Texas Democrat Senate candidate James Talarico spent Christmas Day alone with COVID-19 in 2022 despite being vaccinated and boosted, one year after celebrating a masked Dr. Anthony Fauci action figure as a Christmas gift and later arguing that mask-wearing should take precedence over personal rights and freedoms.
“I got COVID for Christmas,” Talarico wrote in the December 24, 2022, post. “I wish I could be with my family, but I’m grateful for this warm fire, my Christmas cactus, and all of you. Merry Christmas, friends!”
The post included a photograph of Talarico smiling beside a fireplace while wearing a sweatshirt promoting former Texas Democrat gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke. During a March 2026 appearance on MS NOW, O’Rourke said, “When James Talarico wins in November, he will be the 51st vote in the US Senate. Texas will save the country.”
An X user replied that she had also contracted the virus and wrote that her case was mild because she was “vaccinated and boosted.”
“Same here!” Talarico responded. “I’m praying for your speedy recovery.”
The previous Christmas, Talarico posted a photograph of a masked action figure depicting Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
“I got the coolest action figure for Christmas,” Talarico wrote, while also urging his followers to become vaccinated and boosted.
In audio from a podcast appearance that year, Talarico criticized Texans who declined to wear masks, saying, “It’s not about your personal rights or freedoms.”
He also discussed what he described as his favorite mask, which carried the phrase “Love thy neighbor.” Talarico posted an image of the mask on X with the caption, “Why I’m still wearing a mask.”
Polling from late June showed a close U.S. Senate race between Talarico, a former middle school teacher and Presbyterian seminarian elected to the Texas House in 2018, and Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. A New York Times/Siena poll placed both candidates at 47 percent, while a University of Texas poll showed Paxton leading 43 percent to 42 percent. The RealClearPolitics polling average placed Paxton at 45.2 percent and Talarico at 44.6 percent.
During an appearance on Texas Impact’s Weekly Witness, Talarico described legislation restricting gender-transition treatments for minors and Texas’s abortion law as products of what he called a “Christofascism movement.” He has also criticized Christian nationalism as the pursuit of social, economic, and political power in Christ’s name and argued that some Christians had transformed Jesus into a “gun-toting, gay-bashing, science-denying, money-loving, fear-mongering fascist.” Talarico pointed to proposals involving the Ten Commandments in public-school classrooms, religious chaplains in schools, and teaching Bible stories as historical fact as examples of Christian nationalism in Texas.
Talarico recently said he opposed gender-reassignment surgeries for minors, despite previously voting against Texas Senate Bill 14, which restricted certain gender-transition procedures and treatments for children. During the 2023 legislative debate, he argued that gender existed on a spectrum, cited research that he said showed hormonal therapy reduced anxiety and depression among young people experiencing gender dysphoria, and said doctors had a “moral obligation” under the Hippocratic oath to treat children’s gender dysphoria. Talarico had previously described denying children sex-change treatments as “child abuse,” asserted in 2021 that modern science recognized six biological sexes, said his office was the first in the Texas Capitol to place pronouns on official business cards, and supported allowing males to participate on female sports teams based on gender identity.
Talarico has also used his interpretation of Christianity to support abortion rights, arguing that Jesus never addressed abortion and that the Bible is “silent on abortion.” He has also repeatedly referred to women as “neighbors with a uterus.”
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