The Democrat James Talarico, state representative and Presbyterian seminarian, won the Texas seat in the United States Senate on the night of November 3 by defeating Republican Ken Paxton, the state attorney general. His victory, projected by the major networks, strips the Republicans of a seat they had held for decades and comes on a day when Democrats regained both the House of Representatives and the Senate, dealing a severe blow to President Donald Trump in the final stretch of his term.
Talarico is openly in favor of abortion. At a CNN and Jubilee event held on October 14 in Fort Worth, and in front of a voter who declared herself opposed to abortion, he stated that “the Bible is silent on the matter” and presented it as “a public policy issue” rather than a moral question. “If I believed that abortion is murder or that it goes against the Ten Commandments, of course I would be against it,” he added, before concluding that they could “agree to disagree.”
“Two of my favorite spiritual heroes”
In that same forum, the now senator-elect cited Francis and Leo XIV as “two of my favorite spiritual heroes” and described them as defenders of life on issues such as poverty, climate change, war, and also abortion. That appeal to two pontiffs whose doctrine condemns abortion contrasts with his own position, which defends the right to abortion.
This is not the first religious controversy surrounding Talarico. In 2021, during a debate in the Texas House on a bill concerning women’s sports, he declared that “God is non-binary,” a phrase he later acknowledged as “provocative” and defended with the argument that God is spirit and transcends human categories.
The “religious left” and abortion at the ballot box
The magazine America, in an analysis signed by Jack Jenkins of Religion News Service, described the results as a “striking moment” for the religious left, which for years has had less influence and visibility than conservative Christians. In addition to Talarico, who made his faith a central theme of the campaign and cited Jesus in his victory speech, the text mentions Methodist pastor Adam Hamilton, the winner in Kansas, and several pastors elected to the House, such as Frederick Haynes III in Texas.
The elections also served to confirm abortion at the ballot box. Voters in several states came out in favor of abortion on November 3, including Virginia, whose bishops had promoted the “Catholics Vote No” campaign against the constitutional amendment that protects it.
The Pope’s vote
The elections also had an unprecedented element: the Holy See Press Office confirmed on October 30 that Leo XIV had voted by mail from Chicago, as he does “whenever he has the opportunity,” in exercise of what it described as a right and a duty of citizens to participate in democratic processes. InfoVaticana already reported that Robert Prevost had requested to vote in Illinois, in a gesture without precedent in the history of the papacy. The Vatican has not revealed the direction of his vote.