Okay, so what is the Lone Star state most known for? Cattle and oil. Oil and cattle. If you’re running for a statewide political office in Texas, it’s mandatory you support both those industries. Unless you’re the hapless pretend Christian, Democrat Senate nominee James Talarico, who’s running against state AG Ken Paxton to replace RINO John Cornyn.
Asked by CBS Texas’s Jack Fink about Texas House Bill 2206, Talarico’s own energy legislation, he called it “a real shame” the bill died before it ever reached committee. That bill, per the RNC’s research shop, would have gutted an oil and gas industry that supports more than half a million Texas jobs. Did I mention this is Texas we’re talking about here – where energy isn’t a special interest but the backbone of the economy, the tax base, and a good chunk of the state’s identity?
Talarico’s pitch was a “transition to a green economy” that would supposedly replace the lost jobs, and he complained the bill was only a rough draft that deserved a hearing and stakeholder input it never got. That’s the charitable read, and it’s the one his campaign will lean on. But it’s BS; you can’t run a world-class economy on wind and solar, and anyway, oil and gas are needed to produce and maintain wind and solar farms, so there’s that. Actor Billy Bob Thorton, star of “Landman,” explains this ‘green energy’ hypocrisy better than anyone in a recent episode:
The problem is that Talarico’s charitable read isn’t much better than the brutal one. “I didn’t want to destroy the industry, I wanted to transition it out of existence and trust that the replacement jobs materialize” is not a reassuring message to a roughnecks-and-refineries electorate. Texans have watched the green-transition promise play out elsewhere — the pledge that the new jobs will arrive on schedule, pay as well, and land in the same communities. They are entitled to be skeptical, because that promise has a poor track record, and no amount of Talarico explaining that his bill “was just a draft” changes what the draft was trying to do.
WATCH:
Texas Democrat James Talarico says it's "a shame" that his bill that would have eliminated the oil and gas industry in Texas didn’t pass.
Over half a million oil and gas jobs support Texas families. pic.twitter.com/E1FJZflRmi
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) September 6, 2026
It also doesn’t sit in isolation. Talarico was flagged for voting against banning a state income tax in Texas — a state that has built much of its economic appeal on not having one — and separately drew a CNN segment over past comments tying capitalism to oppression. Each item on its own might be survivable. Together they sketch a candidate whose instincts run consistently against the economic culture of the state he’s asking to hire him.
None of this means the race is over; Talarico is a capable retail politician and some polls show it closer than a Texas Republican would like. But a Democrat running in Texas has a narrow margin for error, and voluntarily lamenting the death of a bill that targeted one of the state’s marquee industries spends that margin recklessly.
Paxton has his own vulnerabilities, and Democrats were entitled to hope this seat might be competitive. Then their nominee went on television and mourned the failure of his plan to wind down Texas oil and gas. In a state like this, that’s not a stumble. It’s a self-inflicted wound with a camera rolling.
