President Donald Trump’s super PAC, MAGA Inc., has launched an advertising campaign targeting Democratic Texas Senate candidate James Talarico, calling him “weird” while criticizing some of his comments about Christianity.
The 30-second video campaign ad begins with a narrator saying, “James Talarico is weird”—a possible nod to Democrats hitting Trump and Vice President JD Vance with the term “weird” during the 2024 campaign.
The video then cuts to snippets of Talarico comments, including him saying, “There are many more than two biological sexes, in fact, there are six,” Jesus Christ is a “radical feminist,” God is “nonbinary,” and “I always think of myself as a Christian who hates Christianity.”
“Liberal weirdo James Talarico, too loco for Texas,” the narrator says at the end of the ad.
Newsweek has contacted Talarico’s campaign, his Republican opponent Ken Paxton’s campaign and MAGA Inc., via email, for comment.
Talarico, a former Presbyterian seminarian and middle school teacher, has made his Christian faith a central part of his campaign. He has often cited his Baptist-preacher grandfather and quoted the commandment “love thy neighbor” in speeches and statements.
Talarico’s Comments in Context
‘Six Biological Sexes’
Talarico made this comment during a 2021 legislative hearing, while questioning Republican Representative Cole Hefner about proposed gender restrictions in school sports.
Hefner had said that there were two biological sexes, which Talarico pushed back on.
The Democratic state representative said, “Modern science obviously recognizes that there are many more than two biological sexes. In fact, there are six."
He went on to list chromosome combinations (XX, XY, X, XXY, XYY and XXXY) and people “with sex characteristics that intersect into that.”
“I think the point is that, biologically speaking, scientifically speaking, sex is a spectrum,” he said according to footage from the hearing.
Talarico walked back these comments during a Fox News interview earlier this month, saying that he "missed the mark" and does not believe there are six biological sexes.
“I’ve missed the mark on some of my past statements. I will be the first to admit it,” he said. “What I meant is that there are two sexes, and then there’s a small percentage of people with genetic abnormalities. I obviously didn’t say it correctly. There are not six sexes, there are two.”
‘Jesus is a Radical Feminist’
Talarico said Jesus Christ was a “radical feminist” during a sermon at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in October 2022 while he was talking about abortion.
He said at the time, “Thankfully, feminist, womanist theologians are helping us remember Christianity’s feminist tradition—a tradition that has been obscured and hidden by generations of men.”
“Did they teach you in Sunday school that men and women are created equally in the Book of Genesis? Did they teach you in Sunday school that the Bible sometimes describes God as a female, calling her Sophia? Did they teach you in Sunday school that Jesus Christ himself was a radical feminist?”
He went on to say he does not “claim to know what Jesus thought about abortion” because “he never mentions it,” but added, “What I do know is that Jesus believed a woman is a full person, and that’s the definition of a feminist.”
‘God is Nonbinary’
Talarico also referred to God as “nonbinary” in October 2021 when speaking against proposed gender restrictions in school sports.
“I listened to 15 hours of testimony on this bill. The worst part, for me, was the number of Christians who used scripture to justify hurting children,” he said during his floor remarks.
Talarico continued, “The first two lines of the Bible, the first two lines in Genesis, use two different Hebrew words to describe God. One is the masculine Hebrew noun for divinity. The second is the feminine Hebrew noun for spirit. God is both masculine and feminine and everything in between. God is nonbinary. In Genesis 1:26, God speaks of God’s self in the plural, saying, ‘Let us make human beings in our image to be like us.’ That’s the infinite multitude of God. The masculine, the feminine and everything in between.”
He also addressed these comments with Fox News, saying, “I was being provocative with that statement. I get that.”
“What I was trying to say is that you can’t use human categories to define God. And that’s not controversial, theologically. In fact, the late Charlie Kirk, the late Pope Benedict all said the same thing.”
‘A Christian who hates Christianity’
Talarico called himself a “Christian who hates Christianity” during an appearance on the podcast Activist Theology in 2021.
He said that he “always gets drawn back” into Christianity because “nowhere else, in no other political philosophy, in no other economic theory, do I find anything as truly radical or revolutionary as the teachings of that barefoot rabbi.”
This came after he and the podcast hosts had spoken about Christians who, Talarico said, use their religion to justify bigotry.
Talarico’s office later issued a statement walking back the remarks.
”The Christian seminarian who's dedicated his life to the teachings of Jesus Christ obviously doesn't hate Christianity.”
“James is a devout Christian who fights religious and political corruption when he sees it—because there's nothing Christ-like about powerful people twisting the teachings of Jesus to justify hate, violence, and greed,” they told the fact-checking website Snopes.
“While billionaire-bought politicians like Ken Paxton attack James for his faith—he will continue encouraging Texans across the political spectrum to come together by loving their neighbors as themselves.”
Where the Texas Senate Race Stands
The MAGA Inc. ad comes as Paxton lags slightly behind candidate Talarico in several polls.
The longtime ruby red state has not elected a Democratic senator since 1988, but Republican spending suggests they see the race there as competitive. Texas PAC, a Republican group affiliated with the Senate Leadership Fund, the principal GOP super PAC involved in Senate elections, is spending around $7.7 million per day to back Paxton, Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings reviewed by Newsweek show.
Democrats have long hoped to turn the Lone Star State purple, but numerous upstart challenges have fallen short. The state could play a key role in who holds control of the Senate after the midterms, with Democrats needing to flip four Republican held seats to take a majority.
Cook Political Report and Sabato's Crystal Ball both rate the race as a toss up.
What the Texas Polls Show
The RealClearPolitics average for surveys conducted between September 8 and September 26 placed Talarico at 47.6 percent and Paxton at 44.7 percent, a 2.9-point Democratic advantage.
The recent surveys show a tight race:
- Texas Public Opinion Research surveyed 1,007 likely voters from September 19 to September 22. Talarico led 49 percent to 44 percent, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.
- Marist surveyed 1,139 registered voters from September 17 to September 20. Talarico led 50 percent to 44 percent, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.
- Texas Southern University and YouGov surveyed 1,800 likely voters from September 15 to September 19. Talarico led 47 percent to 46 percent, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.3 percentage points.
- Trafalgar Group surveyed 1,079 likely voters from September 15 to September 17. Talarico led 46 percent to 45 percent, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.
- Emerson College surveyed 1,000 likely voters from September 12 to September 14. Talarico led 47 percent to 46 percent, with a 3-percentage point margin of error.
Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Matthew Cannon and Geoffrey Rowland.