There's something almost poetic about watching a political party spend decades chasing the same dream, making the same mistakes, and then doubling down, as if the problem were simply a lack of effort. Democrats have been eyeing Texas like a mirage in the desert for years now. And the closer they think they're getting, the clearer it becomes that they have no idea what they're looking at. The question isn't whether they want Texas — it's whether they're even capable of understanding it to have a chance.
Texas has been the white whale of Democratic politics for as long as I have been active in politics. Flipping a U.S. Senate seat would be transformational — a seismic shift that could reshape the national political map and dramatically improve Democrats' odds of reclaiming the upper chamber. That's the dream. So you'd think they'd be smart about it.
They are not.
The Texas Democratic Party posted the following teaser on X on Friday:
We have *yuge* news to share in the next few days. Stay tuned 👀 pic.twitter.com/djfnEAZYUy
— Texas Democratic Party (@texasdemocrats) May 8, 2026
The nearly universal belief is that the silhouette looks an awful lot like Bernie Sanders.
And that’s a rather bizarre strategy for a party desperate to win Texas.
This is the same Bernie Sanders who identifies as a Democratic Socialist, supports Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Nazi Graham Platner. Sanders is literally the national face of democratic socialism — the guy who helped push the party further to the left than perhaps even Barack Obama did.
And Democrats think he’s the one who will carry Senate candidate James Talarico to victory?
Texas Republicans have already been using Sanders as a weapon against Talarico. Gov. Greg Abbott warned voters that when they learn about Talarico's "Bernie Sanders voting record," they'll reject him. And Democrats' answer to that attack line is apparently to fly Sanders into the state and hand the GOP another gift-wrapped talking point.
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What makes this even more bizarre is that Democrats have been trying to sell Talarico as a moderate — a guy with Christian values, economic populism, and crossover appeal. He is, of course, none of those things. He has called God "nonbinary." He has used the story of Jesus's conception to argue for abortion rights. He has promoted a brand of religious pluralism that large swaths of Christians find outright heretical. He has mocked efforts to protect girls' sports, and asserted that "modern science" recognizes not two, but six sexes. Six may be fewer than 42 or infinity, but anything more than two is literally left-wing cuckoo talk. And beyond the theological and cultural radicalism, Talarico is facing serious questions about his creepy conduct with children.
This is the moderate? This is the man Democrats are pitching to the most reliably Republican large state in the country.
Texas hasn't sent a Democrat to the U.S. Senate in more than 30 years. The state has been trending right, not left, in key demographics that Democrats had counted on. And yet the party's answer is to pair a candidate who calls God "nonbinary" with a Democratic Socialist surrogate and call it a moderate campaign? Are they serious?
Democrats want Texas badly. They've wanted it for a long time. But they don’t have what it takes to accomplish that. The days of Democrats recruiting actual moderate candidates with bipartisan appeal are over. Just look at Maine. All the enthusiasm was for the guy with the Nazi tattoo, and that may cost them another seat they hoped to flip.
