A young, progressive, relatively unknown member of the state legislature runs for U.S. Senate, attempting to flip a seat held by a Republican. He wins the Democratic primary with 53% of the vote, including delivering strong margins in counties where Democrats had previously struggled. His message is one of unity and reaching out to voters who normally vote Republican. The primary that he won was record-breaking in terms of total spending.
To my younger, less-politically-inclined readers, it may sound like I was describing the events of the Democratic primary in Texas last Tuesday. Some of my older readers, however, may have realized that I was talking about a different race entirely: Barack Obama’s 2004 Senate campaign. Of course, we all know the end of this story: Obama, in the middle of an election cycle dominated by discussion of war in the Middle East and rising oil prices caused by an unpopular Republican president, wins his Senate race in a landslide. Four years later, he won the presidential election, promising to fix our broken healthcare system and fix the economic disaster left by the previous administration.
It doesn’t take a political genius to see the similarities between Obama and Texas State Rep. James Talarico. Talarico won the Democratic primary, meaning that he will face off against either incumbent Sen. John Cornyn or Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (because no candidate in the Republican primary received more than 50% of the vote, the top two candidates advance to a runoff election in May). Talarico focused his campaign largely on what people in politics call “80-20 issues,” or issues where at least 80% of the public actually agrees. These are becoming increasingly rare in politics, but Talarico managed to find several. These include a congressional stock trading ban, securing the border while protecting the people already in this country, and protecting Medicare and Medicaid.
Democrats have been attempting to flip Texas for years with little success. For this to finally be the year where it happens, they need a perfect storm. They might just have one. Both Paxton and Cornyn are deeply flawed candidates: Cornyn voted against ending the Iran war and cannot energize the Republican base, while Paxton was impeached by the Republican-controlled state house for bribery accusations and is seen as too extreme for many moderate voters. The economy is doing extremely poorly under a Republican administration, and the president, whose approval ratings are the worst ever, has called affordability a “Democrat hoax.” The Senate map this cycle is pretty terrible for Democrats, meaning that flipping seats in ruby red states is not a want but a need if they want to retake the chamber, meaning that the party will spend more in states like Texas than ever before. And Talarico, whose focus on 80-20 issues and ability to talk openly about his faith appeals to people who aren’t normally Democratic voters, provides the perfect candidate for a Democratic party struggling with its own image problems.
All of this points to James Talarico being the man who can finally turn Texas blue. However, if he’s successful at that (admittedly difficult) task, we should expect more from him than simply being a Senator. As you may have guessed from my Barack Obama comparison at the start of this article, I expect James Talarico to run for president in 2028.
For a party that is questioning its identity after a second devastating loss to Donald Trump, Talarico provides an answer. His focus on 80-20 issues gives him the unique ability to build the kind of big-tent coalition that Kamala Harris failed to create. His message of unity is similar to Obama’s from 20 years ago, which resulted in the biggest landslide victory of this century. His relative inexperience will actually help him, because he won’t have the history of controversial statements or questionable voting records that seem to plague every politician in Washington. Perhaps his biggest strength, however, is that he brings Democrats something that no other candidate can: Texas and its 40 electoral votes. If Democrats can flip Texas in the electoral college, Republicans have very little chance of winning.
Of course, Talarico is not a perfect candidate. At only 36 years old, he would be 39 after the 2028 election, which would make him the youngest president ever. He also would have only served for two years in the Senate. If he runs for president, he will spend about a year and a half of that time campaigning, leaving him with very little actual experience governing. However, that can be solved with an experienced choice for vice president—someone like Sen. Chris Murphy or Gov. Josh Shapiro would fit that role nicely. Remember, Obama didn’t have much experience either, so he chose Joe Biden as his running mate, who had served in the Senate for 36 years. His inexperience does not change the fact that he should be the frontrunner for the 2028 election—if he can win in November.
