Who is James Talarico, who defeated Trump's party in the Texas Senate race

In the state of Texas, Democrat James Talarico, 37, won a seat in the Senate. The current state deputy has become one of the big names in midterms, as the elections in which North Americans go to the polls to renew part of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate are called.

In the midterms, the Democratic Party won a majority in the US Congress. In the Senate, the house to which James Talarico was elected, Democrats elected 20 parliamentarians, flipping 7 seats originally occupied by Republicans. They needed 4 upsets to take the majority.

An evangelical, Talarico used the Christian faith as one of the pillars of his campaign, but invested in a discourse contrary to the Christian nationalism that Donald Trump's government adopts. The Democratic candidate, state deputy since 2018, defends the diversity of religions, the rights of transgender people and the LGBTQIA+ population in general and has said that “God is non-binary”.

Born on the outskirts of Austin, one of the most Democratic cities in Texas, Talarico was a Presbyterian seminarian and elementary school teacher and has a master's degree in theological studies. But he migrated to politics early.

After graduating in political science with a specialization in governance, he also completed a master's degree in educational policy at Harvard and, subsequently, ran for state representative and won four terms.

During this period, he built a solid base of support among Democratic voters, but also Christians, which he now uses to try to break more than three decades of Republican hegemony in the state.

At the polls, Talarico faced Attorney General Ken Paxton, involved in corruption scandals, but who won support from Donald Trump in the Republican primaries and US$150 million donated by Elon Musk to his campaign.

Talarico's victory in a republican state signals a reconfiguration of the national political map. “We will shock the world when we take back Texas,” Talarico said at a rally to a crowd two weeks ago.