Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa, Texas Democratic Senate candidate and Texas state Rep. James Talarico, and former President Barack Obama visit the Taco Joint on Tuesday, May 12, 2026, in Austin, Texas.
Joel Angel Juarez/AP
Texas Democrats agree they must broaden their appeal beyond their liberal base if they want to compete in the 2026 midterms.
But four of the party’s top five statewide candidates are from Austin — often jokingly called “the blueberry in Texas’ tomato soup.” And although the fifth one lives in Dallas, he regularly commutes to the state’s capital city as a member of the state Senate.
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Republicans are already seizing on those Austin ties to paint this year’s Democratic ticket as out of touch with the values that have long shaped Texas.
READ MORE: Did the White House inadvertently help James Talarico’s chances in November?
“You don’t have to have lived in Texas very long to know that how goes Travis County is not how the (253) other counties go,” quipped veteran Republican strategist Dave Carney, the top operative in Gov. Greg Abbott’s stable.
JamesTalarico, who has represented parts of suburban Travis and Williamson counties in the state House since 2019, leads the Democrats’ statewide ticket in the high-profile U.S. Senate race. The rest of the ticketincludes Abbott opponent Gina Hinojosa, Vikki Goodwin in the lieutenant governor’s race, attorney general candidate Nathan Johnson and comptroller candidate Sarah Eckhardt.
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Hinojosa and Goodwin are also state House members from Austin. Eckhardt, a former Travis County judge, represents Austin in the Texas Senate.
Johnson, the Dallas state senator, is the geographic outlier. Farther down the statewide ballot are Benjamin Flores, a city council member in Bay City who’s running for land commissioner, Lampasas rancher Clayton Tucker and state Rep. John Rosenthal of Houston, who’s seeking a seat on the three-member Texas Railroad Commission.
Talarico is seen as having the best chance of any Democrat in recent memory of prying loose the hammerlock grip that Republicans have had on every statewide office since the 1994 elections. And to illustrate his push past the “progressives only” ties that often bind his party, Talarico has perfected a one-liner he uses at nearly every campaign rally he holds across the state.
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“I can’t tell you the number of people who come up to me at the end of these events and whisper, ‘I’m not a Democrat,’ like they’re in the Witness Protection Program,” he often says.
Asked at one of his most recent campaign events — in the Austin suburb of Leander on Sunday — Talarico brushed aside criticism that he and the other statewide candidates are capital city creatures who have lost sight of the wider Texas.
“Our ticket represents all parts of Texas,” he told reporters after his rally. “We’ve got people who are coming together to actually serve working Texas. I’m really thankful that we have one of the strongest Democratic slates in modern political history in Texas.”
Appealing to a diverse state
But the concern over the Austin-centric and mostly whiteDemocratic ticket is not limited to Republicans.
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Karrol Rimal, the top aide to U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, wholost to Talarico in her bid to become the first Black woman to win a major party’s nomination for U.S. Senate in Texas, said the Democratic ticket has yet to demonstrate broad and deep appeal among voters of color.
“Tough decisions will need to be made about where Democrats are prioritizing their spending – do they invest in a Texas longshot or double down in states where they’ve won statewide such as Alaska and Georgia?” Rimal said in a statement. “Texas Democrats have nominated a slate of candidates where the top three spots are filled with lawmakers from Austin. They’ll have to do a lot of work outside of Central Texas to resonate with constituencies across our state, which is one of the largest and most diverse in the world.”
READ MORE: Greg Abbott campaigns against James Talarico as he tries to lift entire GOP ticket
Republican operative Enrique Marquez, a political aide to former House Speaker Dade Phelan, said the problem for the statewide Democrats is less about their address and more about their attitudes. In addition, he said, because most of the candidates have served in state office, Republicans have a roadmap to their records.
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“These elected officials and candidates are now saddled with past statements and their voting records, which will be repeated over and over in mail pieces, digital and television ads,” Marquez said. “You will not be able to go to the restroom without hearing about their voting records.”
That has proved especially true in Talarico’s case.
Since he won the Democratic nomination in March, Republicans have resurfaced video clips of Talarico’s comments in House debatesabout whether God should be seen as a man, or as a being with no gender, and his support for LGBTQ causes.
Can Austin Democrats win South Texas?
Sylvia Bruni, who chairs the Democratic Party in South Texas’ Webb County, said such cultural issues might carry added weight in the heavily Catholic, heavily Hispanic part of the state. But, she added, that even though President Donald Trump carried the county anchored by Laredo by a thin margin in 2024, the region remains largely Democratic and the economic concerns of 2026 will likely override messages that drew voters to the Republican presidential nominee two years earlier.
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“We’re angry over what they (Republicans in Washington) are doing, and the fact that we can’t afford the gas,” Bruni said. “Yes, we Democrats in Webb County might be a little more conservative. But when it comes down to the fact that you’ve got over 30% of our population that is literally poverty-stricken, their income is below the poverty level, what do you think is going to be more important? The gas prices, the grocery prices.”
Asked if progressive candidates from Austin can make that case to South Texans, Bruni flipped the question.
“Talarico has been here. We’d like to see more of Gina,” Bruni said. “But it’s going to take more than a visit.”
Hinojosa, who grew up in Brownsville before attending the University of Texas, pushed back on any suggestion that she relates only to Austin.
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“I, like so many Texans who have come before, moved to our state’s Capital for education and opportunity,” she said in a statement. “Both are in short supply these days after 30 years of Greg Abbott, the textbook Austin politician. He’s everything people hate about the Austin swamp, and Texans are done with the back-room deals crushing working families.”
Democrats do not have a monopoly when it comes to deep ties to Austin on their statewide ticket.
Abbott, seeking a record fourth term as governor, lived inHouston. But he has been a fixture in the capital city since the 1990s, when he was a member of the Texas Supreme Court, and later the Texas attorney general. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, represented part of Houston in the state Senate for several years before being elected statewide in 2014. The current attorney general and now U.S. Senate nominee, Ken Paxton, has worked in Austin since 2015.
Another local South Democratic party chair, Jared Hockema of Cameron County, pointed out that both Talarico and Hinojosa have deep roots along the border, even though they are now based in Austin. Hinojosa is the daughter of former Cameron County Judge Gilberto Hinojosa. Talarico’s mother and his maternal grandparents lived in Laredo.
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“There’s a lot of excitement about James Talarico and Gina down here,” said Jared Hockema, chairman of the Cameron County Democrats. “They get it. If Texans are struggling with costs and they’re struggling with the ability to get ahead, those concerns are even more focused here in South Texas.”
Asked if the “Austin liberal” tag is a political disqualifier in the Rio Grande Valley, Hockema laughed.
“Ken Paxton’s from North Dakota. Dan Patrick’s from Maryland,” he said. “Come on.”
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Staff writer Benjamin Wermund contributed to this report.