HOUSTON — James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Texas, is directly confronting attacks on his masculinity being lobbed by his rival Ken Paxton and other Republicans as the general election campaign gets off to a personal start.
“In a time when there’s so much debate about what it means to be a man, my dad showed me every Saturday morning. He would mow our lawn, and then, without telling anyone, without anyone asking him, he would go next door and mow our neighbor’s lawn,” Talarico told the crowd at a campaign event this week. “Nowadays our culture tells young men that greatness is tearing other people down, trolling and owning and dominating, but my dad showed me what real greatness looks like.”
Moments after it became clear that Paxton would become the Republican nominee for Senate in Texas, a state that hasn’t elected a statewide Democrat in decades, his allies began raising questions about Talarico’s sexuality, masculinity, diet and other topics that they hope could cause general election voters to turn against him.