{"id":348476,"date":"2026-09-16T17:12:55","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T17:12:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/348476\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T17:12:55","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T17:12:55","slug":"texas-democrat-james-talarico-names-his-favourite-drag-queen-and-republicans-are-livid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/348476\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas Democrat James Talarico names his favourite drag queen &#8211; and Republicans are livid"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                <img width=\"792\" height=\"416\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/ken-paxton-attacks-james-talarico-drag-smear.jpg\" class=\"attachment-featured-image size-featured-image wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\"  \/>\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">James Talarico names Alyssa Edwards as his favourite drag queen (Getty Images)<\/p>\n<p>Texas Democrat James Talarico is going viral for sharing that his favourite drag queen is none other than *tongue pop* Alyssa Edwards.<\/p>\n<p>And Republicans are not happy about it, calling James \u201ctoo radical\u201d for Texas.<\/p>\n<p>Attorney General Ken Paxton took to X on 14 September to question James, writing: \u201cWhat normal person can name their favourite drag queen this quickly?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He added: \u201cWhen James Talarico isn\u2019t advocating for children to dress in drag, he\u2019s watching drag performances and saying that Texas produces the best drag queens.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>Thanks for registering! You can update your email subscriptions at any time in the<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thepinknews.com\/mypinknews\/account\/profile\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">My profile<\/a> section of your account.\n        <\/p>\n<p>\u201cJames Talarico is too weird and too radical for Texas.\u201d                            <\/p>\n<p>\nTalarico is currently running for the US Senate against Ken Paxton.<\/p>\n<p>Who are Ken Paxton and James Talarico?<\/p>\n<p>\nPaxton is the Republican Attorney General of Texas and a high-profile conservative figure in national US politics.<\/p>\n<p>He has been a central player in Texas legal and political battles and has been associated with hardline positions in culture-war debates, including issues affecting LGBTQ+ Texans.                            <\/p>\n<p>Paxton has previously <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thepinknews.com\/2026\/05\/27\/texas-attorney-general-ken-paxton-james-talarico-trans-support\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">used the same \u201cweird\u201d attack line against Talarico over trans kids<\/a>, back in May 2026.<\/p>\n<p>Talarico is a Texas Democratic state representative who has previously defended trans youth.<\/p>\n<p>During a 9 March interview on MS NOW, formerly known as MSNBC, the politician said: <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe only thing the media wants to ask me about are trans athletes. What I would say is that the only minority destroying this country is the billionaires.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are all focused on the wrong 1%. Trans people aren\u2019t taking away our healthcare. Undocumented people aren\u2019t defunding our schools\u2026 It\u2019s the billionaires and their puppet politicians. And so we need not only the media, but all of us, to focus on the real problem at hand.\u201d                            <\/p>\n<p>However, Talarico recently reversed on his position on 9 September in an interview with FOX News, saying that he\u2019s against trans athletes playing in girls\u2019 sports if it risks safety or fairness.<\/p>\n<p>According to Newsweek, Talarico\u2019s chances of beating Paxton in the Texas Senate race have \u201creached new highs\u201d across four election and prediction trackers.    <\/p>\n<p>However, a Democrat has not won a statewide race in Texas in more than 30 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"James Talarico names Alyssa Edwards as his favourite drag queen (Getty Images) Texas Democrat James Talarico is going&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":348477,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[5030,9,24,63,122,124,123,1777],"class_list":["post-348476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-democrat","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-texas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}