The attack ad against Talarico focusses on his policies towards LGBTQ+ youth. Credit: Instagram/@thedemocrats

With the race for Texas’ contested U.S. Senate seat shifting into full gear, as Democrat James Talarico and a pro-Trump PAC opposing his run are both snapping up TV ad time.

Talarico’s statewide ad buy announced Thursday is his campaign’s first ad buy of the general election and comes at a cost of $800,000. The spots are in Spanish and will air exclusively on Telemundo during the Team Mexico and U.S. Men’s National Team 2026 FIFA World Cup games.​

“Since the beginning of this campaign, I’ve pledged to be a senator that represents 31 million Texans, including the nearly 8 million Texans who speak Spanish,” Talarico said in a statement. “Building a movement to take power back for working people requires uniting together on one team to take power back for ourselves and our communities.”

During the 30-second spot, a Spanish-speaking narrator announces that Talarico possesses “grit and determination, but he’s still depending on your vote.”

While Talarico’s camp is laser-focused on drumming up and maintaining Latino support, Attorney General Ken Paxton — the Republican Talarico will face off against in November — and his allies continue their strategy on depicting the Presbyterian seminarian and former San Antonio public school teacher as a “freak.”

Indeed, the announcement of Talarico’s Telemundo campaign comes days after the pro-Trump Citizens for Sanity PAC bought TV ads featuring an AI-generated video of the Democrat wearing a dress and singing about transgender kids.

“Boys in white dresses with blue satin sashes / Girls dosed with hormones til’ they grow mustaches,” the fake Talarico sings in the tune of “My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music. “Changing the gender of all of your offspring / These are a few of my favorite things.”

The ad is an attempt to hype up a video circulating online from a 2021 debate in the Texas House in which Talarico said “there are six” genders and added that he considers God “non-binary.”

Although a staunch ally of the LGBTQ+ community, Talarico, during an appearance on the Cogdell Law podcast this week, clarified his policy stance on transgender youth.

“I oppose gender reassignment surgeries for minors,” he said.

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Michael Karlis is a multimedia journalist at the San Antonio Current, whose coverage in print and on social media focuses on local and state politics. He is a graduate of American University in Washington,...