{"id":1899,"date":"2026-08-04T14:54:47","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T14:54:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/?p=1899"},"modified":"2026-08-04T14:54:47","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T14:54:47","slug":"james-talarico-tours-the-texas-border-as-democrats-try-to-win-senate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/?p=1899","title":{"rendered":"James Talarico Tours the Texas Border as Democrats Try to Win Senate"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"James<\/div>

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\n\tJames Talarico<\/a> is asking me if my hand is OK, and I\u2019m trying to laugh it off. We\u2019re stopped at the site of a collapsed water well in the craggy outskirts of Alpine, Texas<\/a>. Behind us, the red and ochre cliffs of Big Bend National Park glow in the late afternoon sun. Roughly an hour earlier I had \u2014 accidentally, I must stress \u2014 whacked a cactus while walking out of Talarico\u2019s campaign rally in Marfa. This unfortunate encounter with some variant of a prickly pear resulted in a scramble to dig a pair of tweezers out of my carry-on before racing after the campaign\u2019s caravan to Alpine. I made a shoddy effort of removing the several dozen tiny, brittle spines embedded in my knuckles and fingers while bumping along a hilly dirt road to the site of the collapse \u2014 tossing the shards out the window along the way.<\/p>\n

\n\tTalarico, his staff, and the local lawmakers who accompanied us to the well are generally covered from wrist to toes. Long-sleeve shirts \u2014 and in the candidate\u2019s case, a blazer \u2014 jeans, and cowboy boots. The rattlesnakes that call the brush home won\u2019t be biting their ankles, and Talarico\u2019s smile as he inquires about my hand has a glint of \u201cwelcome to Texas\u201d flashing through it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s hot, my hand hurts, but it\u2019s go or get left behind in these parts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter examining the collapsed well, Talarico chats with Mayor Catherine Eaves, a petite former teacher with long brown hair and light, friendly eyes. Eaves was elected mayor of the 6,000-person town at the northern edge of Big Bend in 2022. An Independent, she is now shepherding her constituents through a bit of a crisis. The breakdown of the well, known as Roberts 3, plunged Alpine into Stage 4 drought protocol: no personal irrigation, no car washing, no street cleaning, no fountains, no refilling your pool. I have been here for less than 12 hours and there\u2019s already a layer of fine dust sticking to my skin. With a tiny population and a limited tax base, the town is often dependent on state and federal funds for major infrastructure repairs, and pleas for assistance<\/a> from distant Washington have gone unanswered.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\tInstead, the Trump administration is set to spend almost $2 billion to build a border \u201cwall\u201d that will run across Big Bend, ripping through the national park and cutting off large parts of the region from one of their major sources of tourist income. Alpine \u2014 the seat of Brewster County \u2014 has become the center of local resistance to the plan. The region reports the least amount of apprehensions along the Texas border, as the National Park itself is a natural cathedral of rough terrain, mountains, cliffs, canyons, and wildlife that can make the trek deadly for any unprepared traveler or border crosser.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt makes zero sense,\u201d Eaves tells me as we watch Talarico\u2019s gaggle of staff, in constant orbit around him with shoulder cameras, phones, and vlogging equipment, set up for a quick shoot in the fading dusk. The two had just spent a good half hour discussing the collapsed well and the infrastructure needs of the region. \u201cEverybody in this country should be pissed off. It\u2019s our federal taxes. It\u2019s everybody across the nation \u2014 and we\u2019re handing it to contractors for something we don\u2019t need \u2014 whereas, \u2018Oh, you need drinking water? Figure it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA few days later, as I flip through Instagram, I see Eaves again, in a reel posted by the Talarico campaign. \u201cPeople in this Texas town can\u2019t access water, not because there isn\u2019t enough but because D.C. politicians have left them behind,\u201d Talarico narrates \u2014 over some B-roll of a rattler meandering through the grass. \u201cThis is happening all over Texas. There\u2019s always money for bombs, for bailouts and billionaire tax breaks \u2014 but never enough money to fix basic infrastructure and keep utility bills down.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe situation is emblematic of the alienation millions of Americans feel from their elected officials \u2014 particularly at the federal level. Real problems in need of practical solutions are deprioritized or disregarded in favor of expensive political posturing and culture war cage matches. It\u2019s sending voters into a political wilderness where neither party feels like an answer to their concerns. It\u2019s in this space where Talarico hopes to carve out a foothold among voters \u2014 even if it means breaking with his party.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\t\u201cWe\u2019re trying to do the opposite of fearmongering, the opposite of demonizing, and grandstanding. We\u2019re trying to listen to folks down here about their needs,\u201d Talarico tells me of his border tour. \u201cThis is the mistake of so many people and politicians, but also the media [make]. They flatten border communities to where it must all be about immigration. Well, there\u2019s a lot of needs here. Border security is one of them. Immigration is one of them. So are jobs. So is education. So is health care. So is trade. If we\u2019re going to actually serve border communities. We need to reach for all of that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe communities clustered along the Rio Grande and West Texas had for decades been a Democratic stronghold in a state obsessed with its cowboy conservative identity. Featuring a large concentration of Hispanic migrants and major trading ports with Mexico, the region is in many ways the land Democrats forgot, confident it would not waver, until it did. All but one of the Texas border counties swung rightward in the 2024 election \u2014 with several in South Texas voting Republican for the first time in decades. Those same counties have since become disillusioned<\/a> with the president\u2019s administration, but strategists continue to note hesitation<\/a> from voters to fully re-embrace the Democratic Party. Talarico sees winning over these communities \u2014 from the Franklin Mountains, down the Rio Grande to the barrier island of South Padre \u2014 as critical to his bid to defeat his MAGA Republican Ken Paxton<\/a> and realize one of the long-coveted fantasies of national Democrats: a senator from Texas.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDemocrats took these regions, took this whole area for granted,\u201d Talarico tells me nearly 400 miles of driving later, seated in the dining nook of the black campaign RV that serves as mobile headquarters for him and his staff. The \u201cFrontera\u201d border tour took him to small towns like Alpine, Del Rio, and Eagle Pass \u2014 as well as the major land ports of El Paso, Laredo, and McAllen. \u201cAnd the fastest way to lose an election is to take people for granted,\u201d he says, adding that part of his approach to retail politics in general is to \u201chave some humility, and not feel like just because I have a \u2018D\u2019 next to my name, I\u2019m entitled to anyone\u2019s support.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIn his view, much of the national media and political class view politics as an \u201cintellectual exercise\u201d without real-world stakes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThey\u2019re participating in politics like we were watching the World Cup,\u201d he says, most often as spectators cheering for their own team. \u201cBut for those of us who live here, like this is life and death. So many of these issues are literally life and death, we have to live with these policies [\u2026] we\u2019ve got to fix this problem because people are suffering, and my job is to help the people that I\u2019m seeking to represent.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAt a press conference in Sanderson, Texas \u2014 in the back courtyard of the charmingly preserved-in-60s-amber Desert Air Motel \u2014 Talaraico announced his immigration and border security platform. Opposition to the construction of Trump\u2019s border wall through Big Bend and a surge in the hiring of immigration judges read like standard fare for progressive Democrats, but\u00a0 proposals like arguing for more Customs and Border Patrol agents and more funding for immigration enforcement surveillance tech might make the left clench its jaw.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tTalarico is flanked by a bipartisan coalition of local law enforcement officers and former CPB agents. Sheriff Thaddeus Cleveland, a Republican who spent 26 years working as a Border Patrol agent, is tall, tanned, and keeps a handgun holstered to his hip. \u201cWe only have 600 people [in Sanderson],\u201d he tells me after the presser. \u201cWe don\u2019t have crime. What we deal with mostly is border security.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOften, it\u2019s rescuing a lost migrant who has been wandering the desert and mountains \u2014 a natural border barrier much harder to traverse than a bollard wall. Tragically, it\u2019s regularly doing body recovery for those who were not found in time. In regions where the population is spread thin and funds for law enforcement and emergency services are stretched to their limit, the steady supply of good-paying federal jobs with benefits, and a budget to back them up, is a lifeline for towns like Sanderson, but it\u2019s not enough of an investment to fix the very real issues affecting West Texas: volatile water infrastructure, a collapsing agricultural sector, a struggling electric grid, the threat of invasive pests like New World Screw Worm, and a border economy trying to claw its way out of Trump\u2019s tariff slump.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe growing consensus in the region is first that the Biden administration failed to adequately respond to the issues at the border \u2014 both in the practical sense and by allowing Republicans to twist the political narrative almost beyond recognition \u2014 and second that Trump\u2019s return to office, with his tariffs and hardline national anti-immigration crackdown, has been its own scourge on the region.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe immigration system, border security, is a prime example of the government not working,\u201d Talarico tells me. \u201cThe Big Bend border wall is an example on the right of the government not working, being inefficient and wasteful of taxpayer dollars. So I just want to pursue things that are actually going to work, and I listen to those border sheriffs \u2014 the Democrats and the Republicans and they all say we would be much better off if we had these Predator B drones to detect human movement on the border, rather than a wall that\u2019s going to desecrate one of the most sacred parts of the state, ruin the natural habitat, and and hurt local businesses.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tTalarico\u2019s campaign has been relentlessly committed to prioritizing local media, outreach, and interest. In many ways, the campaign is openly broadcasting a disinterest in making Talarico a balm for national Democrats struggling to regain their ideological footing after an electoral implosion under former Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Solving the intra-party war of the political left does not interest him so much as winning as many small battles as possible for the people of Texas.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThis doesn\u2019t mean he isn\u2019t setting lofty goals should he find himself in the U.S. Senate. \u201cWe have to be very honest about where we failed as a party, and then try to try to bring back the parts of our legacy that reflect us at our best,\u201d Talarico says, reminiscing on the almost mythically ambitious \u2014 and successful \u2014 Great Society programs of Texas son Lyndon B. Johnson.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhen Democrats get power, too often it\u2019s nibbling around the edges. It\u2019s cautious, and people want transformational change. People aren\u2019t interested in incremental change anymore, they want to take this broken system and change it fundamentally. And I think we are trying to live up to that scope,\u201d he adds. \u201cWhen we get power, we\u2019re going to actually use it to make a real difference in your life [and] if we don\u2019t do that next time voters trust us with the keys, I don\u2019t know what the future of our party holds.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tTalarico at one point suggests that prospective candidates \u201cactively shouldn\u2019t\u201d cater to the priorities of the national party, which itself seems directionless and eternally confused by its own voters. \u201cMaybe it\u2019s just pragmatism, and maybe a focus on people rather than worldview or philosophy or ideology; those are abstract, and at least my experience, and those don\u2019t neatly always align with what\u2019s happening in the real world,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe real world, or at least the real Texas, does seem to be turning out for the campaign. The tour encountered overflow crowds at multiple stops. Where Talarico\u2019s team couldn\u2019t upgrade to a bigger space, like in Del Rio, Talarico took the time to meet every individual who was turned away. It\u2019s a central tenant of the campaign. Everyone gets their photo, everyone gets a handshake, or a chance to say what\u2019s on their mind, even if the line lasts over an hour. All over the border, the prospective voters Talarico meets with ask for relief from the kinds of ailments that don\u2019t choose political parties: medical debt, housing affordability, crumbling infrastructure, educational inequality, and support for aging seniors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAt a town hall event in Eagle Pass, a nearly forgotten border town that became a national battleground for clashes between Texas Governor Greg Abbott and the Biden administration, a choked-up attendee describes the struggle to afford rent and car payments while struggling with a debilitating chronic illness.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou are the first person I will ever vote for. I am 21. I still haven\u2019t voted,\u201d they say. \u201cI really do want you to prove that you can help somebody like me. I\u2019m just one person. My problems are smaller than other people\u2019s, and even to me, those problems are still big.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe next day, in the slightly cramped quiet of the campaign RV, Talarico tells me that he wishes he had more time to campaign face-to-face with the voters of his state. \u201cEvery day I wake up feeling like I don\u2019t have enough time. It is so humongous. It\u2019s so complex. It\u2019s so diverse,\u201d he reflects.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI could spend all [four months left in the race] in South Texas, right? I could spend four months in Black communities across the state, just learning all the needs and connecting with other people. I could spend four months reaching out to Cornyn voters who are feeling like the Republican Party\u2019s left them behind, and those are three very different groups of people, and they\u2019re all going to be necessary to build a big enough tent to win this thing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tHe compares building that coalition to a process similar to any kind of relationship building. \u201cYou think about how you build a relationship in your own life. It\u2019s showing up, it\u2019s being open, it\u2019s being honest, it\u2019s being vulnerable, it\u2019s listening.\u201d It\u2019s also changing. His campaign motto of top versus bottom, not left versus right, was born of his own experience as a state politician, watching ideological lines along the horizontal political spectrum serve as a \u201csmokescreen\u201d for inaction or acquiescence to external interests.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe lack of cohesion within Democratic politics right now is, in his view, a boon to the campaign. \u201cIn my faith tradition, the wilderness is where new ideas and new leaders and new movements come forth, and the wilderness is a time for experimentation and self-reflection,\u201d Talarico says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\tAnd truly, the land between El Paso and Brownsville is often the vision of Texas wilderness imagined in old westerns and recorded in the works of Larry McMurtry and Oscar C\u00e1sares. Bright sun and baby blue skies. Cotton ball clouds casting dappled shadows over the patchwork of the creosote of the Chihuahua Desert and the orange groves of the Rio Grande Valley. Drive far and long enough and you may encounter a storm of lightning and rain moping across the plains like a lone giant trapped in a wide ring of mountains, keep going and you\u2019ll meet the end of the road in the grassy resacas of the Texas coast. Almost 2,000 miles away, the United States Senate, under its dome of cast iron and its sandstone walls, might as well be on a different planet.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Texas border lands are a place where soul searching comes easy, where community is not something to be reclaimed \u2014 but an everyday fact of life. It\u2019s a world unto itself, and if Talarico can pull back the region\u2019s rightward turn of 2024, it might just be his bridge to Washington.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

James Talarico is asking me if my hand is OK, and I\u2019m trying to laugh it off. We\u2019re stopped at the site of a collapsed water well in the craggy outskirts of Alpine, Texas. Behind us, the red and ochre cliffs of Big Bend National Park glow in the late afternoon sun. Roughly an hour…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1900,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/James-Talarico-border.jpg?crop=0px%2C186px%2C1800px%2C1015px&resize=1600%2C900","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[3432,214,1862,2056,2877,737,3583,195],"class_list":["post-1899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-border","tag-democrats","tag-james","tag-senate","tag-talarico","tag-texas","tag-tours","tag-win"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}