Ken Paxton had barely finished winning the Republican Senate primary Tuesday night before he started ripping his woke Democratic opponent to shreds.
“Tofu Talarico,” Paxton declared in his victory speech. “Six-gender James … James Tala-freak-o … Low-T Talarico.”
The crowd loved every word of it, and Republicans were just getting warmed up.
President Donald Trump has been leading the charge against Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico for weeks, and the attacks are only going to intensify now that Paxton is the official GOP nominee heading into November.
At the heart of the Republican messaging strategy is a simple, Texas-sized question: Is the masked vegetarian “freak” that wants BBQ banned and believes in six different genders who Texans want representing the Lone Star State?
Trump set the tone bluntly, calling Talarico “a FRAUD” on Truth Social and listing his offenses against Texas common sense in rapid fire: “He’s got six Genders, insults to Jesus, only vegan food, was wearing a mask in 2023 and 2024, and is a weak, ineffective guy.”
Take a look at the devastating new commercial that has already started running in Texas –
🚨 NOW: Republicans are running a BRUTAL new ad against James Talarico (D) to elect Paxton, PERFECTLY exposing Talarico as the weirdo leftist he is
– God is "non-binary"
– 6 sexes
– "Non-meat campaign"
– "Reckoning with whiteness" 🤡ELECT KEN PAXTON! 🇺🇸pic.twitter.com/EEXcLnjq7N
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) May 27, 2026
Talarico’s campaign fired back with a photo of him taking a tiny bite out of a turkey leg at the State Fair of Texas as a response to the vegan accusations.
But Talarico’s long record of woke statements gives the GOP considerably more to work with.
In 2021, during a Texas House floor debate over a bill banning biological males from competing in women’s sports, Talarico declared: “Modern science obviously recognizes that there are more than two biological sexes — in fact, there are six.”
In the same speech, he argued that “God is non-binary” and described the deity as “both masculine and feminine and everything in between.”
He also called concerns about biological males in girls’ sports a “far-right conspiracy” in a 2021 interview.
In a 2022 speech, he declared that, “Poverty is violence. Pollution is violence.” He has also has claimed the Bible approves of abortion.
Fox News has compiled much of the opposition research into a growing archive that Republicans plan to deploy heavily between now and November.
Paxton previewed the general election messaging at a rally last week at Midway BBQ in Katy inside a packed suburban Houston barbecue restaurant where waiters shuttled plates of brisket, sausage and ribs to the crowd.
“We know that James Talarico would never come here because he doesn’t eat any of that stuff,” Paxton told the crowd. “We never had a U.S. senator who didn’t eat meat, especially Texas barbecue.”
Democrats haven’t won a Texas Senate seat since 1988. A Talarico victory in November would fundamentally reshape the Senate map and potentially flip the chamber’s balance of power.
Republicans insist that, like Texans giving up their BBQ, it won’t happen.