“Everything in Texas is best,” goes a popular Texas expression. It would be hard to apply it to James Talarico. A Democratic state lawmaker, Talarico is running against conservative Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for the U.S. Senate seat of John Cornyn, who Paxton defeated in a May primary runoff. Talarico, among other things, seeks more government control of health care; a “path to citizenship” for migrants here illegally; and transgender male participation in female sports insofar as it doesn’t risk “safety” or “fairness.” His mix of piety and egalitarianism plays well with swing voters. Crucially, he’s getting hefty donations from Leftist billionaires, including George Soros and Reid Hoffman. Of course, the donors have their motives – like removing President Trump from office and socializing our economy.

As the nation’s second-largest state both in land area and population (32 million and counting), Texas is crucial. Its economy, if seen as a separate country, would be the eighth-largest in the world. The Democratic Party sees opportunity here. Economic control means political control. Their main obstacle is the possibility of history repeating itself. No Democrat has won statewide office since 1994. And that year’s defining event was the defeat of the party’s gubernatorial candidate, Ann Richards, at the hands of George W. Bush.

That was then. A combination of factors – growing anti-Trump fervor among young voters, a percentage increase in the nonwhite population, and a growing, liberal tech work force – could end the dry spell this November. Progressive Democrats have longed for that young, charismatic “people’s candidate” to deliver victory. For a while, former Texas Congressman Robert “Beto” O’Rourke was their man. But after losing to Ted Cruz for U.S. senator in 2018 and to Greg Abbott for governor in 2022, with a short-lived presidential bid in between, his star has somewhat dimmed. The boyish-looking, 37-year-old James Talarico is now their number one hero. He’s got intellect. It’s too bad he lacks a sound grasp of the issues.

Currently a four-term member of the Texas House of Representatives (50^th District), James Talarico, born in 1989 as James Dell Collins, embodies nouveau Left populism. A lifelong Austin-area native, he has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas, and separate master’s degrees from Harvard and Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. He made his big move in September 2025 in declaring himself a candidate for the U.S. Senate. This March, Talarico became a darling of the Left by defeating the emotionally erratic Dallas Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett in an open Democratic primary, 52.4 percent to 46.2 percent. Crockett, who posted comments on social media suggesting the recent assassination attempts on Donald Trump were staged, proved too flaky for many voters. Talarico’s victory won him a reputation as a thinking man’s progressive. But how often is he actually thinking?

Talarico’s campaign website is a blend of “us versus them” populism, exaggerated hand-wringing, and religiously-inspired moral scolding. Under the heading, “Why I’m Running,” he explains his mission:

There’s something broken in America. Our economy is broken. Our politics are broken. Even our relationships with each other feel broken. That’s because the most powerful people in the world want it that way.

The biggest divide in this country is not left vs. right. It’s top vs. bottom. Billionaires want us looking left and right at each other instead of looking up at them. The people at the top work so hard to keep us angry and divided because our unity is a threat to their wealth and power. So their cable news networks and their social media algorithms tear us apart.

A little later, Talarico taps into his seminarian side:

My granddad was a Baptist preacher in South Texas. He taught me that we follow a barefoot rabbi [Note: That would be Jesus] who gave us two commandments: love God and love neighbor. Because there is no love of God without love of neighbor. Every single person bears the image of the sacred; every single person is holy – not just the neighbors who look like me or pray like me…

2,000 years ago, when the powerful few rigged the system, that barefoot rabbi walked into the seat of power and flipped over the tables of injustice. To those who love our country, to those who love our neighbors: It’s time to start flipping tables.

It isn’t hard to figure out where he’s going with this: America must open its borders as it opens its hearts. And it must dispense with wealthy temple moneychangers in Washington, New York and other cities. He doesn’t realize that such a sentiment creates division, not unity.

Immigration figures heavily in this. For Talarico, how we deal with immigration is a litmus test of our nation’s willingness to live up to its founding principes. Like George Soros, he believes in global unity, not national identity. America should be a leader in multiculturalism. That means admitting new arrivals from abroad in virtually unlimited numbers and expanding the welfare state to accommodate their needs. In this view, everyone in the world, regardless of origin, has a moral and legal right to come here and remain indefinitely.

To reassure skeptical voters, Talarico offers a disingenuous concession to border enforcement. In a Politico podcast last year, Talarico described his immigration policy as a blend of “a giant welcome mat at the door” and “a lock on the door.” Such phrasing is catchy but misleading. For most of the past six decades, this has been our immigration policy. Absent Trump-style enforcement, the “welcome mat” eventually wears out and the “lock” malfunctions. On a practical basis, Talarico addresses immigration issues in the same way that the disastrous Biden administration did.

Texas local jurisdictions, including a few major cities, have gone down this road. The City of Austin, led by the city council and supported by Mayor Kirk Watson, are providing millions of dollars to nonprofit groups focused on immigrant legal defense. On September 24, the city council, without public debate, voted to extend existing immigrant legal services contracts with two Austin-based activist groups, American Gateways and Catholic Charities of Central Texas. The 12-month extensions would set aside nearly $855,000. The latest move pushed the spending ceiling for immigration representation and counseling up to more than $6.6 million.

Officials in Harris County (Houston) back in 2020, meanwhile, created an Immigrant Legal Services Fund that wound up transferring over $1.3 million from local revenues to nonprofits seeking to block immigrant deportations. Attorney General Paxton last November sued the County on grounds that the proposal violated the state constitution’s ban on gifts made with public money. A state and appeals court each upheld the program, but the Texas Supreme Court this June 26 ruled on behalf of the Abbott administration and ordered the program halted until certain issues are resolved.

At least Texas hasn’t joined 15 other states, and dozens of respective localities, that have enacted “sanctuary” laws. Such measures bar public employees from cooperating with ICE and/or inquiring about a suspect or arrestee’s immigration status. Political leaders in some of these states, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., and California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, have taken it upon themselves to distribute “know your rights” guides to illegals on how to avoid contact or cooperation with ICE officers. Of course, such acts are illegal. Just don’t say it out loud.

Texas, to its credit, is getting help from Governor Abbott, currently in a tough reelection bid against his Democratic opponent, Texas state lawmaker Gina Hinojosa. This September, Abbott received confirmation from U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin that DHS has awarded his state $7.5 billion for reimbursement of border security expenditures. “Texas taxpayers spent billions to stop illegal crossings, catch criminals, and seize deadly drugs,” Abbott said. “This reimbursement is a victory for those taxpayers.”

In normal times, James Talarico would be a longshot election bet at most. But these are not normal times, even for “red state” Texas. Ideas that once existed on the fringe are now bedrock principles of the Democratic Party platform. And these ideas have won enough support in Texas to put Talarico over the top. The results of a Marist Poll conducted during September 17-20 of over 1,100 registered state voters are revealing. Fully 50 percent of the respondents preferred Talarico, while only 44 percent preferred Ken Paxton. Significantly, self-described independent voters favored Talarico over Paxton by 55 percent to 35 percent. And “Gen Z” (i.e., the youngest) voters backed Talarico by a whopping 74 percent to 18 percent.

These numbers attest to the power of media-driven, emotionally-charged rhetoric to turn skeptics into believers. They also attest to the power of money. The Texas Senate race is proving to be one expensive election. Through this June, Talarico had raised over $70 million for his campaign. Paxton, for his part, had raised nearly $17 million in direct spending, plus over $100 million in indirect donations from the Republican-sponsored Senate Leadership Fund and an affiliate, Texas PAC.

For all of his identification with the “grassroots,” Talarico has tapped the wealthy for funding, especially through dark money networks where transactions are almost undetectable. Several donors are billionaires – people who he insists are “dividing us.” The Soros network is a logical starting place. George Soros’ son, Jonathan, his third of five children, in 2024 donated $2 million to the PAC for America’s Future, which supports Talarico and other progressive Democratic candidates. But as we shall see shortly, most of the family’s Open Society Foundations grants travel through a complex web of organizations.

The cast of Talarico institutional donors includes a new online organization called The Bench. The group’s mission is to raise up “the next generation of Democratic leaders.” Lis Smith, a veteran Democratic strategist who worked on Pete Buttigieg’s 2020 presidential campaign, serves as a senior adviser. During the first three months of this year, The Bench donated $500,000 to a pro-Talarico Super PAC called Lone Star Rising (LSR), which has some very wealthy donors on its roster. They include Connecticut-based billionaire hedge fund manager Stephen Mandel ($2 million), Better World Civic Trust ($500,000), Netflix cofounder and former chairman Reed Hastings ($395,000), and billionaire cryptocurrency CEO and investor Michael Novogratz ($250,000).

A number of dark money donors also have contributed to Talarico and other Democratic Party candidates via Lone Star Rising. They include Government That Works PAC, Lone Star Forward Inc., and Sufam Advisors Corp. Donations during the first three months of 2026 by Lone Star Forward and Sufam were $250,000 and $100,000, respectively. The support from Government That Works was a prodigious $3.75 million. Consider its sources. In January, this hybrid PAC received $4 million from the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit founded in 2009 by Eric Kessler, founder and head of a political consulting firm, Arabella Advisors, and previous to that, Clinton White House special assistant on conservation issues.

The Sixteen Thirty Fund has become an intimidating force in campaign funding, funded by megadonors Hansjorg Wyss and George Soros. During 2016-23, Wyss donated a combined roughly $315 million to the Sixteen Thirty Fund and its affiliated New Venture Fund. The Soros-run Open Society Foundations has spread its wealth, too. During 2016-24 the New York-based philanthropy sent $99,440,483 to the Sixteen Thirty Fund, and another $88,704,062 to New Venture Fund, a grand total of nearly $190 million. Throwing in Wyss’ contributions raises the total to around $505 million. Given that this staggering sum predated the Talarico campaign, and given that dark money is opaque, it is virtually impossible to discern how much of remaining half-billion haul went toward the campaign. But it’s fair to say that if James Talarico is short on cash between now and Election Day, he knows where to get a refill.

Several individual figures in finance and philanthropy also have donated to Lone Star Rising, much of the money no doubt having been funneled to the Talarico campaign. Financiers include hedge fund manager Stephen Mandel ($500,000); Intrafi cofounder-CEO Mark Jacobsen ($100,000); Medley Partners founder Mark Heising ($100,000); and Inclenberg Investments founder and president David Gochman ($100,000). Other individual donors to LSR include New York physician Lisa Primus ($500,000); Austin philanthropist Simone Coxe ($500,000); Hyatt Hotel heir Adam Pritzker ($180,000); Eagles rock group member Don Henley ($150,000); Houston businesswoman and philanthropist Susan Sarofim ($100,000); and orthopedic surgeon William H. Harris ($100,000).

By far the most profligate of individual Talarico donors, however, is a familiar National Legal and Policy Center nemesis, Reid Hoffman, founder and former chairman of LinkedIn, a subsidiary of Microsoft. According to Federal Election Commission records, Hoffman this June donated $10 million to Lone Star Rising. This sum comprised nearly 80 percent of all contributions to the group during the second quarter. And that was on top of his donations of $500,000 in January and $1 million in February. Hoffman has been a Democratic Party megadonor for at least a decade. Records show, excluding that $10 million donation, that since 2016 up to the present he provided roughly $77 million to Left-leaning candidates and political action committees. That includes the $17 million he delivered to Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential campaign.

It makes sense that Reid Hoffman, with a current Forbes magazine-estimated net worth of $2.6 billion, is sparing no expense in supporting Talarico. On immigration, Hoffman, like Talarico, sees few if any limits, albeit for a much different reason. “Immigration is pure entrepreneurship,” he posted on “X” on September 27, 2022. “You leave behind everything familiar to start somewhere new. You must acquire skills. You will have to improvise on occasion. It’s a bold proposition.” This is nonsense. Not everyone from abroad, let alone in America, has the skills that create a successful business enterprise. And not all play by American rules, as the Somalian experience in Minneapolis amply demonstrates. As Steve Camarota, research director for the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Immigration Studies has shown in detail, immigrants are self-employed at roughly the same rate as the native-born. They are not uniquely entrepreneurial.

As for Donald Trump, Hoffman’s loathing toward him knows no bounds. Appearing on CNBC in November 2017, for example, he called Trump “worse than useless.” Such comments come natural to him. In 2024, he expressed his wish that candidate Trump were an “actual martyr” shortly after the latter’s near-assassination that July at a campaign stop in western Pennsylvania. Later on, he walked back his statement somewhat, but his resentment remains as clear as ever.

Heavyweight donors to James Talarico’s Senate campaign share the same multiculturalist social-democratic vision as the candidate. That’s why they donate. And just as the candidate hasn’t changed his views – very recently he affirmed his commitment to fight for the rights of transgendered minors – neither have his benefactors. It is more than a little ironic that Talarico regularly denounces “billionaires” yet gladly accepts their cash. Whatever it takes to win, right? Radical billionaires who fill the coffers of the Democratic Party and far-Left nonprofit groups are corrupting our politics.

James Talarico, a product of Austin’s radicalized political culture, is a symptom of a larger problem. The Left believes that its time for dominance has come. Last summer’s election of Zohran Mamdani as New York City’s next mayor triggered a rush of confidence and an opening of the floodgates of a fresh crop of surly, unqualified radicals running for high office. Current Democratic U.S. Senate candidates include such radical neophytes as Angie Nixon (Florida), Abdul El-Sayed (Michigan), Hallie Shoffner (Arkansas) and Peggy Flanagan (Minnesota). That each stands a good chance of winning reveals how the Democratic Socialists of America has come to define their party’s agenda in so short a time. These candidates know where the money is. George Soros’ nephew, Jeffrey Soros, for example, in late September held a fundraiser for Abdul El-Sayed. This same Abdul El-Sayed back in 2012 had been awarded a student grant from the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans. Small world!

James Talarico by no means has locked up Texas. Indeed, his opponent Ken Paxton has closed the gap. A Stratus Intelligence poll of 865 likely voters conducted during September 22-24 – several days after the Marist Poll – showed the pair tied at 48 percent. If justice prevails, Talarico’s benefactors will not get their money’s worth.

Carl F. Horowitz is an NLPC senior fellow.