. or whatever, is this regular? What? Why does this matter? Like, I just don't, like, I understand that people may feel, oh, the meat thing, or he's talking wokeness and the six genders or whatever.

Bro, look at the state of the world, you know? And I think that if you're the kind of voter that is inclined to be turned off by that, and that drives you into the arms of Ken Paxton, then you were never going to avoid, you were never going to vote for Jimmy Talleyco. Right? Like, is that like, just, because are you, are you a smart person? Can you tell the difference between good things and bad things? if like you're really caught up in the air over some of the things that he said. So yeah, I don't.

I know that the Republicans are going to try to make this an issue and that James Talrico is going to have to defend himself. And I hope he comes on with this at some point so we can ask him about that, like, you know, how he prepares to defend himself against, you know, your two woke attacks.

But I just, I just can't see that. That does it, again, I'm not the person for whom those ads are for so I can't say, I don't know how they resonate with those people, but I, again, do you want, would you like FEMA to work again, you know, as we go into hurricane season? Would you like the power grid to work in Texas? Would you like the power grid to hold up? Would you like TSA to be functional so that people can get through the airport?

Houston Bush, yeah, right, Houston Bush to get to your plane? Absolutely. Yeah, would you like that stuff? Okay, well, then let's see. Part three, how did it get so bad for Democrats of Texas? So to get a little bit of a sense of what James Talley goes up against, you need to understand a little history. As I mentioned, you and I grew up in a time when Democrats walked the earth in Texas. And as we got into high school, Texas was completing a political realignment where it was going from a state that had been dominated by Democrats to a state that was dominated by Republicans.

This is the same realignment that was going on across the American South. In Texas, this alignment was completed on November 3rd, 1998. when James Tala rica was nine years old. I remember this date because I was at UT. I was interning for a U.S. congressman named Lloyd Doggett. Oh, the legend Lloyd Doggett. Yeah, I don't remember Lloyd Doggett. Has there ever been a more perfect name for a Texas Democratic congressman than Lloyd Doggett?

Great name. Yeah, absolutely. Still in the House. That year, then-Governor George W. Bush was running for re-election. He was a very popular governor, and he was also trying to run up the score in his reelection campaign because he was going to run for president the following year. Now, the stats from that night in 1998 pretty staggering. George Bush wound up winning re-election by 37 points, 68 to 31. And in that victory, he dragged the entire Republican Party statewide ticket to victory with him, including the aforementioned.

John Cornyn. Now, I remember that night because I had a bunch of friends that were working in Democratic politics that were working on state campaigns. There were various victory parties, watch parties scheduled across Austin. For a long time, I thought it was one, but I was talking to somebody the other day. They told me they were actually different parties, but these were the saddest parties in the history of Democratic politics. Oh my God, I can only imagine, yeah. Because it was over. And just to give you a sense of how complete this was, you mentioned the Railroad Commission. Texas elects so many statewide officials. The equivalent of the entire governor's cabinet is elected. In Texas, you actually have to run. The Agricultural Commission,

the Comptroller, the members of the Railroad Commission. A decade before that night, the Austin American statesman noted, Democrats had controlled those statewide offices by a margin of 26 to 3. After 1998, Republicans won all of those offices. And in the year since, my friend, Democrats have won statewide elections in such liberal hotbeds as Alabama, Mississippi, Wyoming, West Virginia, Alaska. They haven't won a statewide election in Texas of any kind. Zero.

Crazy. I emphasize. James Salarica was nine years old when all it's happened. Yeah. I mean, the thing is that, you know, because I mentioned that the earth. urban centers in Texas are blue, the suburbs purple, the rural parts red, right? And so it's always, the thing is that you've always got to sort of overperform in Texas

in the urban areas. And like, those are the areas where voting is going to be most fraught, right? Like, those are probably going to be your least reliable viewers. And it's like one of those things also where they think the demographics, I mean, demographics is destiny. There was this assumption, especially when we were growing up, that like the Latinos, as their population grew in Texas, that they were naturally going to gravitate towards Democrats.

And you can read any political analysis of the last decade. That's just not been what happened. Like, they're a little bit more up for grabs group of voters than you think. And so, yeah, man, it's just been really, really tough. And, you know, I also should say here, I have a good friend who lives in San Antonio now, Adam Serwer, the great Adam Serwer, who works for the Atlantic, who coined the phrase, the cruelty is the point. And he talks about the fact that Texas is not necessarily

a Republican state. It's a non-voting state that there's just a lot of people that don't vote for whatever reason, that you've got, you know, people that never register. Also, Texas, and if you look up the Brennan Center for voting on this, you can, you know, the Brennan Center for Justice and their voting tab. Texas has some of the more onerous laws in the, country, they make it much more difficult to vote. Like, people will say, oh, you know, why can't, why isn't it, why can't you just do this? You should read some of the things that it, the difficulty it takes for people to vote. Also, money. Like, if you don't have the necessary ID, you might have to spend, you know, extra couple hundred dollars to do everything that you need to do to do it. And in a state

with the poverty rate of Texas, it's just not that simple. So yeah, it's a lot of things have come together. But that's one of the things right there is that, yeah, man, like the Democrats fell out of favor, and then once Republicans got control of the government, they started making it more difficult to vote. And so, yeah, here we are. Let's finish up by doing some

play-by-play of the U.S. Senate race so far. Okay. So last May, and I read this in the New Yorker profile of Tala Rico, there was a Zoom call with all the Democrats who might be interested in running this year.

statewide. This sounds like something out of a movie, but it really happened. That O'Rourke was on the Zoom call. Colin Allred was on the Zoom call, Representative Joaquin Castro and Tala Rico. Tala Rico was the least accomplished of any of those people. According to the New Yorker, the consensus was that people on the call wanted Tala Rico to run for governor, which was a much harder race against Greg Abbott, another Republican who's been in office in Texas forever. That's sort of a sacrifice.

Like that's the sacrificial lamb. You run against Abbott, whip up a lot of attention, keep it relatively close and that will help us up and down the ballot. Tolariko told those other Democratic candidates, no, no, no, I'm right for Senate because I don't have a reputation like you guys do. you told the New Yorker they were all retreads, which I said lovingly. I mean, to be in politics, man, you got to have an ego and you got to have, you know, you got to have a finishing move, you know, you got to be tough.

And so, yeah, that's, I mean, it may have not been exactly what the Texas Democrats want it, but you can, in some ways it's admirable to me that he was just like, no, I'm not going to what the fuck are you guys talking about. I know what I know what's going to work here. James Salarico and Colin Allred both wound up running for Senate. And then in December, Representative Jasmine Crockett, who's from Dallas, also got into the race. Jasmine Crockett, another Democratic star, another master of the attention economy. At that point, Colin Allred got out, making it a Tala Rico versus Crockett matchup.

Yeah. Now, there were two incidents that are worth us talking about here. February 2nd, what we might call the influencer incident, Joel. Yeah. An influencer said that Tala RICO off the record had called Colin Allred a, quote, mediocre black man. After that happened, after that allegation was made, we should know that Talarico denied that. Al Red posted a video in which he called Tala Rico a hater. He said Tala RICO had taken off the mask.

And then Colin Alred said this. Second of all, did you ever have a coach or somebody, you know, a leader in your life tell you that when you make an accusation, you often have a bit of confession in it. Maybe you use the word mediocre because there was something creeping into your mind about yourself. Because I know you're not talking about somebody who's been better at three things than you've ever been at one.

You are not saving religion for the Democratic Party or the left. We already had Senator, Reverend, Dr. Raphael Warnock for that. We don't need you. You're not saying anything unique. You're just saying it looking like you do. You know, I've actually, I should say, so a couple years ago, I was at the Texas Tribune Fest, and I sat on a panel with Colin Allred.

And that is some of the most fire I've heard from him. And I think the thing that people were a little frustrated with him about when he ran against Ted Cruz the last time is that he kind of didn't campaign, kind of didn't come out, you know, and go at him in the way that people expected. and look, it would have been nice if he had shown that sort of fight against Ted Cruz as opposed to James Tala Rico. But that's just not what happened. And so, look, I don't want to excuse Representative Tala Rico if that's what he said. He says he didn't say it and that it got confused.

But look, man, I don't care. I had to be honest. I mean, I don't think, it doesn't matter whether that I think he's racist than that, but I also don't think that he meant to call him mediocre like he was a mediocre person. I would assume that this was about he was a mediocre candidate. And if you sort of look at the race and how it was run and the campaign that he ran, I mean, I kind of, I don't think anybody was clamoring for a rerun of Colin Allred at that. level, bro. You know what I mean? So it is what it is. That was February 2nd. Two weeks later,

February 16th, we had the Stephen Colbert incident. CBS lawyers, for reasons we have talked about on this podcast many times, we're hearing footsteps from federal regulators. So when Colbert signed up to interview Tala Rico, they say, he can't put that interview on television. You're just going to have to put it on YouTube. Now, per a New York Times story from J. David Goodman, Shane Goldmacher, and Reed Epstein, Tala Rico knew before he flew to New York that his interview with Colbert was not going to get on television. He could have backed out at that point, been well within his rights. Colbert wouldn't have cared.

But Tala Rico did get on the point. He did do the interview with Colbert. Colbert complained about CBS on the air. and then the YouTube video of the interview got 9.2 million views, which is a massive, massive gift to the Talarico campaign just as early voting was getting started in Texas. I remember when this happened, and I have to be honest, I wasn't nearly as cynical about this as you and other people were,

about how much of a gift it was for him. But in retrospect, it definitely could have made a huge difference, man. You know, like he, like, Tala Rico is so, not dangerous, but, you know, this is, it, it elevated him in a way that Jasmine Crockett simply could not have met to the kind of people the Tala Rico was reaching out to, right? They take that sort of stuff very seriously, the Colbert, you know, Colbert viewers or whatever. So I can totally see how people could have thought, hmm, they sort of coordinated this to help. his campaign at a time when the polling was all over the place. And we saw plenty of polling that showed that, I mean, it wasn't uncommon to see a poll where Jazz McCrocket was leading Oh, yeah. Right. Right. Right. Now, I was a little uncertain. And again, polling in a primary

is kind of difficult, but it didn't seem, it wasn't a surprise. And so when this happened, I can, I can, and it broke through in a way in a time when it's hard for any one thing to break through the news cycle. So, yeah. Yeah, I could absolutely see him using this to the best possible effect. And when you join that with the fact that Crockett's campaign didn't have much infrastructure, that she did not court the Latino vote nearly as well as Tala Rico did, it all winds up in Tala RICO winning the primary by more than six points. I mean, look, man, you know, I think it's, I hope that the Democrats can rebuild

after this and that they can get it together because I think it's important for Texas to have a competitive Democratic Party in the state. I don't think that Texas needs to, everybody needs to be a Democrat, but I think it's important for the state to have like a competitive Democratic Party. But I can understand.

I know there's a lot of hurt feelings, and there's going to be a lot of stories probably written about it. It's about how Representative Crockett ran our campaign and how things went down and how she dealt with the press or whatever. but I just, you know, we really seem to be on a really scary trajectory of this country, you know, and Texas, like the idea that Texas might be in play, right, which it seemed unthinkable,

like, you know, about a decade ago, and now here we are again, and you just like, you'd hate to see them squander it because they can't get it together. And so the one, the questions I have is Tilar Rico are going to reach back out to? the Crockett voters. Like, is that, is that going to be a successful play? And also, like, is it going to hold up? We've, man, Brian, how many times have we gotten our hopes up over the last few years? There's been, there been so many Texas hopes. I mean, it's like people know Beto, but there was Beto 2.0. Yeah. It was Colin all red. Tony Sanchez, remember going back that far? Wendy Davis. Wendy Davis. Windy Davis. Windy, Fort Worth? Fort Worth. Fort Worth.

Yeah, Fort Worth's very own. Yeah, Fort Worth's very own. So, yeah, man, there's been lot of people who seem like they may have had the, you know, they may have had the map, the glow. Did you ever watch The Last Dragon, Brian? It's been a long time. It's been a long time. Time Act. Vanity. You remember vanity? Like the actress a little bit. Okay. Anyway, with a glow, right? A lot of people had to have a glow. And it just came up short. And so, like, Tilar Rico's the next guy. If he loses, I just, I don't, that is going to, it's going to be really difficult for Democrats to sort of build this sort of enthusiasm again. Like, again, you know, I'm sure it'll pop back up again, but losing this race will be really,

really calamitous. Let's finish by going through reasons for pessimism. Okay. And reasons for optimism. Okay. Like a lot of this gets viewed through the MS now, plucky superhero lens, and it's worth drilling down on a few of these things. First, reasons for pessimism will lead with the bad stuff.

Texas is big. Texas is expensive. We've got 20 media markets in Texas. This is not going to be a cheap race to run. The numbers are really bad for Democrats running in Texas. Donald Trump beat Kamala Harris two years ago in Texas by almost 14 points. So as somebody explained it to me, let's say there's a blue wave coming in November, which it seems like there's going to be.

Tala Rico has to ride that wave, and then he has to create an extra wave on top of that. And you say, where does that extra wave come from? So, yeah, theories of the case. Are you converting Trump voters into Tala RICO voters? Are you bringing to the polls those people who don't vote very much? Like, what's the theory of the case for Democrats? That's another case for pessimism. The state Democratic Party in Texas has been enormously weak in recent decades.

Yeah. It's part of the reason you got this thing called Texas Majority Pack, which is funded by George Soros, sort of operating as a shadow state party in Texas. Right. And when you think about this pessimism, this is the reason why, if you talk to national Democrats,

James Tala Rico is lower on the lists of things that could happen than then picking up a Senate seat in North Carolina, or Ohio, or Maine, or even Alaska, for the above reason. Yeah. You want to do cases for optimism? Okay, yeah. Beto got within 2.5 points of winning in 2018.

2.5 points. Not bad. Not bad. You know, Patrick Svitech, one of the go-to reporters for Texas politics, worked at the Washington Post, worked at the Texas Tribune. I asked him, what's the difference between Tolariko 2026 and Beto 2018? James Tala Rico in this current campaign seems perhaps more willing to listen to professional political advice. One of the great push and pulls of Better Works campaign in 2018 was trying to kind of keep it reflective of the candidate and his impulses and his quirks and his personality while also rejecting the advice of what they saw as kind of the consultant class in D.C.

you know, the Tala Rico campaign, I think, seems to try to kind of strike more of a balance. So you got the movement in Texas. You know, I'm the campaign. The campaign is about me. But I'm also listening to those guys, including one, you know, consultant who worked for Pete Buttigieg, right? Like, we're getting some advice. We're taking some advice. Another interesting number, by the way, if we're talking about times Democrats got close.

Joe Biden got within 5.5 points of Donald Trump in Texas in 2020. it. People sort of forget that result as well. That's right. That's right. Another case for optimism, you saw that Tarrant County special election last month where a Democrat flipped a Trump plus 17 district. You have the fact that Donald Trump has not endorsed one of the two Republican candidates in Texas who are now going to a runoff, Paxton or John Cornyn, the longer that goes on, the better it is for Tala Rico. It's really interesting to me that Trump just couldn't swallow it and endorse Cornyn because

I think he knows, or the people around them have to know that Cornyn would be the stronger general election candidate, but he just can't help himself, man. Because, I mean, there are people that are definitely going to go out and vote for Kent Paxton. And if he wins the runoff, he's going to be a strong candidate. But he's got such glaring weaknesses, man. Like, you can just go read up on Ken Paxton who got impeached by other Republicans in the Texas State House.

And James DeLarico, by the way, voted for that. voted for that yeah man i mean i just tell you which sort of a figure he is like how controversy of a figure he is and so that trump could not help himself and put his thumb on the record that's how much he hates bush-era republicans that he could he could not come to do it and so yeah so he's he's created an opening where there probably wouldn't have had to have been one some reading if you want to do further reading here adam wrens profile from 23 about James Talleyco is called. He's deeply religious and a Democrat.

He might be the next big thing in Texas politics. I really enjoyed reading a Tad friend, as I always do in the New Yorker. James Talleyco puts his faith in Texas voters is the name of his piece. If you want to read an interesting column about Tullerico's faith, too, read David French in the New York Times. James Tallerico is a Christian X-ray. Some really interesting thoughts in there. All right, Joel, that's the March issue of the press.

That's a much issue, man. I mean, got boots on? I do. Want to see him? Yeah, pull up. Let me see. Pull up. Yeah.

Oh, man. All right, man. What do you got your long wallet too? You're about to go out and grove today or something? Okay. I'm going to go do a two-step. Yeah, there you go. Okay.

Did you go to Billy Bobbs? No, I did not go to Billy Bobbs. I've been to Billy Bob's, but when I was living forward, I was a boy of Bob's guy. I wasn't right in the mechanic. Bannical bowler. Okay. Yeah.

You know. Is Billet bucks still there? I was, it's still there. I was, I was neither mistaken for Brooks nor done. Well, you know, Billy Bobbs, man, when I was in college, I was like also a big hangout spot for everybody when I was in school. I did not go because I was lame. I got to admit.

But maybe we need to go back, man. Maybe we need to get back in Fort Worth. Joe T. Garcia. You know what I'm saying? And we do Billy Bob's in the whole. I wear my Tony llamas. We'll get it done. Let's do it. He is Joel Anderson.

I'm Brian Curtis. Relaxing Magic. By Isaiah Blakely and Bruce Baldwin. If you're listening to this edition of the press box, I'm on spring break, but Joel Anderson, the Texan on the other end of this Zoom call has something special for you in store on Thursday.

Joel's coming up Thursday. I'm back next week with more lukewarm takes about the media. See you then, Joel. See you in, buddy.