In one of the most closely watched and expensive races in American political history, Democratic candidate James Talarico yesterday defeated Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, a close ally of Donald Trump, by a margin of more than one million votes.
For the first time since 1988, a Democrat has won a Texas Senate seat. This historic victory is part of a national wave, but it carries a peculiarity: it marks, more than anywhere else, a defeat for Elon Musk, who had invested roughly $200 million in this race.
It also marks the launch of a potential presidential career for one of the most astonishing figures of this cycle, to whom we had dedicated, as early as March, a full profile of his doctrine.
A former teacher and Presbyterian seminarian, James Talarico embodies perfectly the “strategy of heterodoxy” advocated by the report Deciding to win: promoting a populist critique of institutions and AI, a pragmatic centrist stance on borders or fossil fuels, he makes the Bible the heart of a new religiously infused progressivism that no longer pits the left against the right but “those on top” against “those at the bottom.”
This discourse, entirely built around a series of biblical references—from David against Goliath to merchants driven from the Temple—was delivered behind a lectern where the motto “Love thy neighbor” serves as the narrative frame to proclaim a new political style, which he now intends to test in the Senate, where he promises, like the “barefoot rabbi,” to “turn over the tables.”
We have just reclaimed Texas. We have shown that all the money in the world does not weigh against the will of the Texan people. We have demonstrated that a politics of division cannot prevail over a politics of love. And we have sent a message to all mega-donor billionaires, to all mega-donor multi-billionaires, to all the corrupt defenders of this failing political system, in this state, in this country: power belongs to the people.
That reminds me of a story drawn from the Scriptures, that of a young shepherd facing a giant. For forty days, Goliath taunts and challenges him. On the day of the fight, he appears in full armor, bearing so many weapons that he needs someone else to carry his shield. In this campaign, we confronted our own Goliaths: the richest man in the world, the most powerful man in the world, and the entire Washington, D.C. establishment.
David… David was not as tall or as strong as Goliath, he did not have as many weapons. But he had hope, he had faith. And he had a sling. My sling was you. My sling was the Texan people. And tonight, we have defeated Goliath.
Scriptures have taught me – my own life has taught me – that one should always back the outsider. Before entering politics, I was a teacher in a public school. I taught English at Rhodes College, on San Antonio’s West Side. And as I always say, teaching at a college is the best preparation for politics.
The West Side is a beautiful and historic neighborhood. It is also one of the poorest areas in all of Texas. Each day, my students fought valiantly to overcome a rigged system. My students were not merely children; they were survivors, dreamers, fighters. I saw that determination in their eyes every day—the unshakable resolve, the indomitable spirit.
As I grew up, I saw that same fight in my mother, a pastor’s daughter from Laredo who left home at nineteen. She moved to Austin and met my biological father, a twenty-one-year-old who had dropped out of high school and whose struggles with alcohol sometimes led to violence.
One night, he once again turned violent. But that night, my mother’s love stood up to the violence. She loaded all our belongings into her little Ford Escort. She took me to the hotel where she worked. She begged the manager to let us stay in one of the rooms until we found a small apartment in East Austin.
There was no room for a child’s bedroom. So I slept in a crib set up in her closet. And she was so proud of that closet. She had decorated it with photos and toys. No one would tell her that it wasn’t a baby’s room.
Always. Always bet on the outsider. We were the outsiders in this race. We faced nearly forty years of doubt and disappointment. We faced more than $300 million spent against us, more money than any Senate campaign in American history. We faced all the negative ads, campaigns of denigration, foreign bots, and AI-generated deepfakes that money can buy.
These attacks were the last cries of a struggling establishment. The roar of a status quo that knows its days are numbered. They fought dirty because they were desperate. But we never lost hope. We never lost faith. And in the face of all the money spent against us, and against all odds, we reclaimed our power.
Always, always bet on the outsider. We built a movement like this state has never known. We united Texans from all walks of life and all beliefs into a single team to confront this corrupt and failing political system. Voters who had never before voted, voters who had voted three times for Trump, workers from every corner of this state who have had enough and are ready for change.
This victory, this victory is for all outsiders we were told would lose and be left behind. This victory is for every teacher and every nurse and every firefighter, for every farmer and rancher, for every young person trying to buy a home, for every parent trying to feed their family. This victory, this victory belongs to all Texans who ever wondered if anyone was listening. I heard you. We heard you. And tonight, the whole world will hear you.
To the Texans who supported this movement, I am profoundly moved by your trust, and I will work every day to earn it. And to Texans who did not vote for me, I will be your senator too. I will always serve you. I will always fight for you.
This victory has nothing to do with the Democratic Party or the Republican Party. It goes far beyond that. There is something broken in America. Our economic system is failing. Our political system is failing. Even our relationships with one another seem fractured. That is because the most powerful people in the world want it that way.
My grandfather was a Baptist preacher from South Texas. And when I was small, he told me we were disciples of a barefoot rabbi who gave us two commandments: love God and love your neighbor. Because there is no love of God without love for your neighbor.
Every person carries the image of the sacred within. Every person is sacred. Not only the neighbor who looks like me, not only the neighbor who prays as I do, not only the neighbor who votes like me. I am called to love all my neighbors as I love myself. For despite our differences, we all want the same things: a safe neighborhood, a good job, a publicly funded and high-quality school system, and the ability to see a doctor when we need one.
But the billionaires who own the algorithms of social networks, who own the 24-hour news channels, who own the politicians who fight on our screens, they want us to turn against one another. They want us to focus on what divides us rather than what unites us. They want us to look left and right, at one another, instead of lifting our eyes toward them.
The real struggle in this country is not left versus right. It pits those at the top against those at the bottom. Those at the summit work tirelessly to keep us angry and divided because our unity threatens their wealth and power. We saw it in this campaign. We saw it in every smear ad funded by billionaires.
Those at the top divide us by party, by ethnicity, by gender, by religion, by culture, so that we fail to notice that they steal from us, starve our schools of funding, dismantle our health care system, raise taxes on all of us while lowering theirs. It is the oldest trick in the book: divide to rule. But tonight, we have sent a clear message to those at the top: we will not be dominated. We will not be defeated.
I believe I can confidently say that we are tired of being pitted against one another. We are tired of being told to hate. This has been the politics for a decade. Politics as a blood sport. Politics as provocation and humiliation. Politics as a wrestling match. It tears families apart. It ends friendships, and it makes us miserable. People from all sides crave a different kind of politics. Not a politics of hatred, not a politics of fear, not a politics of division, but a politics of love.
My faith teaches me that love is the most powerful force in the universe. Love is not passive. Love is not neutral. Love is not weak. Love requires that we stand between the bullies and their victims. Love requires that we look evil in the eye without flinching. This kind of love has always been a threat to those in power. This kind of love is revolutionary. This kind of love is creative.
Hate is predictable. Hate is dull. Hate cannot reduce our energy bills. Hate cannot build a future. But what hate cannot do, love can. Love can turn a student into a scholar. Love can turn a closet into a baby’s room. Love can turn an enemy into a friend. Love can turn a campaign into a movement. Love can repair what is broken in America.
We cannot defeat the politics of division with more division. On that terrain, we cannot win. We must change the rules. From my experience, when you reach out with an open hand rather than a clenched fist, you are surprised by who takes it.
We did not win this election by alienating our neighbors, by humiliating them, or by ridiculing them. We embodied a new kind of politics, a politics rooted in a deep love for our state, for our country, and, above all, for all our neighbors.
We mobilized our 60,000 volunteers across the state, and together we handed out bottles of water in Sandbranch, a small town south of Dallas that lacks running water. We donated school supplies to an elementary school in El Cenizo, a border town. We collected more than nine tons of food for Fort Worth families struggling with the high cost of living.
Before switching to television or newspapers, the world changes from person to person. Each time we choose to be kind, to love each neighbor, to pray for someone who would not pray for us in return. That is how we won Texas.
It is a victory as large as Texas itself. And now, our mandate is as expansive as the state. This election was about a vision of what this state can become: public Texas schools that the nation admires; a Texas economy without equal; and Texas families stronger and healthier than ever. It won’t happen overnight, but a state this enormous deserves dreams of even greater scale.
And we know how to get there. We must drive money out of politics so that no billionaire or trillionaire can buy our elections. We must undo the rigging of an economic system that only enriches the top 1%. We must adopt universal health coverage so that no one is bankrupted just for getting sick. We must invest in our teachers and students so that every outsider has a fair shot at success.
We must put an end to these endless corrupt wars that drive up prices and claim the lives of brave men and women in our armed forces. And we must heal the deep spiritual corruption at the root of all these crises. We must bridge the gaps that separate us and repair the ties that unite us.
We have forged here, in the Lone Star State, a new kind of politics, a response to this decade of division. We have shown that when workers unite across all fault lines, we can accomplish extraordinary things. We won this election so that those who seek change can see it finally come to be.
The old politics is dying, and a new politics is being born. Thanks to each of us, thanks to every outsider, thanks to every David facing every Goliath, thanks to every Texan who believed in our state and in this movement. The real work begins now.
Two thousand years ago, when those at the top mistreated their neighbors, that barefoot rabbi did not remain in his chamber praying. He went to the heart of power and overturned the tables of injustice. As this movement moves toward the heart of power, as we head toward the United States Senate, we know what this moment demands of us. Texas, it is time to flip the table.