FULL SPEECH: Talarico vows a politics of love in speech after historic Senate win

James Talarico told a victory rally in Austin on Tuesday night that his Senate win was a rebuke of big money and political division, casting the result as an underdog triumph over a series of “Goliaths.”

The Associated Press called the race for Talarico around 10:05 p.m. Central Time. He defeated Republican Ken Paxton and is set to become the first Democrat to represent Texas in the U.S. Senate since 1993.

“We just took back Texas,” Talarico said, telling supporters that “all the money in the world” had been no match for the people of the state. Drawing on the biblical story of David and Goliath, he said his campaign had faced the richest man in the world, the most powerful man in the world and the Washington establishment. He credited Texans with being his “slingshot.”

Talarico, a former middle school language arts teacher at Rhodes Middle School on San Antonio’s West Side, built his remarks around the idea that Texans should “always bet on the underdog.”

He recalled his mother, a preacher’s daughter from Laredo, leaving an abusive relationship and raising him in an East Austin apartment where he slept in a crib in her closet. He said his campaign had faced more than $300 million in spending, which he called more than any Senate race in U.S. history. He also cited negative ads, smear campaigns, foreign bots and AI deepfakes.

He said the central divide in American life is not left versus right but “top versus bottom,” accusing billionaires who control social media, cable news and politicians of keeping Americans angry at one another. He argued that this strategy distracts people from cuts to schools and health care and from tax policy that favors the wealthy.

Talarico, a Christian whose remarks leaned heavily on scripture, said his answer was “a politics of love.”

He said his campaign mobilized 60,000 volunteers who delivered bottled water to Sand Branch, a community south of Dallas without running water. They also donated school supplies to an elementary school in El Cenizo and collected more than 20,000 pounds of groceries for families in Fort Worth.

He said his coalition ranged from first-time voters to three-time Trump voters, and he pledged to serve Texans who did not vote for him. “This win is not about the Democratic Party or the Republican Party,” he said.

Talarico closed by invoking the Gospel story of Jesus overturning the tables of the money changers. “As we head to the United States Senate,” he said, “Texas, it’s time to start flipping tables.”