James Talarico made history Tuesday, becoming the first Democrat elected to the US Senate from Texas since 1988 by upsetting state Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Paxton, 63, had unseated 24-year incumbent John Cornyn in a May primary runoff, but a history of scandals and controversy proved too much for him to overcome in the eyes of the Lone Star State’s electorate.
Talarico was ahead of Paxton, TK% to TK%, when the race was called by the Associated Press at X:XX p.m. EST with XX% of the expected vote in.
Tuesday’s election brought an end to a brutal campaign which saw more than half a billion dollars spent on advertising and other forms of support, shattering all records.
Nearly $200 million came from tech mogul Elon Musk, whose SpaceX facilities are headquartered near the border city of Brownsville, Texas and who urged his social media followers to back Paxton.
The world’s richest man had suggested last year that he was finished with spending in political campaigns following Trump’s re-election to a second non-consecutive term in 2024.
Talarico, who won a bitter Democratic primary over Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) in March, attacked Paxton over his 2023 impeachment by the Texas House of Representatives as well his divorce from his state senator wife of 38 years following purported infidelity.
Angela Paxton later released a video encouraging voters to support Republicans to protect the future of Texas — without saying her estranged husband’s name.
Talarico had also accused the Republican attorney general of being funded by large corporations and billionaires — despite the Democrat also taking money from billionaires while supporting progressive initiatives like a wealth tax.
Meanwhile, Paxton’s campaign had insisted Talarico was too radical to represent Texas, highlighting past comments in which he claimed “God is nonbinary” and that there are “six genders.”
Republicans also noted that Talarico had pushed a vegan lifestyle despite campainging in one of America’s barbeque hotbeds.
“He ran a campaign to beat meat. He called it beat meat,” President Trump joked during Republicans’ midterm convention in Dallas this past September. “I don’t know what the hell he meant by that.”
Trump, Paxton and other Republicans have dubbed the state rep “Talafreako” and and “Tofu Talarico” throughout the cycle, while attacking the Democrat for associating with “defund the police” activists and calling capitalism “oppressive.”
