Ever since he secured the Democratic nomination for senator in Texas, state Rep. James Talarico has become a darling of the NeverTrump RINO class and progressive Christians for one reason and one reason alone: his self-declared faith.
Talarico’s rainbow-hued passive-aggressive Christianity is the kind of performative act that pretty much every legit person of faith can see through, but it’s the sort of stuff that makes leftists googly-eyed. Not only does it provide a path to victory in a traditionally red state, in their eyes, but it gives the left — in their eyes — a plausible claim to biblical morality.
Even NeverTrumpers are getting into it, like self-declared conservative and Christian David French over at The New York Times: “If the primary American divide is between right and left then Talarico isn’t that interesting,” he wrote in a preposterous Saturday piece in which he called Talarico “a Christian X-ray” while praising him.
“There’s a long history of progressive religious activism in the United States just as there is a long history of conservative religious activism. … Yet if the primary American divide is between decent and indecent, then the equation changes. Talarico shines,” French wrote.
Which is a funny line to use, because somewhere along the way to the Democratic nomination, we forgot that Talarico has the very un-Christian habit of following loose women on social media.
From Axios, November of 2025, in case you missed it:
Talarico follows 10 Instagram accounts of women who are popular porn actors, OnlyFans models, and have accounts on escort sites, according to publicly available accounts viewed by Axios in recent weeks.
Earlier this year, he “liked” separate photos of an Austin-based Instagram account holder who also has an OnlyFans account and a page on EscortBook.com — a site that claims to be the “#1 content management system in the escort industry!” …
Talarico also follows Instagram accounts of adult film actors such as @honky_tonkangel, who has nearly 250,000 followers and goes by the name Giselle Palmer.
Some accounts with matching usernames of the Instagram accounts he follows appear on sites such as datingpornstar.com and escortstate.com, while several have adult content on OnlyFans. All of those accounts include provocative pictures and some link to their other sites with explicit content, but don’t identify their holders as adult film performers.
Talarico’s spokesman, J.T. Ennis, said that “the social media team — including James — follows back and engages with supporters who have large followings and does not investigate their backgrounds.” This explanation is plausible, if not entirely passable for someone flogging their faith as their primary attribute to win crossover voters this November.
What’s more, Ennis insisted that his candidate attached no stigma to how these porn stars earned a living.
“While James was unaware of how these women make money,” Ennis said, “he does not judge them for it and will not play into an effort to smear them for clickbait articles. That’s exactly what his Christian faith calls him to do.”
New: James Talarico follows several adult film performers, escorts and OnlyFans models on Instagram, according to an Axios review.
His spokesperson JT Ennis said in a statement that “the social media team — including James — follows back and engages with supporters who have…
— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) November 8, 2025
Man, if this guy thinks Axios is smear-industry clickbait stuff, the next few months are going to be interesting, I can promise you this much.
Talarico echoed this in a “Pod Save America” interview a few days after the Axios report was published, making statements similar to Ennis’ non-apology apology.
“I very much believe in fighting back when you feel like your neighbors are under attack,” Talarico said, according to the Houston Chronicle. “I didn’t know what these women did on their own time, but I am not going to judge them for it. I am also not going to participate in an effort to smear them for clickbait.”
So, just so we’re clear, his Christian morals are an “X-ray” when they’re being used to repeatedly cudgel Texas Republicans, but a “smear” if we’re asking the candidate to live up to them. Got it.
Talarico is far from the only liberal candidate who gets plenty of love from quasi-Christians who believe the essence of the Bible consists entirely of the first two words of Matthew 7:1 — “Judge not” — but the reason this matters now is that this is not who he needs to win over.
David French, is this “decent” or “Christian”? https://t.co/UfNYFBmpYe
— Liz Wheeler (@Liz_Wheeler) March 9, 2026
Running against U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett for the Democratic nomination meant that Talarico’s tendency to follow a lot of popular porn star and prostitute accounts still wasn’t disqualifying for reasons of hypocrisy; after all, one assumes Crockett has done worse by 9 a.m. on every day that ends in the letter Y. The issue is that Talarico now has to win over faith voters by convincing them that he’s the moral choice for the Senate.
Considering that Texas is usually reliably red even in off-years for the GOP, this would ordinarily be a difficult task indeed. However, the subtext of Talarico’s run for the seat is that there’s a decent chance, when the Republican primary goes to a runoff on May 26, that state Attorney General Ken Paxton wins the nomination. Paxton has struggled with issues of character, which is the entirety of the subtext behind Talarico’s faith-flogging. Sure, he may be anathema to everything you believe, his surrogates seem to be telling conservative Christians, but if you vote your morals, you have to vote Democrat this one time.
That isn’t going to fly, of course, if Talarico is following pornographers and prostitutes on social media and then saying he doesn’t give a flip how they make their money. Yes, he is “a Christian X-ray,” but in all the wrong ways for most faith voters.
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.
