Talarico's 'Trust me, I'm lying' reversals on transgender issues will sink his Texas Senate campaign, as they did Bredesen's in 2018
Source: https://www.facebook.com/americanspectator/. "James Talarico’s Political Reversals Stir Trouble in Texas Senate Race | The American Spectator | USA News and Politics." October 12, 2026. spectator.org
The Gist
The author says Talarico is pretending to hold moderate views on transgender issues that contradict his voting record. He argues this will anger his base and fail to persuade moderates. He compares it to a 2018 Tennessee Senate race that collapsed in the same way and predicts Talarico will lose to Paxton.
Conclusion
James Talarico's reversals on transgender issues will alienate both his progressive base and moderate voters, and he will likely lose the Texas Senate race to Paxton by a wide margin, as Phil Bredesen did in Tennessee in 2018.
Premises
- Talarico has recently disavowed earlier positions on gender surgeries for minors, trans athletes in women's sports, and the number of genders, in order to appear mainstream.
- His legislative record contradicts these new claims: he voted against the 2023 ban on gender surgeries and puberty blockers for minors and against the 2021 law requiring athletes to compete by birth-certificate sex.
- Moderates will see the shift as pandering dishonesty, while activists and supporters will see it as betrayal. Trans advocates, voters and even a pastor at his church have expressed anger or said he will revert once elected.
- Talarico needs very high turnout among Democrats, including Black voters, plus many Republican crossover voters. The author claims Black Texans are not on board and that few Trump 2024 voters will back him.
- In 2018 Phil Bredesen used the same tactic in Tennessee when he declared support for Kavanaugh. Volunteers abandoned his campaign, and he lost to Blackburn 55 to 44 despite polls showing a close race.
- The Bredesen and Talarico situations closely parallel each other.
Assumptions
- Talarico's new statements are insincere, deliberate deception rather than a genuine change of mind.
- Voters will perceive the reversals as dishonest and will not reward them as moderation.
- Disaffected activists will withhold votes or volunteer effort in numbers large enough to matter.
- The Bredesen 2018 outcome was caused chiefly by the Kavanaugh flip, not by the Tennessee electorate's partisan lean or Blackburn's strengths.
- Polls showing Talarico ahead are biased toward Democrats and unreliable.
- Black voters' views on trans issues and the primary outcome will depress their turnout for Talarico.