The fresh wave of ads against James Talarico that just might be the end of his campaign

By Easton Martin | September 9, 2026

A wave of new attack ads is saturating Texas airwaves as the high-stakes general election battle between Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton and Democratic state Representative James Talarico intensifies.

Conservative groups and Paxton’s campaign launched the multimillion-dollar campaign to put Talarico’s controversial past theological and cultural statements at the center of the campaign. The commercials target remarks Talarico made during a 2021 Texas House legislative debate on transgender participation in school sports.

The spots prominently feature video footage of Talarico, a former Presbyterian seminarian, stating from the House floor that “God is nonbinary” and asserting that “modern science obviously recognizes that there are many more than two biological sexes, in fact, there are six”. The advertisements reveal Talarico to be an ideological radical out of step with traditional Texas values, labeling him out-of-touch on gender and faith.

Paxton’s campaign seized on the footage directly, using the slogans across digital platforms and broadcast television to define his opponent early in the fall push. Paxton has frequently mocked the remarks on the stump, arguing that voters cannot trust a candidate who holds unconventional views on basic biology and Scripture.