Texas state Rep. James Talarico won the state’s Senate Democratic primary Tuesday as a young economic populist who made his Christian faith central to his messaging. His campaign also demonstrated that his party can still excite Latino voters without the kind of hyper-specific messaging some Democrats are inclined to think is crucial to winning ethnic minorities.
According to Politico, “In five different rural majority-Latino counties, more votes were cast in Tuesday’s Democratic primary than for Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.” That’s a strong indicator of high interest among Latino voters, considering that primaries for statewide races are usually not high-turnout contests. And, for the first time in decades, turnout in that primary was higher than Republican primary turnout.
Talarico shows that Democrats have reason to feel optimism about wresting back Latino voters.
And Talarico dominated his race in heavily Latino areas. The Wall Street Journal, citing Associated Press data, reported, “Across counties where the population is 60% or more Latino, Talarico outperformed [opponent Rep. Jasmine Crockett] roughly 62% to 35%.” In Hidalgo County, which is 92% Latino, Talarico took 67% of the vote.
Talarico’s strength with Latino voters is eye-catching because, in a trend that goes back several election cycles, Texas Democrats have either failed to drive high turnout among Latino Democrats or lost Latino voters to the GOP.
It’s unclear how Talarico’s strength with Latino voters will translate to a general election as he faces off against either Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, the incumbent, or Cornyn’s Republican challenger, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. But the high turn-out on Tuesday suggests his campaign might offer some clues about how Democrats can mobilize and persuade Latino voters.
Talacrico courted Latino voters by airing Spanish-language ads, connecting with Latino internet influencers and hiring Latino staff members. That strategy reflected an interest in targeted outreach to Latino communities in spaces where voters might organically come across his messages.
But just as notable is what Talarico’s campaign didn’t do. It did not conform to progressive identitarian assumptions of what it means to appeal to a minority group or use particularist progressive language to signal inclusivity. For example, his campaign did not use the term “Latinx” in his speeches or campaign materials. His speeches also did not traffic in the notion that voters have distinctly different interests based on their ethnicity.
Instead, he focused primarily on economic populism and the working class.“It’s the billionaires waging war against the rest of us,” Talarico told a voter at a town hall.
His overt religiosity, which manifested as a progressive interpretation of Christianity, may have played a significant role in his appeal to some Latino voters as well. Chuck Rocha, a senior adviser to the Talarico campaign, told the Journal that Talarico won Latinos with a message centered on “faith and family and jobs and bringing people together.”
Talarico’s opponent, Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, said in 2024 that Latino voters who held conservative positions on immigration had a “slave mentality.” It was a classic example of the misguided assumption that racial minorities should be viewed as predictable single-issue voters, although articulated in an unusually vulgar and offensive way. Crockett came under fire for those remarks, and it’s possible she alienated some voters. Meanwhile Talarico took what could be described as a center-left position on immigration. “We should treat our southern border like our front porch,” he said. “We should have a giant welcome mat out front, and we should have the lock on the door.” He called for securing the border, reforming Immigration and Customs Enforcement (not abolishing it) and creating a pathway for some undocumented immigrants to become citizens. That position could appeal to a potentially wide range of voters who may have mixed feelings about America’s dysfunctional immigration system and President Donald Trump’s unpopular immigration crackdown. That’s not a bad lane to occupy given that Latino voters’ views on immigration are neither homogenous nor static. It’s important to not over-extrapolate from this one race. But Talarico shows that Democrats have reason to feel optimism about wresting back Latino voters if they play their hand right — and ditch their old ways of thinking.
Zeeshan Aleem is a writer and editor for MS NOW. He primarily writes about politics and foreign policy. 
