{"id":463103,"date":"2026-10-11T16:48:19","date_gmt":"2026-10-11T16:48:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/463103\/"},"modified":"2026-10-11T16:48:19","modified_gmt":"2026-10-11T16:48:19","slug":"james-talarico-spotted-at-kacey-musgraves-concert-in-dallas-after-campaign-absence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/463103\/","title":{"rendered":"James Talarico spotted at Kacey Musgraves concert in Dallas after campaign absence"},"content":{"rendered":"

After nearly two weeks away<\/a> from in-person campaigning because of an illness, Texas Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico<\/a> was spotted Saturday night at a Kacey Musgraves concert in Dallas, where video showed him enjoying the performance and meeting the Grammy-winning singer.<\/p>\n

The appearance at American Airlines Center came a day after Talarico returned to public campaigning Friday at Austin City Limits Music Festival. He disclosed Sept. 30 that he had been diagnosed with the flu after visiting a Dallas urgent care clinic. His last in-person campaign event before the illness was a Sept. 28 fundraiser in New York with actor Robert De Niro.<\/p>\n

Talarico has previously named Musgraves’ “Merry Go ‘Round” as a favorite song.<\/p>\n

Related: Talarico returns to Senate campaign trail after flu, Republican attacks<\/a><\/p>\n

His absence drew criticism from Republican opponent Ken Paxton<\/a>, who posted mock missing-person notices on X and questioned his illness.<\/p>\n

“Who actually believes that?” Paxton wrote Saturday, referring to Talarico’s flu diagnosis. He called Talarico’s festival attendence a “staged 15-minute appearance” and demanded answers. In another post, Paxton questioned Talarico’s attendance at the De Niro fundraiser and characterized his time away as “two weeks of PTO.”<\/p>\n

Talarico responded Saturday by renewing his challenge to debate Paxton, mocking him with a reference to “clinical levels of cowardice” and demanding “proof of ability to debate.”<\/p>\n

Talarico previously challenged Paxton to a debate moderated by Fox News’ Bret Baier, saying he was “willing to go anywhere to make that a reality.” Fox News agreed to host if both candidates participated.<\/p>\n

Paxton’s campaign said in July that he would debate Talarico but has not agreed to an event. Paxton did not debate U.S. Sen. John Cornyn during this year’s Republican primary.<\/p>\n

Related: Willie Nelson, Jerry Jones, Mark Cuban and Randy White: Texas’ Senate race gets star power<\/a><\/p>\n

Every Texas U.S. Senate general election since 2002 has featured a debate, but none is scheduled before the Nov. 3 election.<\/p>\n

Talarico is scheduled to meet with The Dallas Morning News editorial board Sunday for a candidate interview.<\/p>\n

Subscribe<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Morning Roundup, a free newsletter delivering the latest North Texas news each morning.<\/a><\/p>\n

This article originally published at James Talarico spotted at Kacey Musgraves concert in Dallas after campaign absence<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After nearly two weeks away from in-person campaigning because of an illness, Texas Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":463104,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103],"class_list":["post-463103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463103","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=463103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}