{"id":381217,"date":"2026-07-21T18:01:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T18:01:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/381217\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T18:01:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T18:01:17","slug":"james-talarico-confronted-by-black-voters-at-houston-town-hall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/381217\/","title":{"rendered":"James Talarico confronted by Black voters at Houston town hall"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kandice Webber, a Houston nurse and political content creator, told Talarico she had waited while he answered other attendees’ questions before confronting him.<\/p>\n

\u201cBlack people don\u2019t trust you for this reason,\u201d Webber said as some attendees clapped while others whispered among themselves. \u201cAnd you cannot win without us, so you stay here, and you answer our questions\u00a0\u2014 or you suffer the consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n

Talarico acknowledged Webber, saying he was \u201chappy to engage\u201d and that \u201cthis is what this conversation\u2019s supposed to be about.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, one, I want to thank you for your honesty and for being willing to speak your truth to me as a candidate and us as a campaign. I talked a little bit earlier about my desire to earn the trust of every Black Texan,\u201d Talarico said. \u201cThis is not the end of a conversation. This is the beginning of a conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The exchange came during a town hall hosted by Talarico’s campaign that lasted more than an hour and featured a mix of supportive and skeptical questions from Black Houstonians.<\/p>\n

Afterward, Webber told reporters she believes Talarico is a \u201cTeach for America plant\u201d who wants to \u201cprivatize\u201d public schools.<\/p>\n

Talarico, a former public school teacher, has been a leading Democratic opponent of Gov. Greg Abbott’s school voucher program. He also faced criticism during the Democratic primary after receiving support from the Charter Schools Now PAC, according to the Texas Tribune.<\/a><\/p>\n

In another video posted after the event, Webber said she would rather see Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton win the U.S. Senate seat than Talarico, accusing Democrats of trying to \u201cinstill your great white hope in my [expletive] people and watch you let us down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Houston content creator Juli McShay also challenged Talarico, urging him to denounce online supporters she said harass former Democratic primary rival U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett and Black political influencers who have not fully backed his campaign. She also criticized what she described as his delay in engaging with Black voters in those spaces.<\/p>\n

While some attendees echoed Webber’s and McShay’s concerns, many others attended to support Talarico, including U.S. Rep. Christian Menefee, state Rep. Lauren Ashley Simmons and other Black elected officials. Talarico also debuted a pledged to spend $25 million on Black voter outreach.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Others defended Talarico on social media. State Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Fort Worth, wrote on X that no one \u201cwill ever, nor should you ever, make everyone happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to polling provided by Talarico’s campaign, he leads Paxton 80%-13% among Black likely voters. The campaign also says he is polling 9 points ahead of Gina Hinojosa among Black voters and outperforming former U.S. Rep. Colin Allred and former Democratic Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke at the same stage of their campaigns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kandice Webber, a Houston nurse and political content creator, told Talarico she had waited while he answered other…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381218,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57],"class_list":["post-381217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}