It's been a couple of days since Texas State Rep. James Talarico (D-50th District) emerged from two weeks of hiding, and on Sunday, audio surfaced that appears to show he was briefly a patient at a mental health facility in Ohio. In the recording, released by Nick Sortor and Rhein Amacher, a woman who identifies herself as an employee of the Lindner Center of Hope in Ohio says Talarico had recently been discharged. Screenshots of Amacher’s phone show that he did indeed call the Lindner Center.
The Talarico campaign, naturally, denies all of it. "This is a lie designed to promote a pathetic conspiracy theory," spokesman JT Ennis said, adding that Talarico spent last week home in Austin fighting the flu. Absent video of Talarico checking in, the left won't believe a word of it, and probably not even then. But one thing is certain: The Talarico campaign is hiding something, and the flu story just doesn’t add up.
And you don't have to take my word for it.
Two Democrat strategists are now casting doubt on Talarico's weak alibi. Former Clinton adviser Mark Penn appeared on Fox News and made no secret of his skepticism. "Oh, this is super odd. There's no question about that," Penn told Fox News. "These are the final days of a hundred million campaign, a major effort, one of the most key Senate races, and your candidate disappears for 12, 13 days with no clear word, no messages, no ability to kind of send out some messages, has the flu? This doesn't, this really doesn't make sense."
Penn, who ran campaigns for Bill and Hillary Clinton, said he’s never seen anything like it. "I kind of highly doubt that it was the flu," he said. "I mean, we've had presidents who were shot, who gave interviews either contemporaneously or within hours, let alone somebody who got the flu and wouldn't want to keep the momentum of his campaign going with kind of a constant flood."
He also warned that two weeks off the trail in a race this close is a real setback, and he doubted Talarico's absence did him any favors in the polls. "I think the people are going to want a better explanation than, 'Oh, sorry, had the flu back now,'" Penn added.
You know Talarico’s flu alibi is weak when even a Democrat strategist isn’t buying it. https://t.co/n1BiXP4AzM
— Matt Margolis (@mattmargolis) October 12, 2026
Former Democratic strategist Dan Turrentine also voiced concerns about the campaign’s response to the controversy. He clearly believes that if the campaign can prove its story, it should, and he blasted its handling of the situation.
"My first reaction on Sunday afternoon was that if the allegations of receiving mental help were true, the Talarico campaign would be insane to think they could hide it and deny it," Turrentine wrote on his Substack. "Almost nothing in this day-and-age can be hidden in a major campaign. But on the other hand, I was dumbfounded at, and very worried about, the lack of aggressive pushback from the candidate, his campaign, and outside Democrats."
For our VIPs: How the Talarico Campaign Botched Everything
Turrentine pointed out that a Democrat in a neck-and-neck race in deep-red Texas can't afford to let any negative story go viral. Then he offered the campaign a simple way out. "Talarico said he went to Urgent Care when he first got sick. Release the receipt or produce the doctor to validate," he wrote. "Why did they not do a video — or videos — the last week, even if Talarico sounded like Daffy Duck, to update and say he would be back soon?"
That's exactly the right question. A nasty flu doesn't stop a candidate from recording a 30-second video from his couch. It doesn't stop a campaign from producing a doctor's note or an urgent care receipt. If the evidence existed, Talarico could have, in a single afternoon, humiliated Paxton, Trump, and every conservative who asked questions. Instead, as Turrentine observed, "'He had the flu' was all they kept saying. Nothing more."
The campaign's silence for two weeks was a choice, and there's no doubt in my mind they calculated that silence was better than the alternative.