Gil Sharon
The 2026 Midterms: Why James Talarico’s nice populism keeps MAGA TikTok talking about him
In this year’s midterm elections James Talarico is attempting to end the Republican Party’s nearly 30+ year hold on Texas’ US Senate seats. Gil Sharon writes that Talarico’s campaign has focused on his “nice” persona, in contrast to Donald Trump’s cruel and disruptive populist style of political performance. In the social media sphere of TikTok, he writes, this strategy is focusing the attention of the MAGA movement on Talarico at the expense of the Republican candidate, Ken Paxton.
The Texas Senate race between the Democrat James Talarico and Republican Ken Paxton is one of the most hotly contested in the 2026 midterm elections. Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian and former middle school teacher, is running on a left-wing populist platform driven by faith-based language. One thing is for sure: Talarico appears to be genuinely nice. Talarico’s “nice” performance helps him build support through a similar, but opposite, mechanism to Trump’s cruel and disruptive populist style of political performance. Talarico’s nice persona performance is disrupting political norms in the current political climate.
Since Lloyd Bentsen won in 1988, no Democrat has held a US Senate seat in Texas. Yet in 2018, Democrat Beto O’Rourke lost to Ted Cruz by only about 2.6 per cent. Now, Democrat candidate James Talarico leads the polls and is predicted to turn Texas blue.
James Talarico’s appeal in a deeply red (Republican) state is open to interpretation. Talarico is seen as presenting a left-wing populism that opposes the corrupt elite and fights for the common people. He rationalises his economic and cultural policies in a Christian framework, in a state that is considered to be part of the Bible Belt. Trump’s declining approval rating may explain why some voters are shifting away from the Republican MAGA candidate, Texas’s current Attorney General, Ken Paxton. While these factors are crucial to understanding Talarico’s appeal, another essential, less-discussed factor is his norm-breaking performance of niceness, especially as it is delivered with a faith-based vocabulary. Talarico’s nice populism is a disruptive mechanism against the MAGA political norm.
Over the past decade, Donald Trump has brought or popularised a populist style of political performance that disrupts norms of political behaviour, respect and decency. Trump’s violation of political norms enables him to “expose” his opponents as stiff, out-of-touch, and inauthentic. MAGA supporters praise and celebrate Trump’s norm-breaking persona as “draining the swamp” of the political elites in Washington, DC. Disrupting conventions of political conduct is often seen as negative, because breaking principles of respect for opponents and institutions can erode democracy. However, what if the norms of politics are already disrespectful and deeply polarised? Is breaking the MAGA norm of an illiberal style of politics a disruptive act?
James Talarico’s political performance can be read as disruptive, as it breaks the old system of politics by being genuinely nice. First, Talarico stood against the norms of most Democratic candidates. Earlier this year, in the Democratic primaries, Talarico won in his primary race against Jasmine Crockett, a progressive politician who has taken a combative stance toward Trump and MAGA. In contrast, Talarico’s approach is more empathetic and favours a “big tent” coalition. Talarico avoids coarse language toward any group, including MAGA members. Yet he cannot be categorised as a centrist establishment figure like Hillary Clinton. Talarico presents as a new style of Democratic candidate, following the path paved by Zohran Mamdani, New York City Mayor, who demonstrated last year that the left can do populism well, and do it while performing niceness with a big smile.
His current rival in the Texas Senate election contest is Republican Ken Paxton, a quintessential MAGA-style politician and a close ally of Trump. Paxton defeated the long-established incumbent Republican Senator, John Cornyn, who was not a big Trump supporter. While Paxton defeated a long-established Republican candidate, he is not a political outsider like Trump was considered to be in 2016, serving as Texas Attorney General for the past 11 years. If Trump’s appeal was that he was an outsider to the political order and spoke to people’s grievances against the corrupt elite, then after a decade of Trump-era politics, for Republicans MAGA has become the new establishment, the new political elite. While Talarico is not a complete outsider either, he has served as a Democratic representative in the Texas House of Representatives since 2018. Still, he is not considered to be establishment Democrat. Now he faces an arguably deeply corrupt Paxton, who is exactly the kind of politics MAGA was said to oppose.
Talarico, who has two million followers on TikTok, performs the same kind of economic populism as MAGA has used, but with niceness rather than cruelty. Talarico talks calmly, smiles, and uses inclusive rhetoric. He does not scapegoat any minority group to address people’s grievances. Instead, he directs his grievance at billionaires and corrupt elites to address the people’s problems. Talarico offers a new kind of populism, a nice populism.
His nice populism, which in this case is voiced through Christian rhetoric, drives MAGA to counter his religiosity, as a left-wing candidate is stepping on their “values” territory. Talarico’s style of Christianity runs against the foundation of the MAGA style of Christian nationalism ideology. Talarico’s nice Christian posture draws a lot of interest from his opponents, making him the focus of attention in his Senate contest with Paxton.
In the 2016 Trump-Hillary presidential race, Trump was the centre of attention. Trump supporters love to praise him, laugh at his jokes, and admire his norm-breaking behaviour. Trump still relies on his usual tactics, keeping his cruel humour, calling Talarico “Talafreako.” At a rally in early September, Trump ridiculed Talarico as vegan, saying Talarico is “beat meat”. This joke circulated widely in the MAGA TikTok network as Trump supporters celebrated it.
However, Trump isn’t on the ballot; Paxton is. Where are the Paxton supporters on TikTok? Paxton has about 3500 followers on TikTok and MAGA members barely even mention his name in their videos. They target Talarico directly or through Trump. They talk about Talarico as a threat, as they are mainly concerned with identity-type issues such as Christianity, abortion, and gender issues. Paxton has tried to pull off Trump’s cruel style of humour, but his words are not being echoed through the MAGA network. Thus, the populist message of anti-elites and political disruption seems to resonate much more than the performance of cruelty. The performance of niceness, with the right message, can also resonate even in a red state.
Moreover, Talarico sets the agenda by targeting Paxton as a corrupt elite on TikTok. Previously, Trump was able to turn his felony court cases into a victimhood narrative that transcended himself to represent the entire MAGA movement. Trump basically said to his supporters that when “they” (the deep state) are after me, “they” are after you (his supporters). Talarico’s videos are full of accusations against Paxton, allegations of felonies and corruption. Paxton does not react and does not turn these allegations into victimisation. Paxton instead speaks against Talarico using the same conservative arguments about gender, socialism and so on.
In the social media sphere of campaigning, a network of political actors who constantly voice their support for a candidate in a way that seems organic and authentic is crucial to a candidate’s image-building. A politician needs to seem revered, have his supporters validate his messages, and be talked about. Paxton does not get that attention. Being talked about is also done by trolling opponents, as Trump does, getting his opponents and mainstream media to talk about him constantly. Now, Talarico trolls MAGA, getting them to talk about him instead of Paxton constantly.
Now, James Talarico, the Democratic candidate in the Texas Senate election, is disrupting the new norm of MAGA-style politics that has dominated the American political landscape over the past decade with a new kind of disruption: being nice.
Source: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2026/11/02/talarico-tiktok-texas-senate/ (CC BY 4.0)
